Reserved Cases

Limitation of jurisdiction.—(a) Reserved Sins or Cases.—For the sake of discipline and the good of souls the absolution of certain more atrocious or pernicious crimes is reserved to higher superiors, namely, to the Pope or the Ordinary. Reservation is not incurred in a case reserved on account of censure, if the penitent’s act was not gravely imputable; nor probably in a case reserved for its own sake (unless the reserving authority willed otherwise), if the penitent was ignorant (though not crassly or supinely) of the reservation (Canon 2229). To fall under reservation, a sin must be mortal, consummated (i.e. not merely attempted) certain and formal (i.e., perpetrated with knowledge of the special malice that caused reservation). Reservation ceases when confession is made by the sick who are unable to leave the house or by those who are about to be married; when the Superior has refused the request for faculties to absolve a reserved case, or the confessor prudently decides that the request for faculties cannot be made without grave detriment to the penitent or danger to the seal; when confession is made outside the territory of the Superior who reserves the sin (Canon 900).

(b) Reserved Persons.—Those who have not special faculties cannot validly hear the confessions of nuns (Canon 876), for the director of consciences of these Religious should be endowed with special virtue, knowledge and prudence. Religious Superiors, novice-masters, and rectors of seminaries or colleges should not act habitually as confessors of their subjects (Canons 518, n. 2, 891), lest the distinction between the internal and the external forum be forgotten. Finally, to prevent abuse of the Sacrament and occasions of relapse, a confessor cannot validly absolve his accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment, consummated or unconsummated, or from the sin of complicity itself, as necessary matter of the Sacrament, if the sin was on both sides external, certain, and both internally and externally grave (Canons 884, 2367).

Absolution from Reserved Cases.—(a) In danger of death, any priest can absolve every reserved sin and censure, but, should the penitent recover, there is a duty in certain specified cases of having recourse to the lawful superior (Canons 882, 2252). The latter Canon specifies two cases in which recourse is necessary after the person recovers, namely, a censure ab homine and one most specially reserved to the Holy See. A third case has been added by the Sacred Penitentiary, namely, when a priest who has attempted marriage and is unable to separate asks for absolution from the censure of Canon 2388, Sec.1, in danger of death.

(b) In urgent cases, namely, if censures latae sententiae cannot be observed externally without grave danger of scandal or infamy, or if it is hard for the penitent to remain in the state of grave sin for such time as may be necessary in order that the competent superior may provide, then any confessor can, in the sacramental forum, absolve from these censures, no matter how they are reserved, imposing, under pain of falling back into the censure, the obligation of having recourse within a month (at least by letter and through the confessor, if it can be done without grave inconvenience), without mentioning the name, to the Sacred Penitentiary or to a Bishop or other superior who has the faculty. The confessor imposes also the obligation of fulfilling his injunctions (Canon 2254, Sec.1). It is to be noted:

1. the circumstances constituting an urgent case are the two specified in the Canon: the difficulty of observing the censure; the hardship of remaining in sin.

2. the object of the absolution is all censures latae sententiae, however reserved, with one exception, namely, the censure incurred under Canon 2388, Sec.1, the case of a priest who, after an attempted marriage, is unable to separate. No absolution as an urgent case under this Canon can be given. The censure latae sententiae for false denunciation can be absolved under this Canon only if the conditions of Canon 2363 have been fulfilled (actual formal retraction and reparation; imposition of a grave and long penance; and the sin itself remains reserved ratione sui to the Holy See).

3. Sufficient extrinsic authority is available to make safe in practice the extension of the grant of power of this Canon to censures ab homine which are ferendae sententiae.

4. Sections 2 and 3 of this Canon indicate the right of the penitent to go afterwards to a privileged confessor without making the recourse to the superior enjoined upon him or observing the mandata from the superior in case he has already made recourse, and the procedure to be followed when recourse is morally impossible.

(c) Outside of necessity, only those can absolve who have ordinary or delegated faculties. The law itself grants to pastors the power to absolve during the whole of paschal time from all sins which the Ordinary has reserved to himself, and missionaries have the same power during the time they are giving a mission (Canon 899, n. 3). This does not apply to censures nor to cases reserved to the Ordinary by the Apostolic See or by law, such as the excommunication latae sententiae which Canon 2350 declares against the procurers of abortion.