Episcopalians and Divorce

Fifty years ago few divorced persons were so brazen as to appear in any church. But like the horseless carriage, divorce has since become such a commonplace (16 out of every 100 U. S. marriages) that U. S. churches have changed their tune. Few officially allow their ministers to remarry divorced persons (save innocent parties in divorces for adultery) or admit them to Communion after remarriage. Unofficially, many U. S. churches allow both. Last week the relatively small (1,900,000 members) but influential Protestant Episcopal Church, which in law and practice has been among the strictest, made ready to reconsider its stand. The church's Commission on Marriage and Divorce unanimously proposed a canon which, if adopted at the Episcopalians' General Convention in Kansas City next month, will permit a person divorced on any grounds whatsoever to remarry and then obtain the church's blessing.

The commission's new version of the marriage canon still forbids Episcopalian marriage for divorced persons, still provides that anyone remarried by a civil ceremony "shall forfeit his or her status as a Communicant." The new feature is a provision that "he or she may apply to any Minister of the Church . . . for the restoration of such status and for a blessing upon their union. The Minister . . . shall then lay the petition and his findings be fore the Bishop. . . . In case of a favorable judgment, the Minister in his discretion may bless the parties to the union, using such parts of the Office for the Solemnization of Matrimony as are pertinent thereto."

Chairman of the Commission on Marriage and Divorce since it was set up in 1925 has been grey, liberal Right Rev. Herman Page, 74, retired Bishop of Michigan, who feels that "the church must start with biology and the sanctification of sex." To implement this realistic view, the new canon would require every clergyman to make sure that the Christian ideal of marriage as "a life-long union of husband and wife" is understood and sought by the persons to be married. Candidates must sign a statement promising "to make every effort" to realize that ideal. Every clergyman is further required to "use all diligence in preserving the peace and concord of every family within his cure," and "whenever the security or permanence of any home is imperiled . . . it shall be the duty of the parties to such dissension to lay before him the causes and circumstances thereof, and it shall be his duty to labor by all godly means to restore them to charity with each other."

Commission-chosen to expound the new canon was Professor Howard Chandler Robbins of Manhattan's General Theological Seminary. His statement that "forgiveness should be characteristic of the Church, and allowance should be made for the individual's attitude," showed what an ecclesiastical revolution widespread divorce has wrought. For paradoxically, Episcopalians, despite their strong stand in the past against divorce, almost certainly have the highest divorce rate of any U. S. sect. Among the Episcopalians whom the revised canon might make eligible for Communion: Elliott Roosevelt, Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.

Conservative Episcopalians could reminiscently sigh for the attitude of their sister Church of England, which does not recognize divorce even in the case of adultery, much less marriage after divorce. The Church of England's lay head, Edward VIII. discovered that to his cost when he decided to marry Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson.

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