Article — Merkelbach, Pastoral Questions
Article VI: Solemn Vow
- I. Notion of that impediment.
"Religious who have professed solemn vows, or simple vows to which by special prescription of the Apostolic See the force of invalidating nuptials has been added, invalidly attempt matrimony." (Can. 1073.)
Already the Council of Trent had defined the existence of this impediment:1 "If anyone shall have said... that regulars solemnly professed in chastity can contract matrimony, and that the contract is valid notwithstanding... the vow; and that the opposite is nothing other than to condemn matrimony, and that all can contract matrimony who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even if they have vowed it: let him be anathema."
- II. Extension of the impediment.
To this impediment are subject:
a) those who have validly professed solemn vows. Solemn vows are only those which are recognized by the Church as such. Otherwise they are simple. Vows of this kind do not exist except in Orders strictly so called.
b) Scholastics of the Society of Jesus who have emitted simple vows after the two-year novitiate. Thus by special statute of the Holy See.
- III. Nature of the impediment.
a) For the simple vows of the Society of Jesus, the impediment most certainly has force from ecclesiastical law alone.
b) For solemn vows, formerly it was sharply disputed among theologians and canonists whether they dirimently impede matrimony by divine or ecclesiastical law. But today most think that the diriment impediment of solemn vow is of merely ecclesiastical law, although the matter still remains doubtful, with theologians of the best note opining otherwise.
- IV. Dispensation.
a) The Holy See grants dispensation from a grave and urgent cause, even from a private cause.
b) Scholastics of the Society of Jesus dismissed from the Society by the Superior General become, by the fact itself, free from that impediment.
- V. Penalties against violators.
Besides the penalties indicated above at n. 129 a) and d), which are common to solemnly professed regulars and clerics of major orders, those attempting matrimony incur the penalty of dismissal by the fact itself from the Order. (Can. 646, 3°.)
If they are also constituted in sacred Orders, they incur besides all the other penalties indicated at n. 129.