ROMAN CATHOLIC MARRIAGES. (Hansard, 20 August 1833)

§ Lord Wynford
opposed the Motion. It would get rid at once, and without due consideration of all the marriage laws in Ireland. He should certainly approve of the introduction next Session of a measure to amend those laws. The present Bill did not make irregular marriages void, but, on the contrary, rendered them valid, and at the same time took away the penalties attached to those who performed them. The Bill in short, got rid of the whole Marriage Law of England at one single stroke; and it was in every respect a Bill which ought not to be passed at so late a period of the Session. He should move, that it be read this day six months.

Lord Plunkett
contended, that the noble Lord who had just sat down was altogether in error in the view he had taken of the Bill. The common law of Ireland was the common law of Scotland at present, and what the common law of England had formerly been. The present Bill repealed only four Statutes, the 6th of Anne, by which Catholic Priests celebrating marriages with Protestants were liable to be transported; the 12th George 1st, by which for the same offence, they were liable to the punishment of death; the 19th George 2nd, by which a penalty of 500l. was attached to the offence; and lastly, the Act 33 George 3rd, which in fact was the first Act which restricted the penal severities against Irish Roman Catholics.

The Bishop of Hereford
meant to support the Bill to which he thought no reasonable ground of objection could be offered. The only object the measure had in view was the repeal of the special penal Acts to which clergymen of the Roman Catholic faith were liable, without in any wise rendering marriages celebrated by them more legal than they were at present. He had an anxious desire that a measure to enable Dissenters of all descriptions to be married within their own congregations should be introduced, and Parliament promising such a measure should have his cordial support. Laying aside all considerations of the pro- 785 priety of such an enactment, on the ground of justice to the vast body of Dissenters, he assured their Lordships, it would be particularly agreeable to the general body of the clergy of the Established Church. The Protestant clergy felt it a most irksome and unpleasant duty to be obliged to perform the marriage ceremony for persons many of whom, in their opinion, were guilty of blaspheming that religion of which they were ministers, and he would take upon himself to assure the House they would willingly give up the fees they were in the habit of receiving to be exonerated from that which they considered a profanation of their Church.

§ The Duke of Wellington
thought, that so far as the Bill repealed certain penal statutes in force against the Catholic clergy, it was a very desirable measure, but he was of opinion that this could not be safely passed unless accompanied with specific arrangements stating in what manner and under what circumstances marriages should henceforth be performed. He thought the details of the Bill should be so amended in Committee that it should do no more than simply remove the penalty of death as against the clergy, leaving the general question of the celebration of marriage for further consideration next Session, when there would be ample means to draw up a code of laws for its regulation.

The Earl of Wicklow
did not think any reasonable objection could be offered to the principle of the Bill, which was, that the penal statutes against marriage performed by Catholic clergymen should be repealed which, in his opinion, was very desirable. His principal objection to the Bill was, that by repealing so many of the laws on the subject of marriage it would, unless an explicit code of regulations was drawn up, be impossible to know precisely in what state the general law on the subject was left. The Bill was also objectionable in not providing a prohibition against a clergyman marrying two Protestants. Where one of the parties was a Catholic and the other a Protestant he had no objection to their being married by a Catholic clergyman; but he confessed he saw no necessity for altering the existing law in cases where both parties were of the Protestant religion. Then, with respect to marriages celebrated by degraded clergymen, according to the present Bill they were to be considered perfectly good marriages, and the penalties against the party celebrating it were to be at an end. That part of the Bill he thought 786 particularly objectionable, and should it go into Committee, which he hoped it would, he would use his best endeavours to have that, as well as others of its details, amended.