Section II. Difference of Religion

According to Canon 1070, sec. 1, marriage contracted by a person not baptized with a person baptized in the Catholic Church or converted to the same from heresy or schism is null.

Sec. 2. If one party at the time of contracting marriage was commonly regarded as a baptized person,-or if his baptism was doubtful, in accordance with the rule of law that doubtful marriage is to be deemed valid until the contrary be proved, such marriages are to be held valid until it is proved for certain that one of the parties was baptized and the other was not baptized.

Such a marriage, as is clear from St Paul, has been unlawful from apostolic times, but in the first centuries of the Christian era it was not invalid, and there are several well-known instances of saints being married to pagans. Gradually, however, a marriage between a baptized Christian and a pagan came to be looked upon as invalid, unless contracted in virtue of the Church’s dispensation, and this has been the settled rule from about the beginning of the twelfth century. As the impediment is of positive law it can, of course, for grave reason be dispensed with, and then even the apostolic prohibition will cease¹ if the dangers which are common to mixed marriages and to difference of religion can be avoided.

¹ 2 Cor. vi 14.

Before the new Code came into force the impediment of difference of religion affected baptized non-Catholics as well as Catholics; By the common consent of commentators the effect of Section 1 is to restrict the impediment to those who have been baptized in the Catholic Church or converted to it from heresy or schism. Those are baptized in the Catholic Church who are baptized with the intention of incorporating them as members into the bodily communion of the Catholic Church. So that an infant who in danger of death was secretly baptized to procure its eternal salvation only, would not be baptized in the Catholic Church in the sense of this Canon.