Church of England to permit remarriage

Christian Century, July 31, 2002

The Church of England has voted strongly to allow church weddings for divorcees whose former partner is still living. The church's historic ban was modified in 1981 to allow for "circumstances" in which a divorced person might be married in church, but no guidelines were provided until the recent general synod meeting in York.

The synod's decision, by 269 votes to 83, to allow remarriage in "exceptional" circumstances still leaves clergy free to refuse to marry a divorced person. The original ban has often been disregarded by Anglican parish clergy, however. More than one in six weddings--11,000 out of 65,000--in 1999 involved at least one divorced person, a Church of England spokesman said.

The decision raised immediate speculation that it opens the way for the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, to marry his longtime companion, Camilla Parker Bowles, whose ex-husband is still living. Archbishop Rowan Williams, recently named the next archbishop of Canterbury, supports a church wedding for the couple if they wish it, according to unnamed sources quoted in the British news media. Williams was said to believe that the prince and Parker Bowles should be treated "as any other couple."

At the general synod on July 9, Michael Scott-Joynt, bishop of Winchester, introduced the new marriage policy on behalf of the House of Bishops, where the measure will return for further legislative action. "As things are, we present an uncertain, incoherent picture to those who want to know where the Church of England stands on an issue which sadly touches the lives of many thousands of people, of whom many are already within our churches, and many others are within reach of our service and witness."

The measure provides a series of guidelines to allow priests to make up their own minds. A priest might decline to marry a couple whose relationship caused the breakdown of the previous marriage of one of the partners, as this would be "consecrating an old infidelity." Another ground for refusal might be if the marriage would cause "hostile public comment or scandal." A person who has been divorced more than once might expect the priest to refuse a third marriage because the church does not wish to endorse "serial monogamy."

The general synod also agreed to relax the rule about the location of weddings so that the ceremonies will no longer have to take place in a church. This matches a coming change in the British law on civil weddings, which will permit them to be held almost anywhere.

In the Methodist Church, which is planning to enter a covenant with the Church of England, 64 percent of marriages involved at least one person who had been divorced, according to a Methodist spokesman citing 1998 church figures (the latest available). He suggested that the number was made greater by couples unable to marry in Anglican and Catholic churches.--ENI