Case 32. A Complicated Case

Caius, after contracting marriage with Martha at Dublin, went to America a few years later, leaving his wife at home. Shortly afterwards Martha, seized by a blind love for Titius, a non-Catholic and a relative of Caius in the third degree, conducted herself lustfully with him. When ten years had now elapsed and they had heard nothing about Caius, Titius strongly urged that they leave Dublin and go to Liverpool. The woman at length consents, and there, in a Protestant church, they contracted marriage in order to avoid troublesome questions about their free state. Afterwards, when they had lived in the city for six years and had children, Martha heard from several witnesses—mediate indeed, but trustworthy—that Caius had died in America. During a mission, stricken with sorrow, the most wretched woman approaches John, a confessor. He hears Martha’s history and, after carefully weighing the testimony for Caius’s death, judges that nothing prevents her from entering marriage with Titius after the dispensations have been obtained. Therefore, to set the matter in order, he writes a letter to the Bishop, relates that Titius and Martha are concubinarians, and petitions for the required dispensations, but intimates nothing about Caius perhaps still surviving or about the marriage already attempted in bad faith. Hence it is asked:

1. When a doubt arises concerning the impediment of bond, upon whom does it devolve to judge the free state of those who are about to contract marriage?

2. What dispensations are required, and what circumstances must be explained in the case for the validity of the dispensations?

3. What is to be said of John’s manner of acting?

The first question was answered above, p. 273.

2. What dispensations are required and what circumstances must be explained in the case for the validity of the dispensations?

Titius was not a Catholic, and he was related in the third degree of consanguinity to Caius, the first husband of Martha. Moreover, as there was adultery and attempted marriage by the parties, there exists between them the impediment of crime. Dispensations, therefore, for a mixed marriage, for affinity in the third degree, and for the crime of adultery with attempted marriage will be required. Besides, the evidence cited in the case is not sufficient to produce moral certainty of the death of Caius by itself; and at any rate in such circumstances it is for the bishop to judge whether the party is free or not; a simple priest is incompetent in such a case.¹

1 Génicot, vol. ii, 492.

The circumstance that marriage was attempted in bad faith in the Protestant Church must be mentioned in the petition for a dispensation, and this is required for its validity according to the Instruction S. C. de P. F., May 9, 1877.

3. The case. John did very wrong and made several serious blunders. He usurped the office of the bishop by deciding that the parties were free to marry, though

COMPLICATED CASE there was not conclusive and first hand evidence of the death of the first husband of Martha. He made no mention of the attempted marriage in bad faith and in the Protestant Church, and from this we may gather that he failed to detect the existence of the impediment of crime between the parties. He should take the earliest opportunity of repeating his Moral Theology.