Can cousins marry?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ImmaculataFan
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ImmaculataFan

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Hi, I was reading some of the threads on the AAA Forum, and I read one about cousins and marriage. It said that first cousins couldn’t marry, but any others could. I had always been taught that it was all the way up to ninth cousins that couldn’t be married. Is this possibly something else such as the kids have a higher chance of having birth defects, possibly?
 
Hi,

Actually, first cousins CAN marry with a dispensation. The “New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law” (by Beal, Coriden and Green - p.1293) states: “The local ordinary can dispense from the impediment in the third (uncle niece) and the fourth degrees (first cousins) of the collateral line. Nevertheless, civil laws may well prohibit marriages within these degrees of consanguinity.”

Fr, Vincent Serpa, O.P.
 
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