22 JUNE 1878, Page 2

The Old Catholic' Synod at Bonn has decided, by 75

votes against 22, that the canonical prohibition of marriage for mole- elastics above the rank of sub-deacons does not constitute any Obstacle to the marriage of Old Catholic ecclesiastics, or to their exercising the cure of souls when married. This decision will certainly complete the schism,—if only because it will make the -clergy of the Old Catholics as reluctant, for private reasons, to return into a Church which would unfrock them, as they are at present reluctant to return for dogmatic reasons. The dogmatic reasons may or may not remain, but the private bias on that side cannot but remain.