point — Gury-Ballerini, Compendium of Moral Theology (8th ed., 1884)
Point III. *Latae Sententiae* Excommunications Reserved to No One
- Concerning these the same Constitution Apostolicae Sedis declares thus:
We declare to be subject to latae sententiae excommunication reserved to no one:
I. Those commanding or compelling notorious heretics, or persons excommunicated or interdicted by name, to be given ecclesiastical burial 1.
1 The censure which under the ancient law, from Clementine 1, On Burial, struck those burying in a sacred place persons publicly excommunicated, manifest usurers, etc., has been restricted in two ways by force of this Article. For: 1. it affects not those burying, but only those commanding or compelling burial, etc.; 2. it applies only when there is question of burying notorious heretics, under which class notorious apostates from the Christian faith must also come, and persons excommunicated by name or interdicted by name.
Avanzini writes in this place (no. 42): To this or another article in which there is question of persons declared excommunicated by name can in some manner be referred those things which are read in the Instruction of the Office of the Sacred Inquisition concerning the duty of the Ordinary to admonish or judicially declare by name those who incur censures reserved to the Roman Pontiff.
But Cretoni writes somewhat differently (Note to this article): Since, where there is question of persons declared excommunicated by name, a judicial sentence is presupposed by which the guilty person is declared to have incurred excommunication, it was asked generally whether those who incurred censures are to be admonished by the Ordinary. I said that the question is proposed here somewhat differently. For Cretoni takes it, according to the words in which it is thus presented in the Instruction, You asked whether those who incurred the aforesaid censures are to be admonished, as though it were merely asked whether an admonition must be premised if those who incur censures are to be denounced or declared by name, through a judicial sentence, to be excommunicated or interdicted.
But the Sacred Inquisition does not appear to have understood the question thus. For, setting aside for the present those things which it answers either concerning admonition by a confessor in the forum of conscience or concerning pastoral admonition by the Ordinary, with regard to a judicial sentence it merely has this: Whether it is expedient that this declaratory sentence be delivered cannot be determined generally, but must be discerned after the circumstances of the deed and persons have been carefully weighed. But these things answer nothing to the question which Cretoni judged to have been proposed.
Moreover, St. Alphonsus (book 7, no. 137) had resolved the question thus understood by Cretoni from the common doctrine: one excommunicated by law, unless the crime is notorious, must first be cited by his own Superior so that he may defend himself. But the Holy Doctor understands notoriety not only of fact but also of law; for, as he says (loc. cit., no. 144), until the guilty person has confessed or been condemned in judgment, he can always be excused by some defense.
II. Those harming or terrifying Inquisitors, denouncers, witnesses, or other ministers of the Holy Office; those carrying off or burning the writings of its sacred Tribunal; or those furnishing assistance, counsel, or favor to any of the aforesaid persons.
III. Those alienating, and those presuming to receive, ecclesiastical goods without the Apostolic Good Pleasure, according to the form of the Extravagant Ambitiosae, On Ecclesiastical Things Not to Be Alienated 2.
2 We shall take the explanation of this Article from the Rieti Commentary, than which nothing fuller and clearer can be desired. By this Article, therefore, alienations of ecclesiastical goods without the Apostolic Good Pleasure, according to the form of the Extravagant Ambitiosae, are punished with excommunication.
Ecclesiastical goods are said to be: 1. those which are in the patrimony of some Church or Monastery; 2. ecclesiastical Benefices and Chaplaincies, even merely lay ones; 3. finally, the goods of any Pious Places, provided these have been erected by ecclesiastical authority. But ownership of goods of this kind is in the Churches themselves and the Pious Places; administration is in their Rectors or Stewards; care and, as it were, guardianship is in the Ordinaries of Places or of Regulars. Wherefore administrators or stewards cannot alienate them, and if they have alienated them, they effect nothing; but Ordinaries regularly cannot alienate immovable or precious movable goods without the good pleasure of the Apostolic See.
It was said regularly; for otherwise they can alienate: 1. estates of small value, under which class there does not come a part of an estate, however small its value, or those which bring more inconvenience than advantage. But estates which formerly were estimated at no more than twenty-five Camera gold pieces, namely, about 212 lire, are held to be of small value; formerly, I say, because account of the value of money, altered from the beginning of the seventeenth century down to us, does not appear to be neglected even in these matters. 2. They can alienate anything else if either necessity which does not admit of delay presses, or an opportunity is present which would otherwise pass away; likewise things donated to the Church under the condition that they can be alienated, or purchased with an agreement of resale. Moreover, since according to law 28, ff., On the Signification of Words, He who does not use an opportunity of acquiring is not understood to alienate, as one who omits an inheritance or does not embrace an option given within a definite time, they can repudiate things offered to the Church by right, or left to it, but not yet accepted, for example, a donation, inheritance, or legacy; and thus they can fail to satisfy a condition under which something was left or promised to the Church or Monastery; and much more can they fail to employ an exception by which some right would be acquired or restored to the Church. Hence they can also make a settlement, not indeed by diminishing, but by not acquiring. Nor is it alienation to receive money on loan, or to invest money existing in the treasury of the Church, provided that, if by necessity of law it must be invested in a fruitful immovable thing, then, if such is lacking, it be invested in real annuities.
But the word alienation is here taken most broadly for any contract by which either: 1. ownership is transferred, as by giving a thing in payment, exchanging a thing, or granting it in emphyteusis; or 2. some real right departs from the Church, understand also a Monastery, etc., or a real burden is imposed upon things, for example, an annuity, mortgage, or servitude, or a servitude owed to it is remitted; or leases are made beyond a useful or fruitful three-year period.
Moreover, since the excommunication is not contracted unless the alienation is made without the good pleasure of the Apostolic See, and since in alienations which are made from Church to Church there is not sufficient agreement as to whether good pleasure of this kind is necessary, it is not established that there is place for the excommunication in these. Likewise, if an alienation has been made from a just cause and without detriment to the Church, the excommunication appears to cease; for the received opinion is that an alienation of this kind is valid in the forum of conscience, although it is not valid in the external forum.
In addition, since the excommunication is not incurred unless the alienation has been completed on both sides, it therefore will not be incurred when the thing has not yet been delivered, and indeed even if it has been delivered but sold under a suspensive condition. Leases beyond three years will also lack both fault and censure if either they were made under the condition that, after each three-year period has ended, the lessor may withdraw from the lease; or they were made by usufructuaries, for example, Beneficiaries or Chaplains, since they fall when their right is dissolved.
Finally, since this sanction strikes only those alienating and those presuming to receive, it therefore does not comprehend those consenting, counseling, favoring, etc.; and much less those who destroy ecclesiastical things or steal or plunder them. Indeed, it does not comprehend all who alienate, but only those to whom their administration is entrusted. And even from these Bishops and Abbots must be excepted, who are punished not with excommunication but with interdict from entrance into the Church. Add that, since that which once departed from me cannot depart from me any further, if someone afterward alienates a thing acquired by him contrary to the form of the Extravagant Ambitiosae, neither he nor the one who receives it incurs excommunication. See the praised Rieti Commentary, where all these things are seen to rest upon solid foundations.
IV. Those neglecting or culpably omitting to denounce within a month Confessors or Priests by whom they were solicited to shameful acts in any of the cases expressed by Our Predecessors Gregory XV in the Constitution Universi, 20 August 1622, and Benedict XIV in the Constitution Sacramentum poenitentiae 3.
3 Since time does not run against one who is ignorant, the month must be computed from the time when someone knows: 1. the obligation of denunciation; 2. the excommunication annexed to this obligation; and 3. the time prefixed to the obligation. Therefore, so long as someone is ignorant of the obligation, he lacks both fault and penalty. But so long as, although he knows the obligation, he is nevertheless ignorant of the penalty of censure added to it, he likewise does not incur it, because contumacy against the sanctioning law is lacking. In the third case, however, if he falsely judged that the denunciation had to be made immediately, and thus he is not bound by excommunication until the month has elapsed, since a false judgment concerning a censure does not suffice for inducing it. But if he believed that the denunciation could be made whenever he pleased, he does not incur it even after a month, so long as in good faith he judges that it can still be deferred.
Moreover, if someone has promised that he will denounce and confidence can be placed in him, he can be absolved not only from sins before the month has elapsed, which is expressly provided in the Constitution of Benedict XIV (above, page 546, note b), but also from the excommunication which he incurred after the month elapsed.
Finally, take care to observe that, although besides penitents who were solicited, anyone else who learned of a solicitation of this kind from persons worthy of trust is also bound to denounce soliciting confessors (above, no. 390, II), these latter nevertheless, if they do not fulfill the obligation of denunciation, do not today undergo excommunication.
V. To this place appears to pertain the excommunication against Missionaries engaging in commerce in the East Indies, and against their immediate Superiors who have not punished delinquents, according to the Constitution Ex debito of Urban VIII, 21 February 1633, and Sollicitudo of Clement IX, 17 July 1669; which excommunication is known still to be in force by declaration of the Supreme Pontiff from the encyclical letters issued by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda on 29 March 1873 4.
4 The Constitution of Clement IX thus decrees (section 3): Under the penalties, to be incurred by that very fact, of a latae sententiae excommunication and deprivation of active and passive voice... and also loss of all merchandise and profits,... by the tenor of the present letters We strictly prohibit... them from involving or mixing themselves, in any manner and howeversoever, in commerce and secular business, under any pretext, title, color, cause, occasion, and form, even once, by themselves or through agents.... And from now... after the case has occurred, We apply by the course of these letters any merchandise and profits which have proceeded from commerce and business of this kind... to the uses and benefit of the poor, hospitals, seminaries, etc.; and delinquents are bound to consign merchandise and profits of this kind to the Ordinaries of Places.... (Section 4.) Furthermore, with the same censures and penalties We bind and declare that there shall be bound the immediate Superiors, and the Provincials and Generals of the aforesaid Orders or Congregations, who have not punished their respective subjects delinquent in the aforesaid matters... in any manner even for a single occasion, at least by removing them from the places where the offense was committed by them.
But none of the aforesaid delinquents can be absolved from the sentence of an excommunication of this kind by Superiors or by any other person or persons, even supported by any authority, except one constituted at the point of death, unless profits of this kind have first been restored.
Avanzini (Commentary, page LVIII) thought that this censure should fittingly be enumerated in the catalogue of excommunications simply reserved to the Roman Pontiff. He derives the reason (Acts, volume 7, page 324) from parity with the excommunication inflicted upon those sectaries who do not denounce the secret chiefs and leaders of the sects until they have denounced them. For a similar clause (he says) is appended to the excommunication of which we are treating by the words: unless profits of this kind have first been restored.
But the argument sought from clauses of this kind appears too weak. These merely prescribe what must by law be required from one who asks to be absolved; nor in any other sense can a case be considered reserved to the Roman Pontiff by force of such a clause, except insofar as He, as legislator, reserves to Himself the relaxation of these obligations, namely, both of denouncing in the one case and of renouncing the profits in the other. Yet the same thing can be said of the obligation of denouncing solicitors, concerning which in the preceding article; for the faculty of absolving one who is not prepared to satisfy this obligation is given to no one besides the Roman Pontiff, and nevertheless that excommunication is not found among those reserved to the Roman Pontiff. Therefore, in order to determine in which catalogue an excommunication furnished with clauses of this kind must be numbered, it appears that one should rather inspect whether the case still remains reserved to the Roman Pontiff when the penitent satisfies his duty. But this happens only when there is question of sectaries; for even after the denunciation of the chiefs has been made, by law the one who failed to denounce can be absolved only by the Roman Pontiff; but in the other cases the penitent can be absolved by any Confessor. For otherwise there would have been no reason why the excommunication against those not denouncing the chiefs of sectaries should be placed among those reserved to the Pontiff, while on the contrary that imposed against those not denouncing a soliciting priest should be placed among those reserved to no one. Since, therefore, no special faculty is necessary to absolve one who has satisfied his obligation, it must be concluded that excommunications of this kind are to be added to the catalogue of those reserved to no one.
Moreover, with regard to those clauses until they have denounced and unless profits of this kind have first been restored, one must recall those things which the Doctors hand down concerning the clause the party having been satisfied and others of this kind. On this matter see above, no. 955, question V, with the Note.
VI. Magistrates are excommunicated if, at the request of the Bishop, they do not furnish assistance against those opposing the enclosure of nuns 5. Council of Trent, session 25, chapter 5, On Regulars.
5 Nevertheless, this censure (says Avanzini, no. 63) appears in the present condition of society already to have passed into desuetude through nonuse. It is, namely, a consequence of the apostasy by which governments have defected from the Christian religion to paganism, or rather to atheism.
VII. Likewise, abductors of women, and those furnishing counsel, assistance, and favor to abductors of this kind. Council of Trent, session 24, On the Reformation of Matrimony.
IX. Those compelling a woman to enter a monastery, or impeding her from entrance. Council of Trent, session 25, chapter 18, On the Reformation of Regulars 6.
6 The Tridentine Decree adds: Except in the cases expressed in law. But in law it is excepted that a Bishop can compel a wife to enter a monastery if, after her husband with her consent has entered Religion and already emitted solemn vows, she is suspected of incontinence, from chapter Significavit 18, On the Conversion of Spouses (see above, no. 761, page 741, in the Note). Likewise, that a Bishop can compel into a monastery a wife whom a husband, after she has fallen and repented, does not wish to receive (chapter Gaudemus 19, same title).
Moreover, since all are struck with this anathema if in any manner they have compelled any virgin or widow, or any other unwilling woman whatever... to enter a monastery, or to receive the habit of any Religion whatever, or to emit profession...; and those who, knowing that she does not voluntarily enter a monastery, or receive the habit, or emit profession, have in any manner interposed either presence, consent, or authority in that act, Sanchez rightly says (Decalogue, book 4, chapter 4, no. 12), with respect to entrance, that the limitation which Emmanuel Rodriguez thus appends is pleasing to him (Summary, tome 2, chapter 8, no. 10): Nor does a father incur it (the excommunication) who, with the permission of the Ordinary, provides that his daughter, orphaned of her mother, be placed in some monastery until she becomes fit to contract matrimony. Therefore someone will incur the censure (as Sanchez says) when that compulsion is ordered toward afterward receiving the habit, whether by the persuasions of the nuns or for another reason, but not when this is in no manner intended. See Bonacina (disputation 2, question 2, part 2, no. 6) and Ferraris (Nun, article 1, nos. 53 and 55).