by permission of the said parish priest, or of the ordinary, and in the presence of two or three witnesses; them doth the holy synod render utterly incapable of thus contracting, and declares such contracts void and null, as by the present decree it declares them void and annuls them. Yet further, it enjoins that the parish priest, or any other priest, who shall have been present at any such contract with a less number of witnesses [than aforesaid]; as also the witnesses who have been present thereat without the parish priest, or some other priest; and, also, the contracting parties themselves; shall be severely punished, at the discretion of the ordinary. Furthermore, the same holy synod exhorts that the married couple do not live together in the same house until they have received the sacerdotal benediction, which is to be received in the church; and it ordains that the benediction shall be given by their own parish priest, and that permission to bestow the aforesaid benediction cannot be granted by any other than the parish priest himself, or the ordinary; any custom, even though immemorial, which is rather to be called a corruption, or any privilege, notwithstanding. And if any parish priest, or any other priest, whether he be regular or secular, shall dare to unite in marriage the betrothed of another parish, or to bless them [when married], without the permission of their parish priest, he shall, even though he may contend that he is allowed to do this by a privilege, or an immemorial custom, remain by the very act suspended, until he be absolved by the ordinary of that parish priest who ought to have been present at the marriage, or from whom the benediction ought to have been received. The parish priest shall have a book, which he shall keep carefully by him, in the which he shall register the names of the parties married, and of the witnesses, and the time and place of the marriage being contracted. Finally, the holy synod exhorts those who marry, that, before they contract, or, at all events, three days before the consummation of marriage, they carefully confess their sins, and approach piously to the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist. If any provinces have herein in use any praise-worthy customs and ceremonies, besides the aforesaid, the holy synod earnestly desires that they by all means be retained. And lest these so wholesome injunctions be unknown
