Religion: Ground for Divorce

Because, alone of the principal Confessional Protestant communions, the Presbyterian recognizes desertion as well as adultery as proper grounds for divorce, a committee headed by Dr. Clarence Edward Macartney of Pittsburgh last week recommended that the

Presbyterian General Assembly declare: “. . . Yet is adultery alone clearly recognized in the New Testament as cause for divorce. Therefore the Church cannot sanction divorce on any other ground nor the remarriage of divorced persons other than the innocent parties in divorces granted for adultery; and it shall be unlawful for a minister to marry any divorced person except one so divorced.”

The committee also proposed to delete entirely the old article of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith: “Adultery or fornication, committed after a contract [for marriage], being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract.”