THE MARRIAGE LAWS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160739, 27 August 1920, Page 10

THE MARRIAGE LAWS.

ROMAN CATHOLIC DOCTRINES. EXPOSITION BY DR CLEARY. CIYIL AND PARISH RECORDS. An exhaustive statement regarding the attitude of Roman Catholics m New Zealand toward the marriage laws has been published in the -Month, by the Catholic Bishop of Auckland, Dr M. W. Cleary. He explains that the Catholic Church is a voluntary association, entitled to prescribe conditions relative to membership. Among the rules or laws of Uio Church, there is one group regulating tho marriage of Cat Holies among themselves, or of Catholics with persons outside their faith. These laws deal with the marriage ccfctract on its spiritual side only, as a sacrament of the Church. “For Catholics, the 'Church recognises as canonically valid no marriage nn'ess it is a sacrament. And in order that it shall be a sacrament she requires that it shall be celebrated in the face of tho Church. , , The laws of New Zealand take absolutely no cognisance of this view of marriage. They deal with marriage as o. purely secui..'-; v ourely material, purely civil contract. Cal holies fully acknowledge the civil eifectq of even the non-sacramcntal, legal unioniof Catholics.”

Following the exposition of this position, Dr Cleary deals in detail with the question of “regularising” sacramentally unions that arc non-sacra* mental, though legal, and particularly with the question whether x-ecords of such sacramental marriages appear in the marriage registers, which ax - o State documents. lie states that “no entry is made on the Government forms.” “The civil functions in connection with these regularised unions have already (aa we assume) been duly performed by a proper official. . . and the priest is not permitted, by our rule and custom, to repeat them. And if, in the case of any individual priest, any action has been taken not in ac(nidauce with what has been stated above, it has been taken in violation of our established rule and custom.” Dr Cleary adds that records arc kept of cases of renewed consent and can ouical regularisation, but they ara everywhere treated as purely religious and‘strictly confidential functions,, and the entries relating to them are “confidential records of the Church standing and the purely ecclesiastical aualificalions of individuals.” The Catholic priest does not use a registrar’s certificate when regularising - the purely civil of a Catholic, or a mixed Catholic and non-Catholic couple. And it is not permitted to any priest to enter any record of such a religious function “ upon the marriage register supplied by the. Government. These purely religious ceremonies in' _ sacramentally regularising a civil union, do not constitute what is described as a “solemnisation” of marriage either in the laws of the Roman Catho-lic Church or according to Idle statue law of tho Dominion. “It is contrary to our rule and custom,” says Dr Cleary, “to make any eurties of dispensations or of sacramental validations of marriages upon the marriage register-book supplied by the Government. And any such entry thereon would be strongly condemnedbv tho ecclesiastical authorities if it was found to have been made in any particular case. In the parish book already described , . .no comment is allowed or made upon the legal validity and the civil effects of the civil union; and there is no such description or, -bachelor’ or ‘spinster,’ and no entry of ‘condition.’ Such entries as these have never been seen or heard of by the present writer; and from Inquiries and conversations lie is convinced that there is no instance of the entry of such designations, in cases of regularised marriages, in any part of New Zealand.”