§ 1. From the Constitution *Apostolicae sedis*

First non-reserved excommunication. Those commanding or compelling that notorious heretics, or persons excommunicated or interdicted by name, be handed over to ecclesiastical burial.

97. a. Those commanding or compelling are understood to be those who, endowed with public authority, either command burial by authority, or by force or fear compel others to bury. Therefore those burying or assisting at burial do not incur the censure.

b. Ecclesiastical burial is had if the deceased is placed in a sacred place and with a sacred rite; indeed even if he is placed without a sacred rite, provided this is done in a sacred place, the censure is already incurred; but it is not incurred if he is buried with a sacred rite in a profane place. They dispute whether, to contract the censure, the place ought to be consecrated by the bishop or in his name, or whether it suffices that it be simply blessed by a priest, or only destined by the bishop for the burial of the faithful. Since the matter is doubtful, it seems that it must be said that the place ought to be consecrated.

c. Notorious heretics (apostates, schismatics), even if they are not to be avoided and have adhered to no sect, provided it is publicly established that they were heretics and died in heresy, whether by notoriety of law or of fact.

Note. Since in Austria, from civil law, heretics in two cases must be buried in the cemetery of Catholics, it must be noted that they do not incur the censure who command burial, or compel others to bury, not in their own name but by force of civil law or in the name of a superior, because contumacy is lacking.

Second non-reserved excommunication. Those injuring or terrifying inquisitors, denouncers, witnesses, or other ministers of the Holy Office, or plundering or burning the writings of it or of its sacred tribunal, or furnishing help, counsel, or favor to any of the aforesaid.

98. a. This censure has been established for protecting the tribunal of the holy inquisition. Those incur it who injure in body or terrify, i.e. affect with very grave fear, judges, witnesses, or other ministers of the Holy Office. Those plundering or burning, or destroying in another way, but not secretly carrying away, the acts, even printed, of the same sacred tribunal.

b. Although bishops have been constituted inquisitors by the holy see, nevertheless their tribunal is not called simply the Holy Office; therefore the censure is not to be extended to the tribunals of bishops.

Third non-reserved excommunication. Those alienating, or presuming to receive, ecclesiastical goods without apostolic approval according to the form of the extravagans Ambitiosae, on ecclesiastical things not to be alienated.

99. Explanation. The constitution Ambitiosae establishes two things: a. for ecclesiastical goods of great value to be alienated both licitly and validly, the license or approval of the apostolic see is required; b. those alienating and receiving ecclesiastical goods without license incur excommunication.¹ Now, to explain the excommunication which our constitution renews, it must be set forth: a. what ecclesiastical goods are understood here; b. what actions are prohibited under censure; c. what persons are punished by this censure.

The constitution Ambitiosae was received neither in Germany nor in France; for this reason before the constitution Apostolicae sedis, by custom legitimately introduced, any ecclesiastical goods whatever could be alienated without license of the holy see, without excommunication being contracted. But after the constitution Apostolicae sedis, the law of seeking this license and the censure annexed to it are in force even in Germany and France: for the Holy Office declared on December 22, 1880, that the custom had been entirely taken away by the Pian constitution.²

¹ C. Ambitiosae un. De rebus eccl. non alienandis (Extrav. com. III. 4) of Paul II, March 1, 1468.

² Cf. Acta s. sedis XV. p. 539.

100. What ecclesiastical goods. 1. Ecclesiastical goods are here understood to be the goods of all places which are called sacred or pious, provided they have been erected by ecclesiastical authority, even if their goods are administered by lay persons.

Ecclesiastical goods are not pious legacies or other goods donated to the Church which have not yet been accepted by the Church or duly acquired, nor lay chaplaincies, although not even these can be alienated at will.¹ But goods which pertain to institutes of men and women, whether approved by the holy see or only diocesan, are ecclesiastical, which cannot be alienated without license of the holy see; and those alienating them thus incur excommunication.²

2. Nevertheless, not all ecclesiastical goods indiscriminately, but only immovable goods and precious movable goods (which can be preserved by being kept), are prohibited from being alienated without consulting the holy see.

a. Immovable goods are judged to be not only estates and buildings, but also those things which are held by the land, such as mines, fruit-bearing trees or things necessary for the estate, rights (the right of hunting and fishing) and servitudes, revenues, and money destined by donors for acquiring estates or precious movable goods.

b. Precious movable goods are judged to be gold or silver vessels, abundant libraries, ornaments which excel by antiquity or workmanship, etc., provided they are not of slight value. But goods are judged to be of slight value which do not exceed the sum of 300 florins, or 500 marks, or 600 francs.³

But precious movable goods in order to this law are not judged to be: money, unless it has been given for buying immovable goods or precious movable goods; bonds and shares, which scarcely differ from money; notable relics, which are less properly called precious movable goods; old furnishings, which by custom can be alienated for procuring new ones equally precious; nor fruits and goods which cannot be preserved by being kept: for these are permitted to be alienated by this constitution itself.

¹ S. C. C., February 8, 1871. Cf. Acta s. sedis VI. 476.

² S. C. de Prop. Fide, January 15, 1903.

³ S. C. Epp. et Reg., May 1, 1840. The sum of 25 gold pieces, which in this decree the congregation mentions from older responses (from 1611 and 1698), with the value of money changed, is now rightly judged equivalent to the sum placed above.

101. Actions prohibited under censure are alienation and the corresponding reception or acquisition, presumptuous, of ecclesiastical goods. By the name of alienation is understood any contract by which the right of ownership, or of use, or of usufruct, is transferred to another, or in any way diminished or burdened. Actions of this kind are:

a. Sale, exchange (giving in payment), donation, hereditary transmission (Vererbung), etc., by which ownership is transferred to another;

b. Pledging, hypothecation, imposition of servitude, etc., by which goods of the Church are burdened;

c. Infeudation (Lehensgebung), lease beyond three years, emphyteusis, etc., by which useful ownership is transferred to another;

d. Compromise, settlement, remission of servitude, cession of suit, etc., by which rights are ceded.

a. If an ecclesiastical good (a house or field) had to be leased for a longer time, the administrator, to avoid the censure, would have to reserve to himself the right of rescinding the contract every three years. A promise to renew the contract after three years have passed does not induce the censure.

b. To incur the censure it is required that the alienation be perfected from each side. Therefore if the alienation of an ecclesiastical good is made under reservation of apostolic approval, according to the opinion of many excommunication is not incurred, provided the contract is not put into execution before the apostolic license arrives: for what is still in the dominion of the seller cannot be said to have been alienated. In like manner, where sale is not perfected except by delivery of the thing, the censure is not incurred before the sale has been perfected by delivery of the thing; but where sale is perfected by the consent alone of the parties, the censure is incurred already before delivery of the thing.

c. Whether alienations made between churches or pious places are subject to the censure is disputed. D'Annibale and Ballerini deny this: for the constitution Ambitiosae by this prohibition intends to guard against detriment to divine worship, because ecclesiastical goods pass into the ownership of lay persons; but in an alienation of this kind, which is made between churches, divine worship suffers no detriment. Nevertheless the decree of S. C. C., January 24, 1632, stands against the denying opinion.

102. Persons who are punished by this censure are those alienating and those presuming to receive without approval of the holy see.

1. By those alienating are understood only those in whose name the alienation is carried out, pastors or rectors, but not their mandataries, nor those cooperating in some way in the alienation, e.g. by consent, nor those destroying or stealing goods of this kind.¹

a. Lay persons administering ecclesiastical goods by force of civil laws, who themselves illicitly carry out the alienation of these goods, fall into excommunication; if a pastor or another ecclesiastical person carries out the alienation with lay persons only consenting, these do not incur excommunication.²

b. Authors do not agree whether bishops and abbots also, illicitly alienating ecclesiastical goods, incur this excommunication. By the constitution Ambitiosae bishops and abbots are punished not with excommunication but with interdict from entrance into the church; but since this interdict is not renewed by the constitution Apostolicae sedis, it is established that bishops and abbots no longer incur this penalty. But several authors (Aichner, Lehmkuhl, Ballerini) contend that bishops and abbots today contract no censure: for Pius IX renews the censure according to the form of the constitution Ambitiosae; but this constitution does not strike bishops and abbots with excommunication. Others, on the contrary (D'Annibale, Bucceroni, Hollweck), teach that bishops and abbots also incur this censure, because the constitution Apostolicae sedis does not except them, especially since another penalty is not established against them.

2. Those presuming to receive. Those receiving are said to be those who buy or lease ecclesiastical goods, or those for whose advantage a mortgage is imposed upon them. Nevertheless not all receiving persons are censured, but only those presuming to receive, therefore only those whom ignorance, even crass or supine, does not excuse; on the contrary, crass ignorance does not excuse those alienating from incurring the censure.

3. The approval or license of the apostolic see is not required: a. when an occasion occurs which does not allow awaiting the answer of the holy see; nevertheless in this case the license of the bishop is required; b. when immovable goods have been left to a monastery which is prohibited from retaining such things; c. when goods have been left to a church under the condition that they be sold. But license is required even if the alienation is done for a just cause and for the utility of the church: for by this law itself the holy see reserved to itself the judgment concerning the utility of the alienation to be made.

Note 1. Bishops, and others with their consent, can licitly alienate: a. immovable goods of slight value, provided they are not parts of a greater estate, lest in this way the whole be alienated successively by parts; b. precious movable goods of slight value; c. movable goods which cannot be preserved by being kept, such as fruits of estates, vineyards, flocks, timber of forests which it is licit to cut, etc., even if they are of greater value.³

Note 2. To the bishops of Austria on May 8, 1900, for a decade, power was granted of conceding the faculty: a. of alienating ecclesiastical goods up to the sum of 6000 florins, to archbishops up to the sum of 8000 florins; b. of imposing burdens upon ecclesiastical goods up to 12000 florins, to archbishops up to 15000 florins; c. of entering contracts of letting and hiring that would be valid for 15 years; d. in cases of urgent necessity or utility, of alienating goods and imposing burdens upon them up to the sum of 12000 florins, to archbishops up to 15000 florins. With respect to goods of regulars, still broader faculties were received on September 18, 1901.

Fourth non-reserved excommunication. Those neglecting, or culpably omitting, to denounce within a month confessors or priests by whom they have been solicited to shameful things in any of the cases expressed by our predecessor Gregory XV in the constitution Universi and by Benedict XIV in the constitution Sacramentum poenitentiae.⁴

¹ Holy Office, March 9, 1870.

² Hollweck, l. c. p. 2412.

³ C. Terrulas 53. c. 12. q. 1.

⁴ Cf. De sacramentis^8 n. 387 ss.

103. For the explanation of this censure, confer the volume De Sacramentis^8 n. 393. Only this must be added. If the solicited person is worthy of faith and seriously promises that he will denounce within a month, he can be absolved from sins; indeed, if he culpably delayed denunciation beyond a month and now seriously promises that he will denounce as soon as possible, he can likewise be absolved from the censure, because it is not said: until he has denounced. But if afterward, with his will changed, he does not denounce, the censure does not revive, because there is nothing concerning reincidence.

Fifth non-reserved excommunication. Those who print, or cause to be printed, books treating of sacred matters without the approval of the ordinary. This censure in the constitution Officiorum sounds thus: Those who, without the approval of the ordinary, print, or cause to be printed, books of sacred Scripture or annotations or commentaries on the same.

104. a. To the question whether "books treating of sacred matters" in the constitution Apostolicae sedis are understood to be only the sacred Scriptures and their commentaries, or universally all books treating of religious matters, the Holy Office responded: affirmatively to the first part.¹ Therefore as to the matter the censure of each constitution is the same, yet it is expressed more clearly in the later constitution.

b. They incur the censure: a. printers or typographers, who undertake the care of printing, but not those cooperating in the printing; b. those causing to be printed, i.e. the author and the publisher, if he differs from the typographer and takes care that the manuscript be printed.

¹ Holy Office, December 22, 1880.