ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 315 



which sought to suppress denominational schools in single-school areas. Under the 

 bill, in those areas the only schools to be recognised for maintenance from public funds 



were to be the Council schools, in which teachers were to be appointed 



without regard to their religion. To facilitate the change, denominational 

 schools. schools were allowed to be taken over in consideration of a capital sum or 



annual rental. In that case, certain hours might be set aside for the giv- 

 ing of denominational instruction, provided that it was not given by the teachers of the 

 school. The bill passed its second reading on the 8th of March, and received the support 

 of a section of the Nationalist members. From the English Roman Catholics the bill 

 met with uncompromising opposition from the outset. At their annual meeting in 

 Low Week the English bishops endorsed a resolution passed a few days before by the 

 Catholic Education Council, in which. the bill was condemned as "fundamentally 

 unjust " inasmuch as " it seeks to deprive our children in certain districts of the dis- 

 tinctive education we have provided for them; it would prevent the establishment of 

 Catholic schools in the so-called single-school areas, with Catholic education where 

 they may be sufficient numbers to warrant it; and it again seems to create a position of 

 privilege for Cowper- Temple education." The resolution ended with a declaration 

 that the bill should be " strenuously opposed." The bill was referred to a standing 

 committee but its fate was already sealed. When the word " Where " at the be- 

 ginning of the first clause had been passed, the whole bill was abandoned. 



To the state of feeling aroused by the Home Rule controversy, specially in the 

 North of Ireland, must be attributed the very unusual attention paid by the British 

 Motu public to two Papal documents, the Quanta-vis diligentia, commonly spoken 



Proprto of as the Motu Proprio, and the Ne Temere. The former wa& in fact a very 

 decree. harmless document setting at rest a point which had long been in dispute 



among canonists with regard to an old Decree of 1869, by which Catholics were censured 

 who caused clerics to appear before the civil courts praeter canonicas dispositiones. The" 

 point in dispute was whether the prohibition applied to the individual plaintiff or to 

 the legislative and judicial authorities. Owing to a misunderstanding of the Latin 

 text, it was announced in some of the Dublin papers that the Pope had forbidden Cath- 

 olics to bring a priest before the civil courts " without a canonical dispensation." But 

 praeter canonicas dispositiones means only " contrary to the provisions of canon law." 

 In other words, Catholics are required before bringing a priest into court, to comply 

 with the rules laid down by canon law. It is not necessary here to consider in detail 

 what those rules are, because the decree of 1869 does not apply either to the British Isles 

 or the United States. To put the matter briefly: in the few countries to which the 

 decree applies, an aggrieved Catholic is required, before bringing a priest into a secular 

 court, to approach the bishop, and so try to get the dispute settled amicably. It the 

 bishop cannot bring about a friendly settlement, he is bound to allow the case to go 

 into the civil court. But the decree, which in 1912 was forty-three years old, applies 

 only to countries in which the privilegium fori the ancient custom by which the clergy 

 were tried in their own courts still prevails. That state of things has not existed in 

 the British Islands since the Reformation. 



The Ne Temere decree, on the other hand, raised serious issues affecting every country 

 in the world, except Germany, and certainly was among the causes which contributed 



to the defeat of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's government in Canada, at the general 

 '^ Ne election in September IQII. The object of this decree, which came in 

 decree. force throughout the Catholic world on Easter Sunday 1908, was to unify 



the canon law relating to marriage. Its effect was to simplify, and in some 

 important ways to make less stringent, the legislation of the Council of Trent against 

 clandestine marriages. Henceforth a marriage which is Catholic or mixed must be 

 celebrated in the presence of the parish priest, or the ordinary, of the place where the 

 ceremony is performed, and in the presence of two witnesses. This rule has no appli- 

 cation to marriages contracted by non-Catholics between themselves, but a Catholic 

 must be married in accordance with the Catholic form, whether the other contracting 



