Australia: Church will cancel registration to celebrate legal marriages

Friday, 30 September 2011

The Catholic Church will cancel registration to conduct legal marriages if hand forced on same-sex unions, says Perth's Archbishop Hickey. If the state forced the Perth archdiocese to officiate at same-sex unions, the archdiocese would cancel its registration to celebrate legal marriages, Archbishop Barry Hickey said last Sunday.

His comments were made to members of the Traditional Anglican Church parish of St Ninian and St Chad in Maylands.

However, whether the Church would bury dead Catholics who had entered into same-sex unions was something of which he was less certain, he said.

Answering a question from a member of the congregation, the archbishop said he had “very, very serious concerns” about recent moves to amend the Marriage Act. the rest