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Show THE 0SE0RNE-MAL0NEY MARRIAGE. The Associated Press reports that the authorities of vthe Catholic church in Rome have decided that the matrimonial escapade of Arthur Herbert Osborne Os-borne and Helen Maloney was a true marriage. It will therefore not be annulled. Xothing but death can put an end to it. The announcement of the Vatican's decision iu the daily papers asserts that "the Church of Rome always follows the State in validating the first marriage mar-riage contract." This is not so. The church examines exam-ines the facts in the case regardless of what the State may have done or may do, for the civil laws are different in different countries, they are often changed and they may or may not agree with ecclesiastical eccle-siastical principles concerning matrimony, whereas the Church's legislation on the subject is fixed and uniform. If the church always followed the State, there would be no need to send to Rome for its opinion opin-ion of a case, but only to find out what action the State had taken in the premises, and from this learn what view the church must have of the matter. The church is not so subservient to the civil power. On the contrary, in matrimonial difficulties it claims original jurisdiction. In faith and morals it is. by divine appointment, the teacher of all mankinel nations as well as individuals and from its supreme pronouncements there is no appeal. The Maloneys are rich and have been generous to the material needs of religion, but not all their millions mil-lions could get from the church any trifling with a sacrament. ' |