BISHOPS MUST UNITE TO STOP ILLEGAL PRACTICES IN CHURCH

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18581, 2 October 1928, Page 4

BISHOPS MUST UNITE TO STOP ILLEGAL PRACTICES IN CHURCH

ESTABLISHMENT QUESTION MAY HAVE TO BE FACED

(United Press Assn.—By "Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON. October 1

The “ Daily Chronicle ” states that there is no doubt that the House of Commons confronted the Bishops with a most difficult problem. x\s things stand the Bishops are not sufficiently united to suppress the multitude of illegal practices. The essence of their new policy is that they must be so united if they are to suppress practices which are inconsistent with both the old and the revised Prayer Books. The Bishops’ decision means that the Church will act as if the revised Book had been accepted and not rejected by Parliament, and will rely on the loyalty of churchmen , to give moral authority to a code which the House of Commons refused to legalise. But, though these matters cannot possibly be settled in the law courts, the whole question of Establishment may have to be faced.—x Australian Press Association. CHURCH MUST SEEK SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. LONDON, October I. The “ Daily Mail ” understands that prominent ecclesiastics, speaking at the Church-Congress, .will urge the Bishops to exert their authority. Many Bishops

maintain that the State has encroached on the Church’s functions. The Church must seek spiritual independence. The Bishop of Bradford, Dr A. W. T. Perownc, preaching on the eve of the Congress, appealed for Christian unity. He declared that the first barrier that must be broken down was the theory of the xApostolic succession. Another was the clergy teaching that it was a sin to communicate otherwise than fasting, which was directly opposed to Scripture. The Bishop of Norwich, Dr Bertram I‘olloch, dissociated himself from the Archbishops’ statement on the Prayer Book.—United Service. At the conclusion of a three days’ conference of all the Bishops at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a statement regarding the new Prayer Book, “ setting forth the principles which the Bishops generally, arc prepared to follow in the administrative action necessitated by the acknowledged inadequacy of the existing law and the varieties of usage which already prevail.” “ During the present emergency,” the statement begins, “ and until further orders, the Bishops cannot regard as inconsistent with their loyalty lo the Church’s principles the use of such additions and deviations contained in the 1928 Prayer Book as fall .within the limit of their proposals, but must regard as inconsistent with such loy-

alty any other deviations from and additions to the 1662 Book. Accordingly, the Bishops are exercising a legal and administrative discretion, and will endeavour to secure that practices inconsistent with both the 1662 and 1928 Books shall cease. Further, the Bishops regard it as a governing principle that no departure from the 1662 Bbok shall be permitted at public services unless the parochial council agrees with the incumbent.”