The Catechism of the Summa - Tertia Pars - XLIII. OF THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY; OF ITS NATURE, IMPEDIMENTS, DUTIES; OF DIVORCE; OF SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGE; AND OF ESPOUSALS (C)

(C)
What are the prohibitory impediments?

They are the simple vow of virginity, the vow of perfect chastity or of not getting married, the vow of receiving Holy Orders, the vow of embracing the religious state; legal parentage, which results from adoption, in those countries where the civil law makes this a prohibitory impediment; lastly, the mixed marriage when one of the two baptized parties is a member of an heretical or schismatical sect (Code, Canons 1058, 1059, 1060).

When one of these impediments exists what is to be done so that marriage may take place?

It is necessary to ask the Church's dispensation from the impediment; and this the Church does not grant except for grave reasons, especially in the case of a mixed marriage; in this latter case the Church exacts that the non-Catholic party shall do nothing to hinder the other from practising the Catholic religion, and that the children born of the marriage shall receive both Catholic baptism and bringing up (Code, Canon 1061).

If one of the parties, without belonging to an heretical or schismatical sect, be notoriously impious and have rejected the Catholic faith and have joined some society condemned by the Church, would there in this case be an impediment of marriage?

No, not in the sense that the Church's dispensation is necessary, but the Church desires that all the faithful should avoid such unions because of the perils of all sorts attaching thereto (Code, Canon 1065).

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