Section 5. Sacred Order.

580. Nature of the Impediment. The impediment of order consists in this, that one who has received sacred order (subdiaconate, diaconate, priesthood) cannot enter valid matrimony.¹

a. Sacred order does not dirimently impede matrimony contracted beforehand, but only impedes its use.

b. The question hitherto disputed, whether a cleric receiving major order must emit a vow of chastity at least implicitly, the new Code does not solve. Therefore it is not certain whether the force invalidating matrimony arises from ecclesiastical law alone, or from the law of the Church by means of a vow, or from law and vow together.

1. A threefold condition is required for inducing this impediment:

a. That the ordination be valid.

b. That it be freely received. The Code establishes concerning this matter: one who, compelled by grave fear, received sacred order and, when the fear had been removed, did not ratify the ordination, is to be declared immune from clerical obligations.² Once this has been done, he can validly and licitly enter matrimony.

c. That it be received with knowledge of the obligation: for the Church does not wish to impose this burden on a cleric unless he himself freely wills it.

a. If someone compelled by grave and unjust fear receives sacred ordination, the ordination is indeed valid; nevertheless the ordained man is neither held to continence nor rendered incapable of contracting matrimony, unless afterward expressly or tacitly (by the exercise of sacred order) he consents to the obligation of celibacy annexed by the statute of the Church to the order.

b. There are those who say that a solemn vow emitted in a religious order and in receiving sacred order is one impediment;³ nevertheless some authors hold that they are different impediments, because the reason and effect of each impediment are different.⁴

2. This impediment is of ecclesiastical law: for it must be derived neither from the nature of sacred order nor from the internal force of a solemn vow of chastity, but from ecclesiastical law alone.⁵ For a vow dirimently impedes matrimony not by its nature, but from the disposition of the Church. Moreover, that sacred order can be joined with matrimony is gathered from the practice of the Eastern Church.

A dispensation is never granted to a priest; so much so that from the acts it is not established that this dispensation for contracting matrimony has ever been granted (but only for convalidating matrimony). There is less difficulty of dispensation with deacons and subdeacons.

3. The penalties in force today are: a. excommunication latae sententiae simply reserved to the Apostolic See, which both the cleric attempting matrimony and the person with whom he attempts it incur;⁶ b. loss of all offices by the fact itself, if he has contracted matrimony even only civilly;⁷ c. degradation, if, after having been warned by the ordinary, he does not repent within the predetermined time;⁸ d. irregularity from delict.⁹

¹ Council of Trent, sess. 24, can. 9, De sacr. matrim. Cn. 1072: Clerics constituted in sacred orders invalidly attempt matrimony.

² Cn. 214, 1.

³ Lehmkuhl, Th. mor. II, n. 749 (n. 981).

⁴ Cf. Matharan, n. 251.

⁵ Benedict XIV, De synodo, l. 12, c. 4, n. 2. Wernz IV, n. 298.

⁶ Cn. 2388, 1.

⁷ Cn. 188, 5.

⁸ Cn. 2388, 1.

⁹ Cn. 985, 3.