Article Three. On the Contracting Parties.

655. Declaration. From the contracting parties it is required:

1. That they be in the state of grace, because they receive a sacrament of the living. Therefore particular statutes sometimes prescribe that confession be premised to matrimony; nevertheless, by universal law it is not prescribed that they procure the state of grace for themselves rather through confession than through perfect contrition. For the Council of Trent only exhorts spouses to confess before matrimony.¹

He does not sin: a. who contracts matrimony with a partner whom he knows to be in the state of mortal sin; for the notable utility which matrimony brings excuses this material cooperation.²

Nor does he sin: b. who administers the sacrament of matrimony to an unworthy partner, because he is not held to take care that the sacrament not be administered to the unworthy: for he does not act as a public person, who by force of his office must attend to the dispositions of the recipient, but he is a private person celebrating a contract, who by force of his office attends only to his own utility.³

2. That they receive the nuptial blessing. For although the Church does not prescribe it to those about to marry, nevertheless she earnestly desires that they ask for it and receive it.⁴

a. By the name of nuptial blessing are designated the three prayers which are contained in the Missal in the Mass for spouses; two of these are recited over the spouses after the Our Father, and the third after the Ite missa est or Benedicamus Domino. Since the nuptial blessing cannot be separated from the Mass for spouses, those about to marry are to be admonished to celebrate the nuptials in the morning, when Mass can be said.

b. If those about to marry have not received the nuptial blessing from whatever cause (e.g. because they celebrated the nuptials in the closed time, because at the celebration of the nuptials Mass could not be said), care must be taken that they receive it afterward at a suitable time, even if they have already lived in matrimony.⁵ But if the spouses cannot be brought to celebrate the nuptials at a time when Mass can be said, the blessing is granted to them outside Mass, yet not according to the form which is contained in the Mass for spouses, but according to the form which exists in the Roman Ritual or in the diocesan Ritual.

¹ Sess. 24, c. 1, De reform. matr.

² Cf. De Praeceptis, n. 118.

³ Cf. Lugo, De sacram. in genere, disp. 8, sect. 14, n. 230.

⁴ Cn. 1101, 1.

⁵ Cn. 1001, 1.