§ 4. EXCOMMUNICATIONS *LATAE SENTENTIAE* RESERVED TO NO ONE

Ten are numbered: namely FOUR from the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis. SIX others inflicted by the Council of Trent.

1351. I. "Those commanding or compelling that notorious heretics, or those excommunicated or interdicted by name, be handed over to ecclesiastical burial."

Only those commanding by their own authority, for example syndics, or compelling, through force or grave fear, that a notorious heretic, although he may have been in good faith, or apostate, although not to be avoided, or any other person excommunicated by name, whether by the Pope or by the Bishop, or interdicted by name, be buried in a blessed cemetery or in another sacred place, although polluted or interdicted, incur this censure. More probably they do not incur this censure who bury, as a priest merely obeying, cf. however n. 1344, or furnish work to those burying. Nor those who command an unworthy person to be buried in a profane or separate place, although with ecclesiastical rite and blessing of the grave. On the contrary, those incur it who command such a one to be buried in a sacred place, although no sacred rite is used (cf. n. 1377, end); except if by force of civil law, as in Germany, they are bound to command this. See Piat, on this excommunication.

1352. II. "Those injuring or terrifying inquisitors, denouncers, witnesses, or other ministers of the Holy Office, or tearing away or burning the writings of its sacred tribunal; or furnishing help, counsel, or favor to any of the aforesaid."

Injuring, etc. (cf. 1322); tearing away, that is, as if plundering, destroying, lacerating, burning, but not secretly taking away by force one or another writing of the Holy Office, not only at Rome, but wherever it exists (D'Annibale, n. 174); writings, that is, instruments whether public or private, whether handwritten or printed in type, which pertain to this Sacred Tribunal. Those are not subject to this excommunication who admit the same things against denouncers before Bishops, or witnesses, or ministers of Bishops, or writings pertaining before them to the matter of the Holy Inquisition. Holy Office, 28 Jan. 1892 (Nouv. Rev. Theol., 26, p. 317).

1353. III. "Those alienating and presuming to receive ecclesiastical goods, without apostolic beneplacit, according to the form of the Extravagant Ambitiosae, concerning things of the Church not to be alienated."

THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCOMMUNICATED: 1. Those alienating, namely those in whose possession is the administration of goods, and by whose mandate and in whose name the alienation is made; but not Bishops or abbots, who, in the cited Extravagant, are coerced only by interdict from entrance of the Church.1 2. Those presuming to receive, namely those who, no ignorance, etc., excusing, according to what was said n. 1269, 3, acquire, hire, etc., the aforesaid goods, or by whose mandate and in whose name the goods are received, of whatever dignity they may be. - Those consenting, counseling, favoring, mandataries, those destroying ecclesiastical things, stealing, etc., are not comprehended.2

Let it be noted: 1. Under the name of ALIENATION comes every perfect act by which direct or useful ownership, in whole or in part, is transferred to another, or is in any way changed, obligated, or made worse. Of this kind is donation, exchange, sale, emphyteusis, infeudation, census, hypothec, imposition of servitude, transaction, cession of a right already acquired, etc., likewise lease beyond a useful or fruitful three years (Ferraris, v. Alienatio, art. I).

Alienation is also had if the title of money is exchanged into another, as is clear from the Decree of S. C. C., 17 Febr. 1906 (cf. A. S. S., 39, p. 156; Wernz, Jus Decr., III, n. 160).

The contraction of debts performed by Religious, if it exceeds 10000 lire, is an alienation which requires apostolic beneplacit (A. A. S., I, p. 698).

2. ECCLESIASTICAL GOODS are here understood as all goods whose administration is subject to ecclesiastical authority, such as: a) goods, whether immovable or precious movable, which pertain to churches or monasteries, even of congregations (S. C. de P. F., 15 Jan. 1903); b) ecclesiastical benefices, even rights of patronage and ecclesiastical chaplaincies, but not lay ones, as is more probably taught (cf. Lucidi, de Vis. SS. Lim., III, n. XLIV, 16); c) goods of any pious place whatever, for example confraternity, academy, seminary, hospital, etc., erected by ecclesiastical authority, although in the civil forum the goods are inscribed as property of a private man (Resp. S. Congr. Episc. et Reg., on 17 Feb. 1886). Immovable goods are buildings, estates, fields, forests,1 etc.; likewise rights and actions in immovables. Precious movable goods are judged to be all things which are of the treasury of the Church, or of the pious place, as gold and silver vessels, gems, abundant libraries, and similar things. In these is not comprehended MONEY which is destined for daily uses, or which comes from fruits of estates; even if it has been placed in public census, in banks, etc. But that money is comprehended which comes from the alienation of immovables, or has been given with the perpetual burden of Masses, or with the express obligation of buying an immovable or precious movable, as Bouix asserts and proves at length (de Reg., P. V, s. IV, c. III). The dowry of sisters is also comprehended in religious Institutes (A. A. S., l. c.).

3. WITHOUT APOSTOLIC BENEPLACIT, yet with the consent of the Bishop, or of the regular Superior if it is a question of exempt persons, alienation is made LICITLY and VALIDLY: a) if the thing, even immovable, for example a little plot of land, a sterile estate, is of slight value, that is, below 25 gold scudi of the camera (221 fr. 30; Roman scudi 41.25);2 or such that its revenues do not suffice for preserving it; or it is leased for three years, even with a promise added of leasing for another three years; or such that it is likely not to last for three years without notable deterioration, for example a garment, beast of burden, etc.; or b) if necessity urges, or an occasion of great utility is present which otherwise would pass; or c) if the thing was given to the Church with this condition, that it can be alienated; or d) if the thing has been left to one incapable of possessing, as the Friars Minor Observants and Capuchins are, who for this reason can sell the thing and apply it to the utility of the Church or monastery; or e) if a special and personal privilege is had, as is drawn from the Decree of the Holy Office, 22 Dec. 1880.3

4. Understand the words ACCORDING TO THE FORM OF THE EXTRAVAGANT concerning the just causes and solemnities which are required for obtaining apostolic beneplacit. These and other things, see in St. Alphonsus, IV, 187; cf. De Angelis, l. III, tit. 13.

Note. On 8 Feb. 1911, the Sacred Penitentiary established these things: Lessees of ecclesiastical goods do not incur the Tridentine censure unless the damage thence coming to the Church, in the space of one or more years, according to the estimation of a prudent confessor, reaches a notable quantity, greater indeed than what regularly suffices for the gravity of unjust damaging (Nouv. Rev. Theol., 1911, p. 294).

1354. IV. "Those neglecting, or culpably omitting, to denounce within a month confessors or priests by whom they have been solicited to shameful things, in any cases whatever expressed by our predecessors, Gregory XV, Const. Universi, 20 August 1622, and Benedict XIV, Const. Sacramentum Poenitentiae, 1 June 1741."

The crime of solicitation is provocation to shameful things, made by a priest as confessor. See more n. 1794 sqq.; cf. St. Alph., VI, 675 sqq.

That the censure be incurred, it is necessary that someone culpably omit the denunciation for an entire month. But, "because time does not run for one ignorant," the month must be computed from when he knew: the obligation of denouncing, the censure annexed to the obligation, and the time fixed for himself. If something grave stands in the way of denunciation, the obligation is suspended. - The denunciation having been made after the conceded time, the excommunicated penitent can be absolved by any confessor.

1 Cf. Noldin, de Poenis, n. 101. D'Annibale, n. 175, Lehmkuhl, and others judge that alienation which would be made between pious places, convents, or churches, is not comprehended in this censure. But the Decree of S. C. C., 24 Jan. 1632, seems to stand in the way. - Note, the condition of alienators and recipients is diverse. Crass ignorance does not profit alienators, but excuses recipients.

1 Fruit-bearing trees do not pertain to immovables, if you take ecclesiastical goods strictly, insofar as, under censure, apostolic beneplacit is required for alienating them. - For their destruction only the consent of the Ordinary is required. Bizzarri, Collectanea, p. 331.

2 Yet Wernz and Vermeersch judge that today, because of the changed condition of money, a value which does not exceed 750-1000 francs can be held slight.

3 A. S. S., 15, p. 539; cf. Del Vecchio, I, n. 628, where there are many things.

From TRENT are excommunicated:

1355. V. Those who print, or cause to be printed, books treating of sacred things, without the approval of the Ordinary (Trent, Sess. 4, c. 1).

The Holy Office, on 22 Dec. 1880, decreed that this censure must be restricted to books of the sacred Scriptures, and also to any annotations whatever on the same which treat of sacred things in general, that is, things pertaining to religion. But Leo XIII renewed this excommunication, within the limits of this Decree of the Holy Office, in the Constitution Officiorum ac munerum, n. 48.

Only the printers are excommunicated, that is, the owners of the press, or the principal managers, who take upon themselves the care of printing; or those causing printing, that is, the author of the book, the publisher, or another who commands or cares for it by himself, that the book be committed to type. Cf. Vermeersch, de Prohib. et Cens. libr., n. 125, p. 155.

1356. VI. Those who teach certain errors concerning holy communion, or concerning marriage.

The following are excommunicated: 1. Those who shall have presumed to teach, pertinaciously assert, publicly defend: that confession of mortal sin is not to be placed before communion (Trent, Sess. 13, de Euchar., can. 11).

2. Those who deny that clandestine marriages are true marriages, so long as the Church has not made them invalid; and who falsely affirm that marriages contracted by children of families without the consent of parents are invalid, and that parents can make them ratified or invalid (ibid., Sess. 26, c. 1, de Ref.).

1357. VII. Ravishers of women, and those furnishing counsel, help, or favor to them (Sess. 24, c. 6, de Ref. Matrim.).

He does not incur this censure who keeps in his own house a woman already ravished by others; because the ravishing has already been consummated. But the following incur it: the ravisher, namely such a one as contracts the diriment impediment of marriage; the executor, if he is distinguished from the ravisher; finally all cooperators (see n. 2005). Cf. St. Alph., VI, 1106 sqq.

1358. VIII. Those violating the liberty of contracting marriage (Sess. 24, c. 9, de Ref. Matrim.).

This censure does not strike private persons, or those who exercise supreme power, but only temporal lords or magistrates, who exercise jurisdiction (for example in some province, in some tribunal), when namely, directly or indirectly, they compel their subjects or any others whatever, so that they do not freely contract marriages.1 But if marriage does not follow, the censure is not incurred (see n. 2003, at the end).

1359. IX. Those violating, in a woman, liberty of entering Religion (Sess. 25, c. 18, de Reg.).

1. "The holy Synod subjects to anathema all and singular persons... if in any way they shall have compelled another's virgin, or widow, or any other woman unwilling, except in the cases expressed by law, to enter a monastery, or to receive the habit of any Religion whatever, or to emit profession; and those who have given counsel, help, or favor; and those who, knowing that she does not enter a monastery, or receive the habit, or emit profession of her own accord, in any way interpose either presence, consent, or authority to the same act."

Moreover the cases which the Law excepts are the following: a) if a woman, after she has consented to the religious profession of her husband, and she herself has vowed continence, casts suspicion of violating the vow; b) if an adulterous woman, after her conversion, is no longer received by her husband; c) if a girl, for the sake of education or custody, for some time, namely until she is fit for marriage, is placed unwilling in a monastery. From the Decree of Gregory IX, c. 18 and 19, de Conv. conjugatorum. Cf. St. Alph., VII, 212, and l. El. qq. ref., n. 98; De Angelis, l. 3, tit. 31, n. 9.

2. "Likewise the holy Synod subjects to a similar anathema those who, in any way, without just cause, shall have impeded the will of holy virgins or other women of receiving the veil or emitting a vow" (l. c.).

1360. X. A magistrate who, at the instance of the Bishop, does not furnish help against contradictors and violators of the enclosure of nuns (Sess. 25, c. 5, de Reg.).

Under the name of magistrate comes a praetor, judge, rector of a city, prefect of a province; not however a prince. Enclosure is understood to be papal.