Section III. Adultery and Murder

When a man and a woman commit adultery and one of them murders his consort in order to marry his accomplice in adultery, the third impediment of crime arises between them and hinders the marriage. In this case there need be no promise of future marriage, nor any attempt at marriage, nor need the death be the result of the plotting of both of the parties. It will be sufficient if the adultery have the qualifications mentioned above in the first section, and murder really be committed with the intention of marriage manifested in some way, as by presents or by love letters to the other party.

If to adultery and murder as just described there be joined the promise of future marriage, and the plotting of the death of the consort of one of the parties with the conditions laid down in the previous sections, there will be not one but three impediments, and if marriage were actually attempted during the murdered consort’s life, there will be four. The impediment is purely of ecclesiastical law, and therefore it does not bind those who are not baptized. If, however, one of the parties is baptized, it will indirectly affect the other.

Since the issue of the new Code ignorance of this impediment is no reason why it should not be incurred (Can, 16).