APPENDIX I: ON THE PRIVILEGES OF CLERICS

1143. • Clerics enjoy certain privileges from canon law and from Roman civil law, indeed according to several from divine law, namely the privilege of immunity, that they not be punished by a lay court, and of exemption from the lay forum as to goods of their own, both ecclesiastical and patrimonial. But these privileges, and most others generally, among us are no longer recognized by the civil power. See n. 112-114. Yet everywhere there remains the privilege which is called of the Canon, by reason of which those incur excommunication who unjustly lay hands on Clerics, concerning which n. 1719. - From the declaration of the S. C. of Immunity, Sept. 20, 1860, a Cleric, having lost according to the laws of the Church the privilege of forum, by that very fact has lost the other privileges, so that he must be considered as a lay person. Del Vecchio, Comp. Scav. T. I. n. 245 (1).

1144. • The privileges of Bishops regard 1° censures and irregularities; 2° impediments of matrimony; 3° vows and oaths; 4° other special cases.

I. Concerning censures and irregularities:

1° They absolve subjects in the forum of conscience from occult papal cases, except cases specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff in the Constitution Sedis Apostolicae of Oct. 12, 1869; and not even these are excepted if subjects cannot go to Rome for absolution without grave damage to themselves or their own, whether temporal or spiritual. They absolve these directly if the impediment of going personally to Rome is perpetual, that is, if founded hope is absent that within five years they can easily do this; otherwise indirectly unto reincidence, that is, with the burden, the impediment having been removed, of presenting oneself to the Pope or to one having faculty from him.¹ See n. 1402. II.

2° They can dispense from all irregularities and absolve from all suspensions incurred on account of an occult delict, except irregularity from voluntary homicide.

3° In non-occult irregularities from defect of birth, for minor Orders and simple benefices, except nevertheless more probably a canonry in cathedrals.² - As to similitudinary bigamy, see St. Alphonsus L. VII. 452.

II. Concerning Matrimony they dispense:

1° In impeding impediments, except the vow of perpetual chastity, the vow of entering Religion, espousals, and the impediment of disparity of cult between Catholics and heretics (n. 1572. q. 1°).

2° In supervening impediments, after matrimony has been contracted, in order to asking the debt, for example if they have contracted affinity because one or the other had carnal commerce with the blood-relatives of the other; or if one has vowed chastity. Indeed a Bishop can also dispense a spouse from a vow of perpetual chastity which he emitted before Matrimony, so that he may be able to exercise matrimonial rights (n. 1572. q. 2. 1589. III.).

3° In doubtful diriment impediments¹ (n. 1623. II.).

4° By accident in certain diriment impediments, both before and after Matrimony has been contracted² (n. 1623 and App. to this n.).

5° In publications of Banns³ (n. 1538 sq.).

III. Concerning vows and oaths, Bishops can dispense:

1° In all simple private vows, except the five reserved to the Pope, namely of perpetual chastity, of entering Religion, and of pilgrimages to Jerusalem, to the thresholds of the Apostles, and to St. James of Compostella, n. 392. q. 3°.

2° In all oaths, if you except oaths added to an onerous promise, especially made in favor of a third party and accepted by this one, which were not extorted by fear or fraud.

IV. Concerning other particular cases, Bishops can dispense:

1° Sometimes in the law of a Superior. See n. 154, 159.

2° For making the Sacred rite from midday, and if great and urgent causes are present, but only by way of act, in private houses and in a private oratory.⁴ - They also have a personal privilege, by which through themselves or through another they can celebrate in their own house and in any other outside their own habitation, while on the occasion of visitation or journey or in cases permitted by law they make a stay away from their diocese. Van de Burgt, De Celebr. Miss. n. 227, 228.

3° They can choose for themselves a confessor outside the diocese, provided he is their subject, and they can take him with them into diverse places; but if he is not a subject, he must be approved by his own Ordinary, not by the Ordinary of the place of confession. Cardinals can do the same, but at Rome only, although they can take elsewhere with them the one whom they have chosen.¹

4° They can dispense from interstices for ordination.²

The special faculties of our Bishops, see p. LXX sq.