DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 21 March 1912, Page 23

DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND

CATHOLIC MARRIAGE LAWS A PASTORAL INSTRUCTION IN THREE PARTS (Concluded from last week.) PART I.Things more or less Fundamental. I. The Family in Relation to Society. ',. 11. The Family: Duty in the Home. Grounds of such Duty—(l) As furnished by pagan Greece and Rome; (2) as furnished by 'modern' Philosophies; (3) parasitic Morality; (4) grounds of Duty in the Home, as furnished by Religion. 111. Religion and the Family(l) The Church: her Mission and Authority in regard to the Family and Society. (A) Why the Church was founded. (B) The Church's Teaching . • Authority. (C) The Church's Authority: Legislative, Judicial, Executive. (D) The Church's Independence in the Exercise of her Authority. (E) The Church's Continuity. (F) Summary of Part I. HENRY WILLIAM, by the Grace of God and the favor of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Auckland : To the Clergy, Secular and Regular, and to the Laity of the said Diocese, Health and Blessing in the Lord. t ■':. 111. RELIGION AND THE FAMILY. By virtue of both her divine constitution and her divine purpose, a very comprehensive measure of teaching and legislative' authority belongs to the Church. ' All things whatsoever,' Christ has commanded: so runs the charter of her teaching power. 'ln relation to the matters Jesus did not command,' says Brownson, 'or concerning which he gave no commandment, infallibility is not claimed, and could not be established if it were. Nevertheless, from the nature of the case, the Church teaching must be the judge of what things Jesus has commanded lier to teach, and, therefore, unquestionably the interpreter of her own powers. To assume to the contrary would be to deny her authority while seeming to admit it. If. she alone has received authority to teach, she alone can say what she has authority to teach,' 27 ,'.'■-' The same remarks hold true regarding the ruling ;(or legislative and executive) authority of the Church. In purely civil matters, the Parliament of any independent country decides for itself regarding its own legitimate authority to make and execute laws. It assumes to be a .competent judge in this matter, and acts accordingly, „ and it does not allow its competence, in these respects, to be challenged. Now, the Church

(as already shown) .is, in the spiritual order, a complete society, a supreme, independent, ruling"; power, ' a perfect legislature appointed by God for a certain purpose, invested by him immediately with all the attributes /of sovereignty in-that order, and not deriving any part of its authority from any other source/ . .., The Church is entitled on as strong grounds as. the Stateand even on stronger grounds—to decide on the extent of its legislative power, and to act according to its own decision.' 28 The Church determines the extent to which she can go in prescribing or prohibiting through her own legislation. She determines this, not, of course, arbitrarily—in the sense of its resting with her to fix for herself what she pleases in the sense of her being divinely invested with supreme authority to decide questions regarding her own power, either by formally pronouncing upon them, or by her action in framing and promulgating laws. That this is so, can be easily shown to any one who has otherwise correct notions about the Church" '29 :: . \ . , . / V: : -;= This power of legislating, and of interpreting her own legislative authority, has been constantly exercised by the Church from Apostolic days. The Apostles themselves made and executed laws for the Church's better governance. On one historic occasion, for instance ,at the very dawn of Christian history, questions and doubts arose as to. the obligation of the Jewish Law of circumcision. The Apostles and the ' ancients met in council at Jerusalem, passed formal and decisive judgment in the negative ,and accompanied it with these-significant words ' For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.' 30 The same corporate body of teachers still lives on in the Church of God, with the same living voice that it had at the Council of Jerusalem. The same Holy Ghost lives in the Church, to teach her all truths,' to abide with her ' for ever'; the same-living Saviour is 'with her,' her light and joy and strength, even 1 ' unto the consummation of the world.' :.;'/: : ; (E) The Church's Continuity. The Church's teaching and ruling body is able to establish its corporate identity with that of the Apostles. She has all the qualities of a good and trustworthy witness of Christ's revelation. Her testimony is clear; her answers straightforward; her story is perfectly consistent throughoutshe never falters; she does not contradict to-day what she said and taught yesterday or a thousand years ago. For nearly nineteen hundred years she has been in the witness-box, under cross-examina-tion by friends and foes; her evidence has been sifted, compared, examined (so to speak) with microscopes. But no one has ever succeeded in showing that her evidence (that is, her teaching) has been inconsistent or contradictory from age to age, or in any detail incredible or contrary to the terms of the commission which Christ gave to His Church as His* witness, teacher, interpreter, and ruler in things spiritual, to the ends of the earth. 'During all ages, in season and out of season, she has declared herself to be the successor of the Apostolic body, the one witness and teacher appointed by our Lord, and has declared herself to be upheld and guided by His special Providence for this purpose. She tells us who she is, and what she is. Her limits and her organisation are patent to all the world; every one knows precisely the conditions of faith and obedience with which it is necessary to comply, if he would belong to her communion. ;. . Who, for instance, would venture to assert that the present Roman Church is not the same body with the Roman Church at the Reformation ? or that that Church was not plainly the same body which existed in the time of St. Gregory the Great? or of St. Leo the Great in the fifth century? or that he was not a ruler in direct succession from the Popes of the earliest centuries? No one—not even her bitterest enemy — ever attempted to show when the present Roman Church began, at any later period than the times of the Apostles. Its continuity is at least as plain as that of the British Monarchy from the time of the Norman Conquest, or as that of any monarchy in

Europe, and has had far fewer "breaks or difficulties in the line of succession than any of them.' 31 , ; . :■•'':.:■ The Catholic Church is in I immemorial possession (and must be deemed to be rightly in possession) as the one Church founded by Christ. Till a few hundred years ago she was accepted as such by the" great majority of all who bore the Christian name. - No Reformed denomination claims to be the one Church of God, the one witness, teacher, and ruler appointed by Christ in the spiritual 'domain. No separated Eastern Church alvances such a claim. Nor can the separated faiths collectively-both of East and West so for they are not one in doctrine, nor one in visible government, nor do they hold communion with each other. They, there-. fore, cannot form one visible - or corporate body or society such as Christ founded to continue His work on earth. .On the contrary, they are a great multitude of separate, independent, rival, and generally more or less mutually hostile organisations. And, in their separated state, they had their origin later than apostolic times. And— is surely, in all the circumstances, significant: some of them acknowledge that the Roman Church'is, in some sense at least, the Church established by the Redeemer, since they unite in calling her a ' branch ' —and the chief ' branch ' —of the Church of Christ.® (F) Summary of Part I. We may summarise as follows the First Part of this Pastoral Instruction: r-i 1. The family is the unit, 'the primitive cell,' the nursery of society. ' ■ 2. The unity, stability, and blessedness of the family depend upon —upon duty perceived as moral truth or moral law, and duty willed and carried out as morality or ordered conduct, conformable to right reason.. . , ; 3. The family, is the true school and centre of morality; and on the moral condition of the family depends, in a very great measure,, that of the nation and of society at large . • 4. The moral condition of the family is determined by the manner in which its individual members perform or neglect their respective duties or moral obligations — duties which -commonly involve a high measure of patience, restraint, self-discipline,- self-sacrifice. 5. The manner in which duty or moral obligation is discharged, and the moral law observed, in the family, ; depends chiefly upon the grounds or bases of duty or morality presented to the various members of the family. Such grounds or bases of morality supply the motives which appealstrongly or feebly each member of the family to exercise, in the right direction, the moral freedom of his or her will. Without such freedom of the will, there can be no morality moral merit, and no moral blame. - ' ■# ...■'■ 6. The grounds or bases of duty (morality) are, broadly, of two kinds: (a) purely natural,Vmaterial', and this-worldly (b) supernatural, spiritual, otherworldly, religious: based upon belief in a Personal God Who created our human nature, in our dependence on Him, and in the duty of obedience to Him— -of conforming our will to His Will, as manifested to us by reason and revelation.'.\ '-'•.."-'' : - ■'.-•'J: 7. The purely natural, material, and this-worldly bases of duty or morality represent, on the one hand, merely an optional sentiment or feeling, or, on the other hand, a calculating policy, motived by expediency, etc. But such motives are not based on a moral law; they are not really obligatory. And where' the • motive of obligation is absent, action lacks an element which is essential to true morality. And history has consistently demonstrated the inadequacy of merely natural and material bases of morality. 31. Bagshawe, 'The Church,' pp. 48-9." s ..." '.; ■ 32. This ■; entirely novel; branch' theory as to the constitution of the Church arose in the nineteenth century, and was first advanced to justify the state of. things created by Henry VIII. and the other English Reformers. No attempt .is made to point out the tree in which these antagonistic ' branches' unite, or to show any visible bond of union among them.: It is_ very difficult indeed to imagine how societies so differently organised, s and with- such ,': contradictory beliefs, -can-be united as '-branches' of each other, and yet remain so* hopelessly divided. The branch '..theory is manifestly -repugnant to the Scriptures, and is rejected both by the Catholic Church and the separated Greek faith.

-i J V; 8. The supernatural,- spiritual, = other-worldly, religious basis of duty or morality: The moral law has its ultimate obligation in the Will of God, Who fashioned our v human nature. ~ God and His moral law are knowable to reason. Reason enables man to recognise to a large extent the ideal to which his nature points. But (as experience testifies) the moral, law,; merely as revealed in reason, leaves much to be desired in the matter of motives of obedience. Hence, in God's Providence, the light of revelation has supplemented that of reason in teaching our race its duty. That revelation culminated in Christ, the final Teacher of duty , and in the Church (or complete spiritual society) which He established to continue His divine work among men ' until the consummation of the world.' Apart from, religion, there is no obligation —therefore no duty, no moral law. Morality, in the accepted theistic sense of the term, is essentially dependent on the religious sanction. And (as we see by the example of such countries as France) the decline in, or rejection of, religion is invariably followed by corruption and moral decay. 9. The Church established by. Christ ("the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church) has, within her own spiritual domain (the domain of faith and morals) independent authority (a) to teach and (b) to rule the flock of Christ. From Him she holds a commission (a) to teach unerringly, to require, under spiritual penalties, ' the obedience of the faith to her doctrines. (b) She has, furthermore, authority to rule the flock of Christ—to administer the Divine law, to make laws of her own for the furtherance of the common good, and to require, under spiritual penalties, obedience both to the Divine law and to her own human (but divinely authorised) laws. .. In the Second Part of this Pastoral Instruction we shall see in beneficent operation the principles and rights enunciated herein. We intend, God willing to set forth: 1.. The Church's teaching on the great bond of domestic life, Christian marriage; 2. The Church's legislation for the better regulation, protection, and sanctification of marriage among her children—with special' reference to the Decrees Tarnetsi and Ne Temere; - ' » , " 3. And, in the Third (and final) Part of this Instruction, we intend to deal in further detail with the Ne Temere decree, its critics, and their criticisms. Given from our residence at Ponsonby, Sexagesima Sunday, in the year of Grace, 1912. * HENRY WILLIAM, - Bishop of Auckland.