NE TEMERE DECREE

Southland Times, Issue 19333, 27 August 1924, Page 5

NE TEMERE DECREE

SPEECH BY A BISHOP. “INIQUITOUS LEGISLATION.” Speaking at the opening of a new wing of St. John’s Orphanage at South Goulburn, Dr Barry, Roman Catholic Bishop of Goulburn, referred to the New South Wales Ne Temere decree. He said that it should be the province of any Government to bring together, rather than to rend, the different sections of the community. Political leaders were lending themselves to the work of stirring up the worst passions of the people, and of sowing seeds of sectarian strife. The application of the Ne Temere decree was practically world wide. It applied to England, Scotland and to all parts of the British Dominions, as well as most of the European countries, and in none of these except New Zealand, where bigotry seemed to reign supreme, had it been found necessary to introduce any legislation, such as that proposed in New South Wales. If this piece of iniquitous legislation, continued the bishop, were placed as a foul blot on the Statue Book what material difference would it make to the Catholic Church, for she had withstood the persecutions of the Caesars,, and triumphed over the powerful opposition of the kings and emperors, and she was unlikely to be wounded fatally by the waspish stings cf sectarian politicians.