--- /blink/renderer/core/xml/parser/xml_document_parser.cc
+++ /blink/renderer/core/xml/parser/xml_document_parser.cc
@@ -538,10 +538,6 @@
 static bool ShouldAllowExternalLoad(const KURL& url) {
   String url_string = url.GetString();
 
-  // libxml should not be configured with catalogs enabled, so it
-  // should not be asking to load default catalogs.
-  CHECK(!IsLibxmlDefaultCatalogFile(url));
-
   // The most common DTD. There isn't much point in hammering www.w3c.org by
   // requesting this URL for every XHTML document.
   if (url_string.StartsWithIgnoringASCIICase("http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml"))
@@ -648,6 +644,7 @@
   if (did_init)
     return;
 
+  xmlCatalogSetDefaults(XML_CATA_ALLOW_NONE);
   xmlInitParser();
   xmlRegisterInputCallbacks(MatchFunc, OpenFunc, ReadFunc, CloseFunc);
   xmlRegisterOutputCallbacks(MatchFunc, OpenFunc, WriteFunc, CloseFunc);