CATHOLIC MARRIAGE LAWS: EXPLAINED BY ARCHBISHOP MANNIX

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1919, Page 17

CATHOLIC MARRIAGE LAWS: EXPLAINED BY ARCHBISHOP MANNIX

vyjj An explanation of the Ne T entere, Decree was given by his Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne, the Most Rev. Dr. Mannix, at the 8 o’clock Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral ~on Sunday morning (says the Tribune of May i 22), and it should lead to a better understanding of the Catholic position in the community. His Grace said : There must be a dearth of new charges against the Church. For the various Protestant bodies, with an unanimity which is striking and suggestive, are returning to the old worked-out grievance of the Ne Temerc Decree. Even when the Decree was new, it made little change in the previous discipline of the Church. But, yet at this late date, Protestants are once more invited by their spiritual guides to become very angry because about ten years ago the Pope, for reasons that seemed to him sufficient, decreed that, where a Catholic is concerned, marriage, to be valid, must be contracted in the presence of the local parish priest, or the local ordinary, or of a priest delegated by either of these, with two witnesses. It seems quite a reasonable law. Marriage is a Sacrament as well as a contract, and, if the Church is what she claims to be, there is no reason to be surprised or angry when she defines the conditions of the sacramental contract of marriage, just as the State defines the conditions of the civil contract. No doubt certain persons who have never read the Decree, or do not understand it, speak of it as a direct and deliberate attack upon Protestants. The fact, of course, is that the Decree is directly and expressly intended for Catholics. If the Pope had his wish, that Decree would never touch a Protestant. For, like the heads of the Protestant bodies, the Pope is altogether opposed to mixed marriage, and the Ne T erne re Decree never affects a Protestant unless in case of a mixed marriage. It regulates all marriages, however, between Catholics. If, for example, two Catholics were to comply with all the requirements of the civil law in a registry office, their marriage, though valid before the civil law, would be invalid before God and His Church. And, if these Catholics wish later to receive the Sacrament of marriage and to live as practical Catholics, they must renew their marriage consent in the usual Catholic form before the local parish priest and witnesses. But one hears the complaint, Why was not the Pope content with legislating for purely Catholic marriages : why did he not exclude mixed marriages, just as he excluded purely Protestant marriages, from the operation of his Decree ? He could have done so, of ■course, for the matter is a disciplinary one. But,

surely it" is a rather extravaganti'demand to make of the Pope; v'ln order the better to '■ safeguard the contract and the Sacrament of marriage, he thought" it wise to insist, upon the conditions laid down in ; the Ne Temere Decree, when a Catholic is marrying a Catholic. It is'not:easy:7 to suggest : a reason why he should provide an ; easier option for a Catholic who, in spite of the warnings of the Church, marries a Protestant. At all events, it is evidently very wide of the truth to say that the Ne Tern ere Decree was aimed; at Protestants. Perhaps the Pope hoped that the Decree would discourage mixed -marriages. If it has had any effect in that direction, one would expect the heads of the Protestant bodies to be grateful to the Pope for;lessening the number of those marriages to which they themselves are altogether opposed, however powerless *they may be to prevent them. Another view of the Ne Temere Decree is that it is intended as a wanton and brutal insult to Protestant ministers. Excitable persons grew very wrath to think that the Pope would dare to declare invalid a marriage—a Catholic or a mixed marriage—contracted in the usual way before an Anglican, say, or a Methodist, or a Baptist minister. That, they think, is intolerable. In their anger they forget, perhaps, they do not know, that under the Ne Temere Decree no priest, no matter what his ecclesiastical dignity or his civil credentials may be, can assist at the marriage even of two Catholics, unless he be the parish priest or the ordinary of the place where the marriage is contracted or the delegate of the parish priest or the ordinary. Has the Pope, therefore, hurled a wanton and brutal insult at his own priests A little common sense and mother wit would save much angry resentment.

But the silliest objection to the Ne Temere Decree comes from those of hazy thought, and they are many, who assert that the Catholic Church in this Decree defies the law of the land. Now does she? What are the facta here among ourselves ? First of all; every one of our priests who assists at a marriage is not merely the representative of the Church, but he is also the legally appointed representative of the State, and he carries out faithfully all the requirements of the civil law, as well as of the ecclesiastical law. There is certainly no defiance of the civil law where the terms of the Decree Ne 'Temere are complied with. Again, if two Catholics, or a Catholic and a Protestant, ignore the Ne Temere Decree and resort to a Protestant minister or to a civil registrar, does the Church put itself in defiance of the laws of the State ? Not at all. These people are legally married in the eyes of the State their marriage contract has all the civil effects of any marriage contract, and these facts are not disputed by the Church. Surely, it is a gross misuse of words, therefore, to say that the Church defies the .law.

* i.-..... The Catholic who does / not comply with the Conditions of the Ne Tamere Decree can contract a marriage valid in the eyes of the State. If he is satisfied with , that, there is no more to be said;’ But it is the duty of the Catholic priest to remind' such a man that, though ,he has satisfied the law of the State, he has not received the Sacrament of marriage and I that, before God and the Church, he will not be married until the laws of the Church are complied with and the marriage consent renewed in the manner prescribed by the Church. That duty every Catholic priest will perform with all the tact and delicacy that the circumstances suggest. He will give no needless offence to anybody. But he will obey God rather than man. . Whether the civil authorities wish to register the marriage consent renewed before a priest by persons whose civil marriage has been already registered, is a matter on which I have no information and with which, indeed, I have little concern. No sufficient reason occurs to me why the civil authorities should not rest content with the registration already effected. But it is for them to say whether there-should be a second registration and, if there should be, then, what form it should take. The root offence in this whole matter, of course, is that the Catholic Church claims to be founded by Christ and be divinely invested with teaching and legislative power within her own sphere. Unlike most of her assailants, she holds that marriage is one of the Sacraments instituted by Christ and, therefore, that it is one of the things to which her power extends. While recognising'the authority of the State over the marriage contract, as a civil contract, she is not prepared to relinquish her own authority, nor is she too timid to use it. That claim, no doubt, will be regarded groundless and arrogant by many outside the Church. They make no such claim for their own religious body : or if they do, they recognise that it would be futile to- attempt to use it. They talk of their Church, of the Bible, of their synods and assemblies. But, when Parliament has spoken, every cause for them is ended. They may have had their own views antecedently about divorce, for example, or the marriage of a man with his deceased’s wife sister. But, once a Parliamentary majority—it may be of agnostics or infidelshas spoken all the oracles are silent and a divorced man, or a man wishing to wed his deceased wife’s sister, will not lack a Protestant blessing upon his new union. If absolute Prohibition were carried here to-morrow, you would have some people casting about for a substitute of the wine which Christ prescribed, but the law 'of Victoria forbade, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Catholic Church does not sit fearful and expectant on the doorstep of Parliament. She gives to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: (o God the things that are God’s. She does not take her teaching or her disciplinary laws from Parliaments, or Privy Councils, or Kings, or Emperors. Still less will she alter her teaching or practice, at the bidding of those who, themselves having no authority, no effective authority, at all events, would like to bring the Catholic Church down to their own level. There is no need to accuse her assailants of bad faith. Many, 1 am sure, are quite sincere. Their attitude is • intelligible, but it is none the less regrettable. Attitude of the Ministry: “No Legal Status.” A reply by the Premier to a deputation from the Protestant Federation regarding the Xe Tam ere Decree sets out the attitude of the Ministry toward the subject. In the course of his reply, Mr. Lawson said : “The Crown Law officers have made exhaustive inquiries into the matter of the Xe. Tamara Decree, and Have viewed the question from all standpoints. The result of these inquiries, shortly, put, is that there is no infringement of State laws. In any special instances ip which such an infringement may, be committed, the onus ' of'applying for any civil remedy must lie , with the persons Interested., The Government would have no legal, status in the matter. The question of amending the law to f deal with that subject is a very delicate and*

difficult one. In modern times it has been an accepted! principle, in English-speaking countries at least, that, the Legislature,; will not concern'. itself with matters of religious belief. Any interference by Parliament with/ religious matters would be resisted, ; even- by persons; who have no sympathy with 7 those who believe in theprinciples of the Ne Tew ere Decree. It ; is not intended' to introduce legislation dealing with this question.'"