New-York tribune., 1922-09-02
DIR. Grant Flays
Church for Its
Law ON Divorce
Based ON Dubious Biblical
Authority, 1t Does Not
Agree With Modern In
stitutions, He Says
Favors a Liberal Canon
Will Fight at Portland
Convention Amy Effort
to Forbid Remarriage

| The existing divorce law of the
Protestant Episcopal Church was de-
.nounced yesterday by the Rev. DR.
Percy Stickney Grant, rector of the
Church of the Ascension, on the
grounds that it is based on dubious
Biblical authority, does not agree with
modem institutions and is un-Ameri-
| can.
Or. Grant said he favored more lib
eral law and would oppose attem pts
which will be made, he said at the tri-
ennial church convention at Portland,
Ore, in September, to narrow still fur
ther the attitude Of the Church by for
/ bidding remarriage after divorce for
any cause.
FOR more than ayear DR.. Grant has
| been engaged to Mrs. Rita Lydig, who
has divorced two husbands It has been
generally understood that his marri-
| age has been delayed because Bishop
Manning warned him, at the time the
engagement was announced, that such
wedding would be in direct violation
OF the rules of the church and would
call for drastic action.
~ The Church is attempting to under
mine and destroy the laws of the coun-
try by forbidding it's clergy, in the
matter OF divorce, to carry them out
declared DR.. Grant. If q clergyman
refuses to honor license duly signed
by the city clerk, he said, ought to
have the right to perform marriages
handling of divorce the Protestant
Episcopal Church. DR.. Grant further
declared, has turned its back upon 400
years Of Professionalism to the earlier
Roman Catholic attitude.
Divorce Has Not Brought Chaos
"The real question is whether theol-
ogy or science, an ascetic conception
or the experience and needs of human
ity is to frame our social institutions .
the clergyman said. Marrow minded
ecclesiatics say that divorce has
brought chaos to the American home
1t has not. Our institutions will not
improve at the hands of monastic the
ology but by the illumination of mod
ern knowledge"
Canon AZ is the one which applies
to divorce, and which DR.. Grant char
acterized as not only "badly drawn
but based on a dubious New Testament
text" The canon is framed so loosely
that coach and four could be driven
through it, he said, and is yariously
interpreted by different bishops. The
Church cannot organize modern life on
texts found in the New Testament, he
asserted.
The court, DR.. Grant maintained, is
the proper arbiter of divorces, whateve,
it's defects. He sald IL was his belief
that the court was as divine an institu-
tion as the Church.
"To declare that divorces, according
to American courts, produce by their
DEGREES state of adultery is f1agrantly
| to destroy the meaning and place Of
| the judicial side of modern government
, Dr. Grant said.
Hold to English View
DR.. Grant attributes one reason for
! the defense of the present canon to
| the number of clergy in his Church who
were born English subjects and hold ia
the view of the English Church. But
| the English view does not apply to us
where Church and State are separate
| he maintained.
"But the Episcopal Church goes fur
ther than unintelligence about judicial
action" he continued at attempts to
undermine and destroy the laws of the
country by forbidding it's clergy to
carry them out. The Church to weaken
a law by private legislation against it
is pernicious attitude, and amounts
| to an invasion of civil power"