CO885(2-3) — Page 243

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PUBLI

REC

OFFICE

Reference -

C.O.885

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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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The Bishop of Gibraltar exercises a species of authority over British congregations in foreign countries bordering on the Mediterranean, but this, it is apprehended, is done not so much by any legal right as through the influence of the Foreign Office.

GENERAL.

Thus much as to the establishment of Bishoprics.

It may perhaps be added that since the Judgment in

the case of Long e. the Bishop of Cape Town, the practice has been adopted of limiting even the Episcopal power of visitation by the saving clause, "so far as the same can be exercised consistently with such law or laws as may for the time being be

in force in our Colony of ——."

With regard to the mode of appointing individual Bishops it may be stated that the form was originally a very ponderous one, every patent of appointment reciting the patent of creation and all that had passed under it.

Recently the form of patent has been reduced to a mere announcement of the Royal appointment and direction to consecrate, and in Canada even the announcement of appointment has been dis- pensed with. It was considered that as the Bishop was elected and his jurisdiction given and defined by the local Synods under authority of a colonial law, nothing more was necessary on the part of the

Crown than to authorize the consecration. This

has been done in Quebec by a mere Warrant under

the Sign Manual directing the consecration of a

specified person to be Bishop of that diocese.

STATUS OF COLONIAL CLERGY IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND.

The statutory provisions on the above head are For the scattered, and not perfectly consistent. present purpose, the following, it is believed, is a sufficiently accurate exhibition of them :-

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59 Geo. III, cap.

60.

Sec. 2. No person ordained for the Colonies by the Archbishop of Canterbury or York, or Bishop

of London, shall hold preferment in Great Britain or Ireland, without consent of the Diocesan Bishop, and of the ordaining Prelate.

Sec. 3. No person admitted into Holy Orders by any Prelate other than those of England or Ireland may officiate in England or Ireland, without permission from the Archbishop of the Province, or hold preferment there without consent of Diocesan Bishop and Provincial Archbishop.

Sec. 4. No person ordained Deacon or Priest by any Colonial Bishop not having Episcopal jurisdic- tion within some Diocese, and residing therein, may hold Ecclesiastical preferment any where in Her Majesty's dominions; or officiate at any place or in any manner as "Minister of the Established Church of England and Ireland."

3 and 4 Vict. cap. 33.

Sec. 6. A person ordained Priest by any Prelate of the United Church of England and Ireland " (which appears in this Act, vide Section 4, not to include "Her Majesty's foreign possessions"), after having been ordained Deacon by some other Protestant Bishop (including apparently 'Colonial Bishops), is not to be enabled by such ordination to exercise his office in England or Ireland, except as provided by that Act, i.e., for two days at a time, with permission of the English or Irish Diocesan.

15 and 16 Vict., cap. 62.

The foregoing disqualifications are not to extend

to persons ordained in any English Diocese under commission from the Diocesan by a Colonial Bishop appointed by Letters-Patent, which includes all Colonial Bishops except the present Bishop of Quebec.

16 and 17 Vict., cap. 19.

The same provision is extended mutatis mutandis to persons ordained in Colonial Dioceses on request of the Diocesan.