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“13. Another object calling for our common solicitude is the marriage of Christians, that pure alliance which Saint Paul has called a great sacrament in Jesus Christ and His Church. Let us stifle the bold opinions and rash innovations which can compromise the sanctity and indissolubility of its bonds. This recommendation has already been made to you in a special manner by the letters of Our predecessor, Pius VII, of happy memory. Yet the attacks of the enemy are constantly increasingly. Care must therefore be taken to teach the people that marriage, once lawfully contracted, can no more be dissolved; that God has imposed on the married whom He has joined together, the obligation of living in perpetual society, and that the knot which binds them can be severed only by death. Never forgetting that marriage is included in the circle of holy things, and placed, consequently, under the jurisdiction of the Church, the faithful will have under their eyes the laws of the Church in this matter; they will obey them with religious respect and fidelity, convinced that on their execution depend absolutely the rights, stability, and legitimacy of the conjugal union.” — Pope Gregory XVI