CHURCH & REMARRIAGE.

Wairarapa Age, 1 June 1936, Page 5

CHURCH & REMARRIAGE.

DISCUSSION AT CONVOCATION N ENGLAND. WITHHOLDING SACRAMENTS NOT FAVOURED. LONDON, May 29. Cries of “Shame” came from members of the Lower House of Convocation when Archdeacon Dudley referred to a clergyman who became the third husband of a woman whose first husband was still living, the marriage being conducted with the Diocesan Bishop’s approval and blessing and celebrated by a prominent canon. Archdeacon Dudley also referred to a clergyman who divorced his wife owing to adultery, but remarried, after which he was promptly given a better living. This statement was received with further shouts of “Shame.” The House was discussing a motion demanding that remarried divorced people should not be admitted to the sacraments Except on the conditions of the Church. Canon Scott-Moncrieff contended that the suggestion that the sacraments should be refused was because the divorce and remarriage of divorced persons opposed the will of God. Nevertheless, soldiers were not excommunicated despite war against God’s will. He added that a man marrying a divorcee needed grace to make a good second marriage. The Dean of Lincoln declared that he would make adultery a criminal offence with a penalty of a year’s hard labour, but he would not excommunicato the offender. When an amendment was moved suggesting that the sacraments should be withheld from divorced persons while second marriage relations continued, the Dean of Lincoln said it was offering an inducement to a man to desert his wife and children in order to receive Communion. The amendment was defeated and the debate adjourned.