Title I: Of the Nature of a Delict and Its Division

§ 1. By the name of delict, in ecclesiastical law, is understood an external and morally imputable violation of law to which a canonical sanction, at least indeterminate, has been added.

§ 2. Unless another thing appears from the circumstances, the things which are said concerning delicts are applied also to violations of a precept to which a penal sanction is attached.

The quality of a delict is to be taken from the object of the law; but its quantity is to be measured not only from the diverse gravity of the law injured, but also from the greater or lesser imputability or from the damage inflicted.

A delict is:

1° Public, if it has already been divulged or has happened or is situated in such circumstances that it can and must prudently be judged that it will easily be divulged.

2° Notorious by notoriety of law, after a sentence of a competent judge which has passed into a res iudicata, or after the confession of the delinquent made in judgment according to the norm of can. 1750.

3° Notorious by notoriety of fact, if it is publicly known and was committed in such circumstances that it can be concealed by no tergiversation and excused by no support of law.

4° Occult, that which is not public; materially occult, if the delict itself is hidden; formally occult, if its imputability is hidden.

A delict which injures only the law of the Church, by its nature, only ecclesiastical authority pursues, with the help of the secular arm sometimes required where the same authority has judged it necessary or opportune; a delict which injures only the law of civil society, by its own right, with the prescription of can. 120 preserved, civil authority punishes, although the Church also is competent concerning it by reason of sin; a delict which injures the law of both societies can be punished by each power.