His parents' families then engaged in a series of custody lawsuits, as the MacDonaghs were Roman Catholic and the Giffords were Protestant; in the climate of Ne Temere, the MacDonaghs were successful.
Ne Temere (literally meaning "not rashly" in Latin) was a decree (named for its opening words) issued in 1907 of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Council regulating the canon law of the Church about marriage for practising Roman Catholics.