urch) included civil as
well as spiritual affairs. Luther repudiated these canonical laws on the
subject of marriage, and separated its civil from its ecclesiastical
aspect. He maintained that marriage, as the basis of all family rights,
lies entirely within the province of the State, and mast be regulated of
necessity by the civil government. 'Marriage and the married state,' he
declared in his _Traubuechlein_ (10, 721), 'are civil matters, in the
management of which we priests and ministers of the Church must not
intermeddle. But when we are required, either before the church, or in
the church, to bless the pair, to pray over them, or even to marry them,
then it is our bounden duty to do so.'" (Waring, p. 221.)

In 1906, a papal decree was published which declares any betrothal or
marriage entered into by a Catholic with a Catholic, or by a Catholic
with a non-Catholic, to be valid only on condition that either the
betrothal or the marriage take place in the presence or with the
sanction of a Catholic priest This decree is known as the _Ne Temere_
decree. It is called thus according to a custom prevailing in the
Catholic Church by which the official deliverances of the Popes are
cited by giving the initial word, or words, of such a deliverance. The
two Latin terms _Ne Temere_ are a warning against reckless action, and
the reckless action intended is the one indicated above.

We quote a few statements from the _Ne Temere_ decree, from the work of
Dr. Leitner of Passau, which was issued in its fifth edition at
Regensburg in 1908. Dr. Leitner is a Catholic professor at Passau and
bears the title "Doctor of Theology and Canon Law." Dr. Leitner's book
is in German: _Die Verlobungs- und Eheschliessungsform nach dem Dekrete
Ne Temere_, which means, "The Form of Betrothal and Marriage according
to the _Ne Temere_ Decree." Throughout his book the author cites the
original language of the papal deliverance. The decree reaffirms, in the
first place, the decree of the Council of Trent, to this effect: "The
Holy Congregation declares any person who dares to enter into the estate
of matrimony, except upon license from the parish priest or of some
other priest of the same parish, or of the ordinary, and of two or three
witnesses, incapacitated for such a contract, and contracts of this kind
are declared null and void." (p.9.)

Regarding betrothals the decree declares: "Only such betrothals are
regarded as valid and efficacious, a