Chapter III: Of Impeding Impediments

§ 1. A simple vow of virginity, of perfect chastity, of not marrying, of receiving sacred orders, and of embracing the religious state impedes marriage.

§ 2. No simple vow invalidates marriage, unless invalidation has been established for some persons by a special prescription of the Apostolic See.

In those regions where by civil law legal relationship arising from adoption renders nuptials illicit, by canon law also marriage is illicit.

Everywhere the Church most severely prohibits marriage from being entered into between two baptized persons, of whom one is Catholic and the other is enrolled in a heretical or schismatic sect; but if danger of perversion of the Catholic spouse and of the offspring is present, the union is forbidden even by divine law itself.

§ 1. The Church does not dispense concerning the impediment of mixed religion unless:

1° Just and grave causes urge.

2° The non-Catholic spouse has furnished a caution concerning removing from the Catholic spouse the danger of perversion, and each spouse concerning all the offspring to be baptized and educated only as Catholic.

3° Moral certitude is had concerning the fulfillment of the cautions.

§ 2. The cautions are regularly to be required in writing.

The Catholic spouse is held by the obligation of prudently caring for the conversion of the non-Catholic spouse.

§ 1. Although a dispensation concerning the impediment of mixed religion has been obtained from the Church, the spouses cannot, either before or after marriage entered before the Church, also approach, whether by themselves or through a proxy, a non-Catholic minister as one devoted to sacred things, for giving or renewing matrimonial consent.

§ 2. If the pastor certainly knows that the spouses will violate or already have violated this law, he is not to assist at their marriage, unless for most grave causes, scandal having been removed and the Ordinary first consulted.

§ 3. Nevertheless it is not disapproved that, when civil law commands, the spouses present themselves also before a non-Catholic minister functioning only in the office of a civil official, and that only for completing the civil act, for the sake of civil effects.

Ordinaries and other pastors of souls:

1° Are to deter the faithful from mixed nuptials as much as they can.

2° If they cannot impede them, they are to take care with all zeal that they are not contracted against the laws of God and of the Church.

3° After mixed nuptials have been celebrated, whether in their own territory or in another, they are sedulously to watch that the spouses faithfully fulfill the promises made.

4° Those assisting at marriage are to observe the prescription of can. 1102.

§ 1. The faithful are also to be deterred from contracting marriage with those who notoriously have either cast off the Catholic faith, although they have not gone over to a non-Catholic sect, or are enrolled in societies condemned by the Church.

§ 2. The pastor is not to assist at the aforesaid nuptials unless the Ordinary has been consulted; after all the circumstances of the matter have been inspected, he can permit the pastor to be present at the marriage, provided that a grave cause urges and, according to his prudent judgment, the Ordinary judges that sufficient provision has been made for the Catholic education of all the offspring and for the removal of the danger of perversion of the other spouse.

If a public sinner or one notoriously bound by censure has first refused to approach sacramental confession or to be reconciled with the Church, the pastor is not to assist at his marriage, unless a grave cause urges, concerning which, if it can be done, he is to consult the Ordinary.