It was necessary for Us to have been formed by the hands of God, and endowed with intelligence and reason, in order not to appear inferior to certain animals. For that weakness which is not free from blame, or not properly subject to just reproaches, is as reprehensible as the wisdom of human nature is superior to brutal instinct. It was as requisite for men to possess greater matrimonial chastity than brutes as to be above them in other respects. For there are many kinds of animated beings which, after the death of their mates, remain in perpetual widowhood, and are unwilling, as it were, to cover their former unions with earth. But as our nature, not considering this weakness to be base, although it is exceedingly so, is not content with a single marriage, but proceeds to contract a second one without any manifestation of shame; and even when it should go no farther, but then desist, it still does not do so, and, in spite of having been forbidden by the Holy Law, it hastens from a second marriage to a third, thereby treating with contempt the penalty established for such an offence, for the reason that it is not inflicted, and above all, because the Civil Law, I do not know why, not approving of the Decree of the Holy Spirit which promulgated it, frees persons from censure who after one marriage are unwilling to abstain from contracting another, We, in accordance with the Decree of the Holy Spirit, do hereby order that persons who contract a third marriage shall be liable to the penalty denounced against them by the sacred canons.