Question VIII: Concerning the Excommunicated

I. The obligation of the confessor as regards excommunications. - Not rarely penitents occur who have contracted the penalty of excommunication. Hence it seems opportune summarily to set forth those things which concerning this matter are more necessary in practice and therefore specially to be attended to.¹ And indeed the confessor has the obligation both of knowing sufficiently those things which regard excommunications, and of admonishing penitents concerning these things.

¹ Authors who have written after the promulgated Code can be inspected, such as Prummer and Vermeersch. Cf. Revue Eccl. de Liege, Nov. 1928.

A. There is the obligation of knowing with habitual knowledge:

1. At least the better known or more frequently occurring censures.

Therefore let him know that the following are excommunicated by the very fact from law: apostates, heretics, schismatics; those publishing, defending, reading, or retaining books of these persons defending apostasy, heresy, schism, or other books prohibited by name through apostolic letters; authors or publishers of books of Sacred Scripture or commentaries printed without license; those issuing laws, commands, decrees against the liberty or rights of the Church, or impeding the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction by recurring to lay power; those giving their name to a Masonic sect or similar association plotting against the Church or legitimate civil power; those laying violent hands on clerics or religious persons, especially on bishops and cardinals, most of all on the Supreme Pontiff; whoever communicate in the offense, and clerics in divine things, with an excommunicated person to be avoided; those sacrilegiously casting away the consecrated species or carrying them away or retaining them for an evil end; those procuring abortion when the effect has followed; those dueling and their accomplices; those absolving accomplices in a base sin; those falsely denouncing a confessor concerning solicitation; those solicited by a confessor and not denouncing him; apostates from religion; those presuming to enter marriage while the impediment of a vow of chastity stands, whether solemn, or simple and perpetual emitted in religious profession; those violating religious enclosure; those entering marriage before a non-Catholic minister or with a pact of educating offspring in a non-Catholic religion; likewise those handing over children to be baptized by a non-Catholic minister or to be instituted in a non-Catholic religion; those commanding or compelling non-Catholics or others interdicted to be handed over to ecclesiastical burial; those usurping ecclesiastical goods, and those alienating precious things or things exceeding the value of 30,000 fr.,² etc.

² Several understand this of value in gold.

2. Also to know which of these are reserved.

For there are altogether few which are reserved to no one and can be absolved by any confessor, namely those which affect persons publishing books concerning Sacred Scripture without license, those handing over the unworthy to ecclesiastical burial, those illegitimately alienating ecclesiastical goods of great value, those compelling one to embrace the clerical or religious state, and those not denouncing the confessor by whom they were solicited. All the others are reserved either to the Ordinary, or to the Supreme Pontiff: either simply, or specially, or even most specially, such as sacrilegious casting away or carrying off or retaining of the consecrated species, laying a violent hand on the Supreme Pontiff himself, and absolution of an accomplice. It should be noted:

a) those absolving from an excommunication latae sententiae reserved in a most special or special manner without due faculty incur by the very fact an excommunication simply reserved to the Apostolic See, can. 2338, § 1; nevertheless in doubt either of law or of fact, reservation does not urge, can. 2245, § 4;

b) besides, all censures ab homine by that very fact are reserved to him who inflicted the censure or pronounced the sentence, can. 2245, § 2.

3. To know also the conditions required for incurring them.

They are: a) on the part of the subject, that he be baptized; in possession of reason and capable of malice; pubescent, according to the discipline now in force; and subject to the jurisdiction of the one excommunicating;

b) on the part of the object, that the sin be external, grave, consummated, and not only attempted, in the species which is reserved, in this sense that it fulfill all the conditions placed in the pronouncement of the censure, and joined with present contumacy, can. 2242, § 1. Hence in the sinner there is required knowledge both of the law prohibiting and of the special penalty to be inflicted on transgressors;³ and therefore ignorance, even culpable, excuses, not however affected ignorance, which is equated with knowledge, nor always gross ignorance, unless the censure is brought against those who presumed, dared, knowingly, studiously, deliberately, rashly acted, can. 2229.

³ Prummer, Th. M., III, n. 485, observes: "In the external forum presumed contumacy sometimes suffices. For when some ecclesiastical law has been sufficiently promulgated, knowledge of it is presumed in all subjects, who, if they transgress this law, must pay the penalties and censures sanctioned. Hence, for example, a Catholic who contracts marriage before a non-Catholic minister incurs the excommunication brought, although he is ignorant of the existence of this censure, Holy Office, 11 May 1892. Therefore such a Catholic truly ignorant of the excommunication can be absolved in the internal forum by any confessor, but still needs absolution in the external forum."

B. Generally there is the obligation of admonishing delinquents who are ignorant of excommunication, so that, namely, they may know the obligation of ecclesiastical law and conceive greater horror of sin, and thus the law attain its end.

Nor in the case can the principle rather often praised be applied: admonition is not to be made if it is not hoped that it will profit. For this principle can be invoked only when it is a question of ignorance of law and sin, for the good of the penitent and unless graver inconveniences are feared, namely for avoiding formal sin. For if he in good faith is ignorant of law and sin, and it is not foreseen that he will be amended, it is better to abstain from admonition and to permit inculpable transgression and material sin than by admonishing to provoke culpable transgression and formal sin. But that does not hold in the case when it is a question of mere ignorance of the penalty; for formal sin is already present. Hence then there is no reason for omitting admonition, but it must be made with every solicitude so that sin may be avoided in the future. - But if some do not care concerning this, or even deliberately omit it, they act thus so that they may avoid for themselves the inconveniences of future recourse to the Ordinary or to the Sacred Penitentiary. This is to seek one's own convenience, not the good of the penitent or of the Church, concerning which alone the faithful minister must be solicitous.

II. When the confessor can absolve from reserved censures. - One who is excommunicated is not freed from a censure except by legitimate absolution, can. 2248, § 1; but a simple confessor of himself cannot absolve from a reserved censure, but only he who has due jurisdiction for this, ordinary or delegated. Yet when the cause is more urgent, delegated jurisdiction for absolving from reserved censures is granted by the law itself, namely:

1. In danger of death, any priest, even if an approved priest is present, can licitly and validly absolve in the sacramental forum any penitents whatever from all censures without exception, can. 882. Nevertheless the dying person, after he has recovered, is held to have recourse within a month, by himself or through the confessor, to the legitimate superior or to another furnished with faculty, under penalty of falling again into the censure, and to stand by their commands, but only in two cases: if the censure was brought ab homine through a particular sentence, or if it is reserved to the Supreme Pontiff in a most special manner, can. 2252.

2. In more urgent cases, any confessor can directly absolve in the sacramental forum from all reserved censures latae sententiae, but by explicitly imposing the burden of having recourse, under penalty of falling again, within a month, at least by letter and through the confessor, if this can be done without grave inconvenience, the name being kept back, to a superior furnished with faculty and of standing by his commands; or of approaching another confessor furnished with faculty, so that from him, confession being repeated at least of the offense with the censure, he may obtain absolution and receive commands from him.

The more urgent cases are determined by law: if namely censures latae sententiae cannot be observed

a) without danger of grave scandal, e.g., if because of the excommunication of a parish priest or magistrate grave anger or disturbance would arise in the people; or

b) without danger of infamy, e.g., if all things are now prepared for nuptials, or a parish priest or vicar cannot omit celebration, or a layman Easter communion, without infamy; or

c) if it would be hard for the penitent to remain in the state of grave sin for the time necessary for the competent superior to provide, Holy Office, 16 June 1897, and can. 2254, § 1 and 2; yet this is not hard for all.

3. Indeed in an extraordinary case, when this recourse is foreseen as morally impossible, any confessor, except in the case of absolution of an accomplice, can grant absolution without the burden of recourse, or of confession to be made before a privileged confessor, but with a twofold condition: a) the things to be enjoined by law having been enjoined, namely removal of scandal or proximate occasion, and reparation of damage, and b) a fitting penance and satisfaction for the censure having been imposed, besides the sacramental penance. This indeed in such a way that the penitent, unless within a fitting time to be determined beforehand by the confessor he has done penance and given satisfaction, falls again into the censure, can. 2254, § 3.

Recourse can be made orally, or by letter, or through another, e.g., the confessor. In this last case it is morally impossible if neither the confessor, because, for example, he must depart before the response and while absent cannot safely communicate the response without others suspecting, nor the penitent, perhaps inexperienced, can send a letter, and at the same time it is hard for the penitent to approach another confessor, Holy Office, 9 Nov. 1898; 5 Sept. 1900. But if the penitent is a priest, he is never excused from recourse, because he himself can easily write to Rome and seek a response under a fictitious name, Holy Office, 3 June 1899.

III. Absolution of excommunication in the external forum and in the internal forum. - Excommunication latae sententiae of itself holds the delinquent who is conscious of the offense in each forum; yet in such a way that before declaratory sentence he is excused from observing the penalty as often as he cannot observe it without infamy, and in the external forum no one can exact the observance of the penalty from him unless the offense is notorious, can. 2232, § 1. Hence absolution can be given in each forum: by the confessor in the sacramental forum; outside the sacramental forum by him who has ordinary or delegated jurisdiction in the external forum over the guilty person.

Absolution given in the external forum holds also in the internal forum; hence if someone was absolved from a reserved censure, the sin is no longer reserved. Absolution in the internal forum of itself does not hold in the external forum unless it is proved or legitimately presumed, and otherwise the superior can urge observance until absolution in the external forum has been had, can. 2251. Therefore, scandal having been removed, e.g., if the excommunication was not public in the place or if it is sufficiently established concerning absolution received, one absolved in the internal forum can conduct himself as such in acts of the external forum.

Ordinarily, however, for public offenses, absolution is not to be given in the internal forum before absolution in the external forum has been obtained; hence what was said above concerning more urgent cases, namely danger of grave scandal or infamy, holds only if reputation is still intact and the offense is not notorious; and therefore it does not hold concerning penalties ferendae sententiae, which are considered as ab homine, can. 2217, § 3. But if then for someone it would be especially hard to remain in the state of grave sin, he could be absolved, but only from a censure latae sententiae, in the internal forum provisionally under the burden of recurring within a month; but in the external forum he would have to conduct himself as excommunicated and abstain from public reception of the sacraments until, scandal having been sufficiently repaired, he has also been absolved in the external forum.

In the sacramental forum the customary form of absolution is to be employed, in which absolution from censures is contained; in the external forum, unless the superior granting the faculty has prescribed a more solemn form, it can be given in any manner; nevertheless it is fitting to observe the form handed down in the rituals, can. 2250, § 3.

IV. Manner of proceeding in practice. - Therefore the confessor receiving accusation of a sin which incurs excommunication should proceed thus:

1. First let him carefully examine whether all conditions, on the part of the subject and object, necessary for incurring the censure are present.

2. Likewise whether the further conditions of the censure as it is reserved are present; but if some founded doubt remains, the case is not reserved, can. 2245, § 4.

3. But if all required conditions are present, then it must be investigated whether it is a more urgent case or not; but if it is not, the penitent cannot be absolved, but is to be sent to another privileged confessor, or first the faculty of absolving is to be sought.

4. If it is a more urgent case, the penitent is to be admonished concerning the reserved censure and concerning the obligation of recurring within a month; and if he seriously promises, he can be absolved. And meanwhile the due faculties should be sought from the superior.

5. If he does not promise to recur, and does this because he foresees that recourse is morally impossible, then both reparation of scandal and damage and a special and fitting penance to be fulfilled within a fixed time are to be imposed on him; and if he promises to fulfill them, he will be able to be absolved.

6. If without sufficient reason he refuses to promise, he cannot be absolved, but can be sent to the superior or to another confessor having special faculties, from whom he may seek absolution.

7. If the penitent, notwithstanding the first promise, does not return to hear the commands of the superior, and thus acts from culpable negligence, he falls again into excommunication, because he makes little of the gravely prescribed recourse, which is not completed until the penitent has accepted the commands. But if he could not return without great inconvenience, he does not fall again into excommunication, but the obligation of recurring remains afterward as soon as he can;⁴ but if recourse becomes morally impossible, what was said above under 5 must be done, and due reparation and a fitting penance imposed.

⁴ From the nature of the thing it is established that a determined time was fixed for urging the obligation.

V. Observations. - 1. The reservation of the sin ceases when the reservation of the censure ceases.

2. When there exists a censure which impedes reception of the sacraments, as excommunication does, the censured person cannot be absolved from sins unless he first has been absolved from the censure, can. 2250, § 2. Nevertheless if absolution were granted by one having power, it would be valid, while the penitent was in good faith.

3. Ignorance of the censure generally excuses from its reservation, but ignorance of the reservation of the censure, once the censure is known, does not excuse.

4. "If the confessor, ignorant of the reservation, absolves the penitent from censure and sin, the absolution of the censure holds, provided it is not a censure ab homine or a censure reserved in a most special manner to the Apostolic See," can. 2247, § 3. Indeed also absolution from the sin holds; for if someone has been absolved from a censure, the reservation of the sin altogether ceases.

5. Not only diverse censures, but even a censure of the same species, can be multiplied in the same subject, can. 2244, § 1. Hence "if he is held by several censures, he can be absolved from one, with the others by no means absolved. One seeking absolution must indicate all the cases; otherwise the absolution holds only for the case expressed. But if the absolution, although a particular petition was made, was general, as it is customarily given in sacramental confession, it holds, provided the one absolving has the competent faculty, also for those kept silent in good faith, excepting a censure reserved in a most special manner to the Apostolic See, but not for those kept silent in bad faith," can. 2249.

6. The absolution which a competent confessor has given from a reserved censure holds even if the confession was null or sacrilegious, provided the penitent accused the reserved things. If this accusation was omitted in good faith, several judge that even then the censure has been taken away, since the confessor is judged to wish to use his power efficaciously as far as he can.

An exception is made if someone confessed sacrilegiously at the time of a jubilee, because at this time faculties are granted only in order to gain the jubilee, which cannot happen by a sacrilegious confession.

7. He who after absolution omitted due recourse falls again into the censure, but not into the sin, which remains absolved; hence he must accuse only the omission of recourse as a sin. But if, after he has recurred, he does not observe the commands, he sins gravely, but whether he falls again into the censure is uncertain.

8. Although the censure is reserved to no one, nevertheless one cannot be absolved from it unless he has satisfied the due obligation or has seriously promised that he will fulfill it.

VI. Admonitions. - 1. Let them know that they sin gravely, as injuring the grave law of the Church: a) those who knowingly absolve without necessity from a reserved censure, b) those who, absolving in a more urgent case, omit admonition concerning recurring within a month, c) those who, delegated by the superior or, in an extraordinary case, by the law, omit imposing due reparation and a fitting penance.

2. Let them know that the Ordinary, in occult cases, can by himself or through another remit penalties latae sententiae established by common law, except censures reserved in a most special or special manner to the Apostolic See, can. 2237. Besides, bishops often obtain broader delegated faculties for notorious cases, or for those reserved in a special or even most special manner, at least for some cases. Hence generally, in place of the Sacred Penitentiary, recourse can be made to the bishop. In this case, however, care must be taken that the sacramental seal not be violated.

3. Let regular mendicant confessors know, and those who participate in the privileges of mendicants, that they can absolve from cases reserved to the bishop, not indeed by proper authority, but reserved by law, as, for example, is the case concerning procurement of abortion.