§ 2. Conditions for Liceity

220. • I. On the part of the parish priest or Ordinary or delegated priest.

a) Let moral certitude be had concerning the free status of the contracting parties.¹

¹ Cfr. above, n. 65.

b) Let either one of the nupturients be a subject of the parish priest or local Ordinary. Now one becomes a subject: by domicile, quasi-domicile, monthly stay, or, if there is question of vagi, by actual stay.

1. Domicile in the common meaning is the stable seat or habitation of some person. But juridical domicile requires certain conditions of stability defined by law.

It is distinguished into:

1. necessary or legal, which is obtained by the law itself, without any condition of fact. Thus a wife not legitimately separated from her husband has the domicile of the husband; a minor has the domicile of him to whom he is subject; a person of unsound mind, that of the curator. (Can. 93, § 1.)

2. voluntary or proper, which must satisfy certain conditions of fact.

The Code introduced, besides domicile in a parish or quasi-parish, domicile in a diocese. (can. 92.) Therefore someone can be a vagus in the parish and have a domicile in the diocese.

Voluntary domicile is acquired in two ways:

By stay in a parish, quasi-parish, or at least diocese, or quasi-diocese, joined with the intention of remaining there perpetually, if nothing calls him away from there.

By stay alone prolonged to ten years. (Can. 92, § 1.)

In either case the stay must be after the manner of an inhabitant. But continuous stay for a year is not necessary.

In the former case domicile is acquired from the first day of stay; in the other, after ten years have been completed.

2. "Quasi-domicile is acquired by stay as above, which is either joined with the intention of remaining there at least for the greater part of the year, if nothing calls him away from there, or is in fact prolonged for the greater part of the year." (Can. 92, § 2.)

In the former case quasi-domicile is acquired from the first moment of stay, in the other when the time has been completed.

3. "Domicile and quasi-domicile are lost by departure from the place with the intention of not returning" (c. 95). There is question here of voluntary domicile and quasi-domicile, not of legal and necessary domicile, which is always preserved so long as subjection toward husband, parents, tutor, or curator remains.²

² Vermeersch-Creusen, cited work, t. I, nn. 184, 187.

4. Monthly stay.

a) It requires only the fact of stay for a continuous month. The month is taken as it is in the calendar. The first day is not counted and the time ends when the last day of the same number of the other month has been completed, or, if that month lacks a day of the same number, when the last day of that month has been completed. (Can. 34.)

b) Absence of one day or another is not to be attended to, nor are days of absence to be supplied. Daytime absences are not to be counted.

5. Actual stay in a parish.

It suffices not only for vagi, but also for those who have only diocesan domicile or quasi-domicile. (Can. 94, § 3.)

But where there is question of the matrimony of those truly vagi, permission of the local Ordinary or of his delegate is needed in order to assist licitly. (Can. 1032.)

c) Whenever there is not question of a subject by any of the ways just explained, "permission of the parish priest or Ordinary of the domicile or quasi-domicile or monthly stay of either contracting party" is required. (Can. 1097, § 1, 3°.)

1. This permission can be given by word or in writing, expressly or tacitly; indeed, it can be reasonably presumed. It can also be granted generally.

2. Grave necessity excuses from seeking it. (Can. 1097, § 1, 3°.) A case of grave necessity is present whenever a fairly notable inconvenience is verified on the part of the parish priest or of the nupturients.³

³ Capello, cited work, n. 687.

3. If without due permission the parish priest assists, he does not make the stole-fees his own, and he should remit them to the proper parish priest of the contracting parties. (Can. 1097, § 3.)

1. Proper parish priest, i.e., whether by reason of domicile, quasi-domicile, or monthly stay.

2. He does not incur that penalty who acts from reasonably presumed permission, or who is excused from seeking permission by grave necessity.

d) "In any case let it be held as the rule that matrimony be celebrated before the parish priest of the bride, unless a just cause excuses." (Can. 1097, § 2.)

Any just cause excuses from this prescription, which moreover obliges only under light obligation. When a just cause is present, no permission of the parish priest of the bride is required, but it is fitting to warn him.

e) "But matrimonies of Catholics of mixed rite, unless something else has been provided by particular law, are to be celebrated in the rite of the man and before his parish priest." (Can. 1097, § 2.)

221. • II. On the part of the witnesses.

Non-Catholics and excommunicated persons should not regularly be admitted. It is less fitting to admit women.