Condemnation of Marriages with Heretics

2. Nor is it necessary for us to prove in full the antiquity of the discipline by which the Apostolic See always condemned the marriage of Catholics with heretics. But it will be sufficient to bring forward only some evidence with which We may show that the same discipline and rule which has been diligently preserved down to our own time flourishes now, by Us no less religiously preserved. This is what our predecessor Pope Urban VIII testifies to concerning his own times in his Apostolic Letters dated December 30, 1624; these may be read in the book of Cardinal Albitius entitled De inconstantia in Fide, chap. 37, no. 127, where he writes: "Granted that We hold that the marriages of Catholics with heretics are all-together to be avoided, and, as far as it depends on us, We aim to keep them far from the Catholic Church". Also our predecessor Pope Clement XI, in the letters dated June 25, 1706, and found in the collection of his briefs and letters published in Rome in 1724, expresses himself no less clearly. On page 321 we read: "We consider it most important not to transgress the rules of the Church of God, of the Apostolic See, of our predecessors and of the holy people, all of whom shrink from the marriage of Catholics with heretics, unless the good of the entire Christian community should demand it". And in other letters dated July 23, 1707, in the same collection, page 391: "Indeed the Church shrinks from such marriages which present so many proofs of deformities and spiritual danger".