Title XII: On Exceptions

Six things are stated in this decretal. First, he sets forth the preamble, the ancient law, and the reason for the constitution. Second, he says that a defendant who pleads the plaintiff’s excommunication as an exception in order to repel him from bringing an action ought to express the kind of excommunication and the name of the person excommunicating, and to prove it within eight days; otherwise, the judge will proceed in the cause and condemn him in expenses. Third, he establishes that if the same or another excommunication is again objected and proved, the plaintiff is repelled, but the things already done will be valid. Fourth, that this exception is not to be opposed more than twice, except for cause. Fifth, that if it is opposed after the matter has been adjudged, execution is impeded, but the sentence nevertheless remains valid. Sixth, it is said that a judge ought by virtue of his office to repel from bringing an action a person publicly excommunicated, even if the defendant does not object. John Andrew.

Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons. With pious consideration Mother Church established that an exception of major excommunication, opposed at any stage of judicial proceedings, is to delay litigation and repel plaintiffs, so that ecclesiastical censure may thereby be feared more, the danger of communion avoided, the vice of contumacy restrained, and excommunicated persons, while they are excluded from common acts, may, suffused with shame, be more easily inclined to the grace of humility and the desire for reconciliation. But, with the malice of men increasing, what was provided as a remedy tends toward harm. For while this exception is more frequently opposed through malice in ecclesiastical causes, it happens sometimes that business is delayed and the parties wearied by labors and expenses. Therefore, because this disease has crept in as though common, we have judged that a common medicine should be applied.

Accordingly, if anyone opposes an excommunication, he is to express its kind and the name of the person excommunicating, knowing that he ought to bring into public notice a matter that he can prove by the clearest documents within the space of eight days, the day on which it is proposed not being counted. But if he does not prove it, the judge is not to omit proceeding in the cause, condemning the defendant, after an assessment has first been made, in the expenses that the plaintiff shows that he incurred during those days on this account.

But if afterward, while the judicial instance endures and an opportunity for proof supervenes, the same or another excommunication is again pleaded as an exception and proved, the plaintiff is to be excluded from subsequent acts until he merits obtaining the grace of absolution, while the things that preceded nevertheless endure in their force. Provision is to be made that this exception is not opposed more than twice, unless a new excommunication has arisen or evident and ready proof concerning the old one has supervened.

But if such an exception is proposed after the matter has been adjudged, it will impede execution; the sentence that preceded will nevertheless obtain its due force no less. This is saved: if the plaintiff is publicly excommunicated and the judge knows this, at any time, even if the defendant does not plead an exception concerning it, the judge is not to postpone repelling the plaintiff by virtue of his office.

An exception of a matter adjudged by an ecclesiastical judge ought to be admitted in the secular forum, and conversely. John Andrew.

Boniface VIII. Since certain secular judges, when an exception concerning a matter adjudged by an ecclesiastical judge is pleaded before them in a case in which cognizance belongs to him by custom or law, refuse to hear the persons pleading the exception, in derogation and contempt of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, we decree that persons of this kind are to be restrained from iniquity through ecclesiastical censure and compelled by the ordinaries of the places to admit the same exception where it otherwise ought by law to be admitted. Similarly, if an exception concerning a matter adjudged by a secular judge is pleaded before ecclesiastical judges, they are to admit that exception in matters that do not introduce danger to souls; if they do not, they are to be chastised by their superiors with due correction.