to any, it enjoins on all ordinaries, that they, as soon as they are able, take care that this decree be published and explained to the people in every parish church of their respective dioceses; and that this be done as often as possible during the first year; and afterwards, as often as they shall judge it to be expedient. It decrees, furthermore, that this decree shall begin to have its effect in each parish at the expiration of thirty days, to be reckoned from the day of its first publication made in the said parish.
CHAPTER II.
Between whom Spirtiual Relationship is contracted.
Experience teaches that, by reason of the multitude of prohibitions, marriages are oftentimes unwittingly contracted in prohibited cases, in which [marriages] either [the parties] continue, not without great sin, or they are dissolved, not without great scandal. The holy synod, therefore, wishing to provide against this inconvenience, and beginning with the impediment arising from spiritual relationship, ordains, that, according to the institutions of the sacred canons, one person only, whether male or female, or at most one male and one female, shall receive in baptism the person baptized; between whom and the baptized, and the father and mother thereof; as also between the person baptizing and the baptized, and the father and mother of the baptized, [and these] only, shall a spiritual relationship he contracted. The parish priest, before that he proceeds to confer baptism, shall carefully inquire of those whom it may regard, what person or persons they have chosen to receive from the sacred font the person baptized, and he shall allow him or them only to receive him, and shall register their names in the book, and teach them what relationship they have contracted, lest they have any excuse on the plea of ignorance. And if any others, besides those designated, should touch the baptized, they shall not in any respect contract a spiritual relationship; constitutions that tend to the contrary notwithstanding. If, through the fault or negligence of the parish priest, anything be done contrary hereto, he shall be punished at the discretion of the ordinary. That relationship, likewise, which is contracted by confirmation, shall not
