Page:Law of Marriage as relating to the prohibited degrees of affinity.djvu/12

 be, unaltered. The Council of Trent manifestly discourages the marriage of two sisters. It affirms, under anathema, the disputed power of dispensation; and then, in a very remarkable manner, passes in entire silence over this, the 1st degree of affinity. Of this it says nothing, but goes on to insist on the necessity of extreme rareness of dispensations in the 2nd: "Let a dispensation never be granted in the 2nd degree, except between great princes and for a public cause." If such were to be the urgent cases which alone would allow of any dispensation in the 2nd degree, à fortiori was it the design of those assembled in that Council to discourage dispensations in the 1st. The marriage with the wife of the deceased sister is left in reverent silence, wrapped up in that with the sister herself. It is all but forbidden absolutely, since with regard to it dispensations are not spoken of, and in the degree next below it are limited so extremely. This silence is the more marked, by reason of the recent quarrel with England on this very ground. The Council claims to the Church the authority to dispense with cer- tain Levitical degrees, and so, by implication, defends the authority which had been disputed. But, unlike other cases in which any existing practice or teaching in the Church had been questioned, it avoids any specific decla- ration on the subject. It passes in silence over the very point which had been at issue, as if to prevent its being drawn into a precedent, even while it did not allow the authority of the Pope in this to be questioned. It dis- couraged the use of that power, while it maintained the power itself. So strongly has the meaning of this silence been felt, that in the pleadings in the case of the M. de Sailli, it was alleged in the appeal, that "the Council of Trent forbad such dispensations ;" and Fagnan, " the most esteemed of c Code Matriin. t. i. p. 435.