Chapter I: Of Censures in General

§ 1. A censure is a penalty by which a baptized man, delinquent and contumacious, is deprived of certain spiritual goods or goods attached to spiritual goods, until, receding from contumacy, he is absolved.

§ 2. Censures, especially latae sententiae censures, and most of all excommunication, are not to be inflicted except soberly and with great circumspection.

§ 1. Only an external, grave, consummated delict joined with contumacy is punished by censure; but a censure can also be borne against unknown delinquents.

§ 2. If there is question of ferendae sententiae censures, he is contumacious who, notwithstanding the warnings of which in can. 2233, Sec. 2, does not desist from the delict or refuses to do penance for the perpetrated delict with due reparation of damages and scandal; but for incurring a latae sententiae censure, transgression of the law or precept to which a latae sententiae penalty is attached suffices, unless the accused is excused from this by a legitimate cause.

§ 3. Contumacy is to be said to have ceased when the accused has truly repented of the committed delict and at the same time has himself given congruous satisfaction for damages and scandal or at least has seriously promised it; but to judge whether repentance is true, satisfaction congruous, or the promise of the same serious or not, belongs to him from whom absolution of the censure is sought.

§ 1. Censures inflicted by judicial sentence carry execution with them as soon as they have been borne, nor is an appeal given from them except in devolutive effect; likewise from censures inflicted by way of precept recourse is given, but only in devolutive effect.

§ 2. But appeal or recourse from a judicial sentence or precept threatening censures, even latae sententiae censures not yet contracted, suspends neither the sentence or precept nor the censures, if there is question of a matter in which the law does not admit appeal or recourse even with suspensive effect; otherwise it suspends the censures, with the obligation remaining firm of observing that which is commanded by the sentence or precept, unless the accused has interposed appeal or recourse not from the penalty alone, but also from the sentence or precept itself.

§ 1. Not only diverse censures, but also a censure of the same species can be multiplied in the same subject.

§ 2. A latae sententiae censure is multiplied:

1° If diverse delicts, each of which carries a censure with it, are committed by the same or by distinct action.

2° If the same delict, punished by censure, is repeated several times so that there are several distinct delicts.

3° If a delict, punished by diverse censures from distinct Superiors, is committed once or several times.

§ 3. A censure from man is multiplied if several precepts or several sentences, or several distinct parts of the same precept or sentence, each inflict its own censure.

§ 1. Some censures are reserved, others not reserved.

§ 2. A censure from man is reserved to him who inflicted the censure or bore the sentence, or to his competent Superior, or successor or delegate; but of censures reserved by law, some are reserved to the Ordinary, others to the Apostolic See.

§ 3. Of those reserved to the Apostolic See, some are reserved simply, others in a special manner, others in a most special manner.

§ 4. A latae sententiae censure is not reserved unless this is expressly said in the law or precept; and in doubt, whether of law or of fact, reservation does not urge.

§ 1. A censure is not to be reserved unless attention has been given to the peculiar gravity of the delicts and to the necessity of providing more suitably for ecclesiastical discipline and of healing the consciences of the faithful.

§ 2. Reservation receives strict interpretation.

§ 3. Reservation of a censure impeding reception of the Sacraments imports reservation of the sin to which the censure is attached; but if someone is excused from the censure or has been absolved from the same, reservation of the sin wholly ceases.

§ 1. If a censure is reserved to the Apostolic See, the Ordinary cannot bear another censure reserved to himself against the same delict.

§ 2. Reservation of a censure in a particular territory does not exert its force outside the limits of that territory, even if the censured person goes out from the territory to obtain absolution; but a censure from man is reserved everywhere, so that the censured person can nowhere be absolved without due faculties.

§ 3. If a confessor, ignorant of the reservation, absolves a penitent from the censure and sin, the absolution of the censure is valid, provided it is not a censure from man or a censure reserved in a most special manner to the Apostolic See.

§ 1. Any censure, once contracted, is removed only by legitimate absolution.

§ 2. Absolution cannot be denied as soon as the delinquent has receded from contumacy according to the norm of can. 2242, Sec. 3; but one absolving from a censure can, if the matter bears it, inflict a congruous vindicative penalty or penance for the perpetrated delict.

§ 3. A censure removed through absolution does not revive, except in the case in which the burden imposed under penalty of reincidence has not been fulfilled.

§ 1. If someone is held by several censures, he can be absolved from one, the others by no means absolved.

§ 2. One seeking absolution must indicate all cases; otherwise the absolution is valid only for the case expressed; but if the absolution, although a particular petition was made, was general, it is valid also for those withheld in good faith, except a censure reserved in a most special manner to the Apostolic See, but not for those withheld in bad faith.

§ 1. If there is question of a censure which does not impede reception of the Sacraments, the censured person, rightly disposed and receding from contumacy, can be absolved from sins, the censure remaining firm.

§ 2. But if there is question of a censure which impedes reception of the Sacraments, the censured person cannot be absolved from sins unless he has first been absolved from the censure.

§ 3. Absolution of a censure in the sacramental forum is contained in the customary form of absolution of sins prescribed in the ritual books; in the non-sacramental forum it can be given in any manner, but for absolution from excommunication it is regularly fitting to employ the form handed down in the same books.

If absolution of a censure is given in the external forum, it affects each forum; if in the internal, the absolved person, scandal having been removed, can act as having himself such also in acts of the external forum; but unless the grant of absolution is proved or at least legitimately presumed in the external forum, the censure can be urged by Superiors of the external forum whom the accused must obey, until absolution has been had in the same forum.

Those constituted in danger of death who, from a priest lacking special faculty, have received absolution from some censure from man or from a censure reserved in a most special manner to the Apostolic See, are held, after they have recovered, by the obligation of recurring, under penalty of reincidence, to him who bore the censure, if there is question of a censure from man; to the Sacred Penitentiary or to the Bishop or another furnished with faculty, according to the norm of can. 2254, Sec. 1, if of a censure from law; and of obeying their mandates.

Outside danger of death, the following can absolve:

1° From a non-reserved censure, in the sacramental forum any confessor; outside the sacramental forum, anyone who has jurisdiction in the external forum over the accused.

2° From a censure from man, he to whom the censure is reserved according to the norm of can. 2245, Sec. 2; but he can grant absolution even if the accused has transferred domicile or quasi-domicile elsewhere.

3° From a censure reserved by law, he who constituted the censure or to whom it is reserved, and their successors or competent Superiors or delegates. Wherefore from a censure reserved to a Bishop or Ordinary, any Ordinary can absolve his subjects, and the local Ordinary also travelers; from one reserved to the Apostolic See, the same See or others who have obtained from it the power of absolving, whether general if the censure is simply reserved, or special if reserved in a special manner, or finally most special if reserved in a most special manner, with the prescription of can. 2254 preserved.

§ 1. In more urgent cases, namely if latae sententiae censures cannot be externally observed without danger of grave scandal or infamy, or if it is hard for the penitent to remain in the state of grave sin for the time necessary that the competent Superior provide, then any confessor in the sacramental forum can absolve from the same censures, in whatever way reserved, with the burden imposed of recurring, under penalty of reincidence, within a month, at least by letter and through the confessor, if this can be done without grave inconvenience, the name being withheld, to the Sacred Penitentiary or to the Bishop or another Superior furnished with faculty, and of standing by his mandates.

§ 2. Nothing prevents the penitent, even after absolution accepted as above, and recourse also made to the Superior, from approaching another confessor furnished with faculty, and from him, with confession at least of the delict with the censure repeated, obtaining absolution; having obtained it, let him receive mandates from the same, without being held afterwards to stand by other mandates supervening on the part of the Superior.

§ 3. But if in some extraordinary case this recourse is morally impossible, then the confessor himself, except in the case in which there is question of absolution of the censure of which in can. 2367, can grant absolution without the burden of which above, with nevertheless those things to be imposed by law imposed, and with congruous penance and satisfaction for the censure imposed, so that the penitent, unless within a congruous time to be predefined by the confessor he has done penance and given satisfaction, falls back into the censure.