Remedies

17. Therefore, We want you to know that We intend to apply our authority to more efficacious and stringent remedies for curing these evils. Even after so many exhortations and prescriptions of Apostolic providence and authority, We did not succeed in abolishing the former litigation concerning marriage and separation. You certainly understand that We could justly and reasonably reserve the trials of matrimonial cases even in the first process. But We leave to the bishops the first and to the metropolitan the second process. We then decree that in Polish matrimonial trials the sentence concerning the nullity of a marriage, both in the first process by the bishops and in the second by the metropolitan, may not be executed unless both judgments with their arguments are first examined and approved by the Cardinals, who are the interpreters of the Council of Trent. Moreover any marriage contracted after both judgments have been delivered in your courts, whether or not the Cardinals are considering the matter, We declare to be null and void, both now and for the future.