The Petition which Regards a Marriage Invalidly Contracted

I. First, these things hold: If a dispensation is sought for the external forum, those things must be expressed which we said must be expressed in the petition for the external forum; if a dispensation is sought for the internal forum, those things must be indicated which we noted must be indicated in the petition for the internal forum.

II. Then, concerning the marriage itself, various things must be expressed according as there is question of simple convalidation or of sanation in the root (n. 830 sq. and 833).

1. If there is question of simple convalidation, there must be opened whether the petitioners, or one or the other, contracted the marriage in good or bad faith; whether, with the banns having been published, or if omitted, whether with the banns duly dispensed, they contracted according to juridical form; finally whether both, or one or the other, consummated the marriage in good or bad faith.¹

2. If there is question of sanation in the root, besides those things to be indicated for obtaining simple convalidation, it should be indicated whether the conditions required for acquiring sanation in the root are present (n. 833).

¹ Cited Instruction, p. 673.

870. • QUESTION 6. What generally must be expressed in a petition for a dispensation concerning a marriage invalidly contracted? Reply. It must be set forth: 1. whether both parties, or only one or the other, entered the marriage in good or bad faith, namely, with knowledge of the impediment; 2. whether under the hope of obtaining the dispensation more easily; 3. whether they consummated the marriage; 4. whether they contracted clandestinely or in the face of the Church, whether after the proclamation of the banns or with these omitted. For a dispensation is customarily obtained more or less easily according to these various circumstances.

Hence, if some persons contracted before a civil magistrate so that a dispensation might thereby be granted to them more easily, this must be expressed, since bad faith was present, which renders a dispensation more difficult to obtain. If they contracted civilly with the intention of not contracting before the Church, this also must be expressed, because they attempted a clandestine marriage. But if they contracted in good faith and with the intention of seeking a dispensation from the Church, this circumstance does not appear absolutely required to be expressed, although it is better not to omit it. - Bouvier.

§ III. — Of obreptive and subreptive dispensation.

Obreptive is said of what is obtained by alleging a falsehood; subreptive, by concealing the truth.

I say 1°: If the obreption or subreption fall upon the principal cause of the dispensation, the dispensation is null. So decrees Innocent III, cap. Super litteris, Decretal. lib. I, tit. 3, de rescriptis; and this at the very least is signified by the usual clause of dispensations: « Si preces veritate nitantur », which, were it not appended, must always be understood, from cap. Ex parte, same title. The reason also is plain; because the superior intends to dispense only on account of this cause, which is principal, and without which he would not dispense. Therefore, this failing, the dispensation falls. For the same reason, the same must be said if the obreption or subreption fall upon that without which, although it be not the principal cause, the superior would not dispense in such manner and form, but with an added condition and burden: as if a rich man seek dispensation in forma pauperum, as I shall say below.

I say 2°: If the obreption or subreption fall upon an impulsive cause only and less principal, from the malice of the allegant, it is more probably null; if from the simplicity and ignorance of the allegant, it is valid. Thus expressly distinguishes and ordains Innocent III, cited cap. Super litteris, de rescriptis.

I say 3°: Subreption or concealment of truth pertaining to the thing per se and intrinsically, or error concerning the moral substance of the matter, renders the dispensation null: as if you have two affinities or consanguinities on the side of either parent, and express only one; if you ask to be dispensed over an affinity and it is consanguinity, or over a consanguinity and it is affinity, or over the fourth degree and it is the third; because, although perhaps the superior would have dispensed equally had you expressed the matter as it is, he is nevertheless held to concede precisely what is asked, and nothing else. More probable, however, I judge — against certain authors — is that if dispensation be sought for the third degree, and it is the fourth, it is valid; because dispensation of the whole is dispensation of the part contained in the whole, and the fourth degree is contained in the third.

I said, « Error concerning the moral substance of the matter »; because, if there were error concerning the physical substance, and nothing pertaining to the dispensation, it would not vitiate the dispensation: as if you call yourself an advocate when you are a physician, or there be error in the name, Peter being put for Paul; for the superior intends to dispense with the petitioner himself.

I say 4°: When dispensation is sought at the Roman court, subreption or concealment of what the law or the style of this court requires vitiates the dispensation; because, although it be not the principal cause, it is nevertheless the condition sine qua the Pontiffs do not intend to dispense. Whence

You will gather 1° that, if you seek at the Roman court dispensation over consanguinity, not expressing the incestuous intercourse, if it preceded, the dispensation is null, from the style of the court; likewise, if the marriage has been contracted or consummated; likewise, if you have contracted with knowledge of the impediment and with rash hope of obtaining the dispensation more easily, and these you do not express, there is no dispensation.

It is to be observed, as to the incestuous intercourse, if it be occult, that dispensation is sought in the sacred Penitentiary, the names suppressed, to avoid infamy or other damage. But when the impediments are manifest, or easily made manifest, dispensation is granted not by the Penitentiary but by the Dataria, and the names must be expressed; because, since a public impediment is concerned, the matter can be brought to a contentious forum, and the decree of the Dataria must be published. In the Penitentiary the commission of dispensing is directed to the confessor, who shall be a master or professor in theology; in the Dataria, to the official of the place. In the Penitentiary all things are granted gratuitously; in the Dataria is paid the mulct, to be expended on the propagation of the faith, or on other pious uses.

You will gather 2° that, when there are several impediments, for instance consanguinity and affinity, or several consanguinities or affinities, there is no dispensation if it be sought separately, now for one, afterwards for the other; but it must be sought for all together. Likewise there is none, if it be not expressed in which line the relationship lies, whether direct or transverse, and in what degree, equal or unequal. Similarly in spiritual cognation, if it be not expressed whether it be spiritual daughterhood or compaternity, whether one baptized, or only stood sponsor. The same say of confirmation. Likewise none, if dispensation be sought over the crime of uxoricide, without expressing that like dispensation was already obtained. Likewise, if one dispensed over defect of birth for Orders and benefice afterwards seeks dispensation over plurality of benefices, not again expressing defect of birth. Likewise, if dispensation be sought in forma pauperum, and the petitioner be not truly poor. And all these things and certain others come from the style of the Roman court.

Dispensation is sought in a threefold form: in forma pauperum, of honest men, and of nobles. That some be judged truly poor, they must be such that they live only from their labor and industry; and therefore it must be expressed in the petition, so that, if that alone be omitted, the petition is useless. Poverty on both sides must be expressed in the petition.

Daelman, doctor of Louvain, quaest. ultima, observat. ultima, de Matrimon., writes that those should be judged poor who have two or three thousand florins, whether in movables or immovables: both because, if they petitioned in forma honestorum, they would have to be stripped of the greater part of this sum for the dispensation, for which a thousand or two thousand florins are asked, according to the closeness of the degrees, and thus they would become poor; and because these few goods are for them as it were the instrument whereby they can work fruitfully by labor and industry, drawing thence no fruits, or fruits so small that they are reputed as nothing. The theologian cited adds that the Apostolic Nuncio judges thus when petitioners are sent to him by parish priests.

You will ask 1° whether, when the Romans append in the dispensation other causes than those which the petitioner set forth, those causes must be true, that the dispensation be valid.

I answer. Negatively, but it suffices that those proposed by the petitioner be true; for it is not on account of anything else that he asks to be dispensed, and in truth on account of those he is dispensed: but others are appended from the style of the court, and lest the dispensation appear given for lighter causes.

[You will ask 2° whether a dispensation can be validly obtained not only for one who knows not, but also for one who wills not.

I answer. Affirmatively, if necessity or at least sufficient motive be present. This right reason dictates, and it seems to be drawn from cap. Si motu proprio, de praebendis in 6°. But the dispensation must be accepted by him dispensed. Otherwise, however, must it be said of dispensations impetrated from the Roman Penitentiary, unless they be sought by persons joined or blood relatives within the fourth degree, for matrimony, or at least by the confessor, on account of motives which he judges grave. So S. Ligor., lib. I, n. 186.]

You will ask 2° whether, the dispenser dying, the dispensation ceases.

I answer. Negatively; because grace does not expire at the death of the grantor, cap. Si super, de officio delegati in 6°. Which is true also although the dispensation have been conceded subject to revocation; because the living dispenser revoked not, nor does the dead man revoke. Otherwise, if he had said: « Until I will », or: « Until it please me »; for the dead man no longer wills, nor does it any longer please him.

[You will ask 4° how dispensation ceases.

I answer. It ceases in three ways, namely: by cessation of the cause, by revocation, by renunciation.

1° If the final cause cease at the time when the letters of dispensation are expedited, the dispensation has no effect. For the superior is not held to dispense without cause; and from cap. Ex parte, Decretal. lib. I, tit. 3, de rescriptis, « in letters of this kind this condition is to be understood, even if it be not appended: Si preces veritate nitantur ». — If the final cause cease after the expedition of the letters, but before their publication and execution, since the commissary cannot dispense in the name of the superior except under the same condition and restriction, although the dispensation was at first valid, it is then affected with nullity. — If the final cause cease after execution of the letters, a distinction must be made. Either the matter consists in one act, and the dispensation removes only an impediment; and then, the impediment removed, it cannot revive through a change of circumstances, according to rule 73 juris in 6°: « A deed legitimately done ought not to be recalled, although a case afterwards arise whence it could not have been begun. » Or the matter has successive course and coalesces out of several acts, as the quadragesimal fast, the recitation of the canonical hours; and then, since the dispensation is virtually multiple, it undoubtedly ceases when its cause is taken away, if namely he who obtained it on account of weak health afterwards perfectly recover. — If the final cause be held likely to endure forever, the dispensation remains. Thus he who was dispensed from irregularity to receive sacred Orders, even if for a long time he may be unwilling to receive them, can afterwards, his mind changed, be legitimately promoted. — But if only the impulsive cause have ceased, the dispensation does not vanish, unless it were expressly conceded under this condition.

2° Dispensation altogether ceases through revocation expressly made by the superior, because obligation or release from obligation hangs upon him. Revocation without just cause would indeed be illicit, but nevertheless valid. S. Ligor., lib. I, n. 197, with others, holds that the sin of the superior is then venial only. An inferior prelate who dispensed by delegation does not validly revoke the dispensation without cause.

3° The one dispensed can renounce the grace obtained, with the assent of the superior, before he has secured its effect, and can use it no longer. Excepted: if the renunciation redound to the damage of another or of the community in whose favor the dispensation was bestowed, or if the prelate, for just cause, command the subject to make use of the dispensation.]