Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Five. On Causes Excusing from Censures.
For incurring censure contumacy is required; therefore whatever either notably diminishes or completely removes contumacy excuses from incurring censure. Now there are chiefly two causes numbered which for this reason excuse from incurring censure: grave fear and ignorance.
23. Fear. a. Grave fear excuses from censure whenever it excuses from observing an ecclesiastical law: for an act which proceeds from grave fear is not committed from contumacy, but rather from the weakness of nature. Moreover, fear of grave harm of itself excuses from the very precept of the Church; but where no sin is committed against the precept of the Church, censure is not incurred, which of itself and primarily is established against injury of an ecclesiastical precept.
a. Namely, an act prohibited under censure is prohibited either by ecclesiastical law alone or at the same time by divine law (natural or positive). If the first, an act posited from fear is not a sin; if the other, an act posited from fear can be a sin against divine law, but is not a sin against the law of the Church, which does not oblige with grave inconvenience.
b. There are a few certain cases in which fear, however grave, does not excuse from observation of ecclesiastical law, especially where violation of the law causes common harm. In these cases, therefore, grave fear, just as it does not excuse from observing ecclesiastical law, so also does not excuse from incurring censure.1
c. Just as grave fear excuses from incurring censure, so it also excuses from observing it: for ecclesiastical laws do not oblige with grave inconvenience. Therefore when observation of censure, e.g. of occult excommunication, is joined with fear of grave harm or with grave inconvenience, the excommunicated person can conduct himself as immune from censure.
b. Even light fear excuses from incurring censure, provided the fear is the cause of the prohibited action, if the censure is imposed on those doing it rashly, with rash daring, spontaneously: for in these cases it is required that the prohibited action be posited altogether by one's own movement, not for escaping any evil whatever.
1 Cf. De principiis n. 176, where it is explained when grave fear, or grave inconvenience, excuses from the obligation of an affirmative law.
24. Ignorance. a. Ignorance which is not crass always excuses from incurring censure, whether the ignorance is of fact or of law, not only when it is not known that the act is prohibited, but also when only this is not known, that it is prohibited under censure.1 The reason for the first is that censure supposes fault; but this ignorance (whether antecedent or concomitant) excuses from fault, therefore also from incurring censure. The reason for the second is that one ignorant that a censure is attached to a sinful act is not contumacious against the coercive power of the Church; but censure is inflicted for breaking the contumacy of the delinquent.2
a. Several authors (Sanchez, Pirhing, Reuter, Mazzotta, Ballerini) do not call every gravely culpable ignorance crass, but admit gravely culpable ignorance which is not crass: for crass ignorance, so they say, arises not simply from gravely culpable negligence, but from negligence with grave excess. This opinion is probable and therefore licit in practice. But since it is very difficult to distinguish between culpable ignorance from grave negligence and culpable ignorance from grave negligence with excess, practically it can be established that only ignorance which is not gravely culpable always excuses from incurring censure.
b. Therefore ignorance both of law and of fact excuses from incurring censure, and it also excuses when the delinquent indeed knows that the action is prohibited by divine law, whether natural or positive, but does not know that the same is prohibited under ecclesiastical censure.
c. Ignorance is gravely culpable in him who does not know what he ought to know by reason of office; therefore lay persons are always excused from incurring censures which they do not know; not likewise clerics, who ought to know them by reason of office, unless it can be affirmed that their negligence in learning censures was not grave, or at least was not grave with excess.
b. Sometimes even crass ignorance excuses from incurring censure, namely if the law imposing censure does not speak absolutely and simply (whoever shall have committed this, let him be excommunicated), but if the censure is carried against those who have sinned rashly, with rash daring, by presumption, knowingly, deliberately.
c. Indeed if the law for incurring censure requires that the sin have been committed knowingly or deliberately, even affected ignorance excuses from incurring censure: for one who acts with any ignorance whatever certainly does not act knowingly. Therefore, although one who acts with such ignorance sins gravely against the precept, nevertheless he does not incur censure, since the law itself requires certain and formal knowledge for incurring censure.
But if someone knows the law and the penalty imposed, but does not know that the penalty is reserved, there are a few certain doctors who think that the reservation of the censure ceases because of this ignorance: for reservation is added to censure in the manner of a penalty; but ignorance excuses from incurring a penalty and therefore from incurring a reservation. But authors commonly teach that this ignorance does not bring it about that the censure is not reserved. For ignorance would excuse because the Church does not wish to subject the ignorant to an extraordinary penalty; but reservation, once the censure has been contracted, is not something extraordinary which is added to the censure, but rather that which naturally follows it, unless the legislator from kindness has made absolution easier.3
Note. a. Forgetfulness and inadvertence of the censure are equivalent to ignorance, because one who in no way adverts to the law cannot be called contumacious against it.
b. Censures, especially by the more unlearned, are rarely incurred because of ignorance until they have been admonished about the matter.
1 C. Ut animarum 2. De constit. (I. 2) in 6°. Although in this chapter there is speech only about censures of ordinaries, nevertheless by right and deservedly the principle established in it is extended also to papal censures.
2 In the external forum knowledge of the censure is presumed; therefore, in order that ignorance excuse from incurring censure in the external forum, it must be proved.
3 Lehmkuhl II, n. 866.
25. Whether ignorance excuses from incurring a vindicative penalty. A vindicative penalty, since it is not inflicted for correcting the contumacy of the guilty person, but for punishing his crime, is incurred even by those ignorant, not indeed of the law, but of the annexed penalty, unless this penalty is extraordinary.
For incurring a vindicative penalty knowledge of the penalty is not required if this is ordinary: for natural reason understands that a delict by its nature is to be punished. But if the penalty is extraordinary and exorbitant, knowledge of the penalty is required in order that it be incurred. Namely, for incurring a penalty there is not indeed required consent to the penalty, but nevertheless consent to the cause of the penalty is required; now, one committing a delict by this very fact implicitly consents to the cause of the ordinary penalty, but does not consent even implicitly to the cause of an extraordinary penalty, since he in no way knows it. Now all vindicative penalties of a sentence already passed are judged extraordinary and exorbitant.