§ 1. From the Constitution *Apostolicae sedis*

First ordinary reserved excommunication. Clerics constituted in sacred orders, or regulars or nuns after the solemn vow of chastity, presuming to contract marriage; and also all presuming to contract marriage with any of the aforesaid persons.

92. a. Some thought: a. that to incur the censure it is required that no other impediment stand in the way of such a marriage; but the holy see declared that the censure is contracted even if, besides order or vow, other diriment impediments are present, e.g. of affinity or consanguinity;¹ b. that the censure is not incurred if they contract civil marriage in a place where the Tridentine law on clandestinity is in force; but again the holy see declared that the censure is contracted through civil marriage, even in a place where the Tridentine law is in force.²

b. Presuming. Since in clerics and religious ignorance of the law prohibiting marriage is impossible, only ignorance of the penalty, or ignorance of the order or vow by which the other party is bound, will be able to excuse.

Second ordinary reserved excommunication. Those procuring abortion, once the effect has followed.

¹ Holy Office, January 13, 1892.

² Holy Office, December 22, 1880.

93. Explanation. From the very words of this censure three things are required for incurring it: a. that there be true abortion; b. that the abortion has been procured; c. that the effect has followed.

1. That there be true abortion. From those things which have been said elsewhere concerning the nature of abortion,¹ it is established that for true abortion it is required: a. that the fetus be expelled: for if it is not certainly established that what is expelled is a fetus and not only a mole, excommunication is not incurred; b. that it be expelled before the seventh month of gestation: for after the seventh month of gestation there is not abortion, but accelerated birth.

a. Therefore excommunication is not incurred if semen is expelled immediately after intercourse, because conception is not yet certain; nor if a fetus already dead is expelled, even if the one procuring did not know that it was already dead.

b. The surgical operation which is called craniotomy is not so much the procuring of abortion as direct homicide; for that reason one who performs craniotomy does not incur the excommunication by which those procuring abortion are struck.

c. It makes no difference at what time after conception abortion is procured, because the words of the constitution do not distinguish between an animated and unanimated fetus, but say absolutely: those procuring abortion.

2. That it has been procured. Those are said to procure abortion who, whether by themselves or through another, from the direct intention of abortion, try to produce it by an action efficacious of itself; as if a physician or lover provides a remedy to a woman for the end of abortion or strikes fear into her: for one is said to procure something who deliberately seeks it.

Therefore they do not incur excommunication who from anger, hatred, or another motive, although gravely sinful, strike a pregnant woman in such a way that abortion follows accidentally, even if it was foreseen.

a. Whether from recent law a mother who procures abortion for herself incurs excommunication is disputed. Nevertheless all agree that a mother who has been induced by grave fear to procure abortion for herself is immune from the censure.

Those who affirm say that our constitution without distinction strikes all procuring abortion, therefore also the mother. Those who deny this say that in the ancient decrees, with all consenting, the mother was not comprehended under the name of those procuring, although the same term "those procuring" was used; therefore since the Pian constitution wishes rather to restrict than to extend excommunications, the mother also in the recent decree is not judged to be comprehended.

b. Not only those who by themselves, but also those who through another effect that a woman expel the fetus, are said to procure abortion; therefore those mandating, both to the woman that she procure abortion for herself, and to others that they procure abortion for the woman, are struck with excommunication. But those cooperating in abortion, whether physically or morally, do not incur excommunication from recent law, because in our constitution, otherwise than happened in the ancient decrees, cooperators are not contained.

3. That the effect has followed. Therefore two things are required from this head for incurring the censure: a. that the abortion has in fact followed from the means employed; b. that it is certainly established that it has followed from this very means and not rather from another.

a. From the opinion of St. Alphonsus (n. 40), he does not incur excommunication who repents of the procured abortion before the effect follows, because in this case the delinquent is no longer contumacious when the sin becomes consummated in act. Nevertheless repentance indeed effects that the sin previously committed ceases, but it cannot prevent the censure from being incurred on account of the sin committed previously with depraved and contumacious will. Nor is it an obstacle that the penalty is contracted when the sin has already been remitted: for penalty is not the effect of a sin persisting, but of a sin previously committed (n. 21).

b. The distinction between an animated and unanimated fetus is no longer attended to: for recent laws are judged to prescind from the ancient and obsolete hypothesis of an unanimated fetus. Therefore excommunication is incurred at whatever time abortion takes place.

Third ordinary reserved excommunication. Those knowingly using false apostolic letters, or cooperating in the crime in this matter.

¹ Cf. De praeceptis^8 n. 342.

94. Those falsifying apostolic letters contract excommunication reserved in a special mode to the pope (I. 9); those knowingly using false letters, i.e. exhibiting them in order to obtain the effect contained in them, even if they do not obtain the effect, whether they are clerics or laymen, and likewise those knowingly and efficaciously cooperating by work or counsel in their use, incur this excommunication.

95. On absolution from censures reserved to the bishop by law.

a. In an urgent case the penitent can be directly absolved by any confessor (unless the bishop has reserved to himself the sin to which a papal censure is annexed); nevertheless afterward he is bound, by himself or through the confessor, under penalty of reincidence, to have recourse to the bishop and to stand by his mandates, as has been established concerning other papal cases.

b. One constituted in the article of death can be absolved by any confessor, nor does the obligation of approaching the bishop remain if the absolved person has recovered, unless the bishop has reserved the censure to himself under this condition.

c. Regulars have power of absolving from these cases, unless bishops have reserved them to themselves; for before the Pian constitution, by force of privilege they were able to absolve from reserved cases (except episcopal ones); but by the aforesaid constitution the privilege of absolving from cases reserved to the Roman pontiff is revoked. Therefore the faculty of absolving from cases not reserved to the Roman pontiff remains.