A BILL to allow the remarriage in church of divorced persons, at the discretion of the clergy and following a "service of preparation", which would include a penitential element, has been overwhelmingly supported in its initial stage at the Church of Ireland General Synod in Dublin and will have its final reading tomorrow.
The bill was carried by 342 votes to 36, with 128 clergy and 214 lay members voting in favour and 16 clergy and 20 lay members voting against.
A motion, proposed by Lady Brenda Sheil (Down) and seconded by the Rev Paul Cotton (Dublin) to make the "service of preparation" optional was heavily defeated.
Proposing the motion, the Bishop of Tuam, Dr John Neill, stressed that the church's fundamental principle was that marriage was "in its purpose a union permanent and lifelong".
The legislation being brought before the general synod had been prepared by three successive committees which had been involved with the issue for a generation.
"Those who have laboured long with this issue do not hold a liberal view of Christian marriage. They do not welcome a 'divorce culture'," Dr Neill said.
"They realise that in making provision for the cases which deserve the utmost Christian compassion the church must do all in its power to support, encourage and further the efforts of those who remain faithful to a marriage, however difficult that marriage may have become."
The concern of the legislation was to make provision for cases in which the church was confronted with a fait accompli the sad fact that a marriage had not only failed, but had ended.
By providing a procedure to be followed, even a discipline to be observed in the case of remarriage in church, the church was continuing to bear witness to the fundamental principle that marriage was intended to be for life.
Seconding the motion, the Dean of Cork, the Rev Dr Richard Clarke, said a preparatory service was necessary because the church believed, "not in reproof or reprimand but in integrity", that there was a past to be recognised, the past of a broken marriage, or perhaps the broken marriages of both partners.
The committee which drafted the bill had carefully sought to construct a service which was not a rapping of knuckles or demand for grovelling self reproach.
The service would be, he said, not just a service of penitence. "It is a service of hope and faith. It has been designed so that it may be part of a Holy Communion service if that seems right. Because situations may differ, we have included a provision that some parts of the service may be omitted (or strengthened)."
Proposing an amendment that the preparatory service be optional, Lady Sheil pointed to the ease of a woman who may have been a battered wife, whose children may have been abused and who had divorced her previous husband to protect herself and her children. Under these circumstances, she felt a preparatory service should not be required.
The bill, which is likely to be passed tomorrow, provides that a member of the clergy who is unwilling to solemnises a marriage in which one or both of the parties has been divorced must inform the parties immediately.
Should a member of the clergy wish to conduct such a marriage, he or she should seek the opinion of the bishop as to the advisability of solemnising the marriage, having provided the bishop with all the necessary information, and should take the bishop's opinion into account in exercising his or her discretion.
The bishop would be entitled to seek and take into account pastoral and other advice from such persons as he saw fit and this advice would be confidential.
In cases where a decree of nullity had been granted on grounds acceptable to the Church of Ireland, the bishop would declare that the applicant was ipso facto free to marry in church.
In other eases in which the bishop gave a favourable judgment he would prescribe that the member of the clergy would conduct a private service of preparation for remarriage in church in such a form as may be provided by regulation before the solemnisation of matrimony took place.
