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Canon law of the Catholic Church |
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Petrine privilege, also known as the privilege of the faith or favor of the faith, is a ground recognized in Catholic canon law allowing for dissolution by the Pope of a valid natural marriage between a baptized and a non-baptized person for the sake of the salvation of the soul of someone who is thus enabled to marry in the Church.[1]
In essence, it is an extension to marriages between a baptised and a non-baptized person of the logic of the Pauline privilege, the latter being dissolution of a marriage between two non-baptized persons to enable one of them, on becoming a Christian, to enter a Christian marriage.
According to Canon 1150 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the privilege of the faith "possesses the favor of law."[2] In other words, whenever it is possible that the privilege is applicable, the law favors its granting.[3] Nevertheless, dissolution of a marriage in favor of the faith, which is seen as having a biblical precedent in Jews putting away their non-Jewish wives recounted in Ezra 10:1–14, is rarely used.[4]
Primetshofer
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).