Article One. Concerning Irregularities in General.

479. Notion. Division. 1. An irregularity is a perpetual impediment established by ecclesiastical law which renders the reception and exercise of orders illicit.¹

a. Irregularity is established per se and directly on account of the dignity and reverence of the divine ministry, namely for avoiding indecency in the divine ministry. For the dignity and excellence of the Christian religion requires that its ministries be performed with great decorum, lest the faithful be offended and their reverence toward sacred functions be diminished. Hence it is a noble work that from the sacred ministry all those should be kept away who, according to the judgment of the Church, cannot exercise it with due decorum and dignity.

b. Therefore an irregularity per se does not have the nature of a penalty, nor even of a vindicative medicinal penalty, but of such an inability or incapacity, which the Roman Catechism calls inhabilitas, that renders a man unsuitable to be taken into the clerical state. Hence it happens that an irregularity is often contracted without any fault.

c. By the name of orders, from which irregularity keeps one away, first tonsure is also understood; for although this properly is not an order, nevertheless by this name it is comprehended here, because it is given in vain to those who are kept away from orders.

2. Division. a. One irregularity is from defect, which proximately arises from a defect of quality required for the reception of orders; another is from delict, which proximately arises from one's own delict. For the indecency which an irregularity intends to guard against can arise both from defect alone without delict and from delict.

An irregularity from defect sometimes supposes delict, either another's, as an irregularity from defect of birth, or one's own, as infamy contracted because of an enormous delict.

b. Irregularity is either total, which impedes the reception of every order or the use of every order received, as homicide; or partial, which impedes only ascent to a superior order or only the exercise of some order. Thus a deacon who lacks his left eye can be incapable of the priesthood, but can exercise his own order; and a priest who without fault is deprived of his thumb is prohibited from celebrating, but not from hearing confessions.

¹ Cn. 983.

480. Assertions. 1. The subject of irregularity is every baptized male and only a baptized male, subject to ecclesiastical law.

Therefore all baptized males, whether laymen or clerics, even bishops and cardinals, can contract irregularities by the law as established; but neither the supreme pontiff nor boys before the completed seventh year, because they are not subject to common law. Therefore one mutilated, e.g., before baptism or before the use of reason, is not irregular except fundamentally, that is, he has a defect because of which after baptism or the use of reason he becomes formally irregular.

2. Irregularity primarily prohibits the reception of orders, and secondarily also the exercise of orders received. Yet an irregularity supervening on orders already received prohibits the exercise only of those orders for the exercise of which a man has been made incapable, or which he cannot exercise without offense and scandal. Therefore nothing prevents the man who cannot celebrate publicly without scandal from celebrating privately, or the man who cannot celebrate from hearing confessions.

3. Irregularity does not render the reception of orders invalid but only illicit, since it is not an invalidating impediment but only prohibiting.

Therefore both he who promotes an irregular man, even to tonsure alone, and the irregular man who receives or exercises order, sins gravely, unless smallness of matter or grave inconvenience excuses, because each transgresses a precept in a grave matter.

4. There is no irregularity, whether from defect or from delict, which has not been expressly set forth in the Code.¹ There are also other inabilities for receiving orders, such as blindness, impotence of celebrating, and psychopathy, which nevertheless are not called irregularities, because by ecclesiastical law alone irregularities are established.

5. Ignorance of irregularities, whether from delict or from defect, and of simple impediments, does not excuse from contracting them.²

6. Someone can contract several irregularities and impediments at the same time. Irregularities and impediments are multiplied from their diverse causes, but not from repetition of the same cause, unless there is question of irregularity from voluntary homicide.³

A Catholic man who defects from the faith and at the same time gives his name to an acatholic sect is irregular in two ways: because of infamy of law⁴ and because of defection from the faith.⁵ On the other hand, a judge who condemned ten men to death contracts one irregularity.

7. Irregularities and impediments, when the required conditions have been placed, are contracted ipso facto, even if the action because of which they are contracted is entirely hidden; for there is no irregularity which from the disposition of law requires a sentence of a judge, not even a declaratory one.

Article Two.. Concerning Irregularities from Defect.

The defects which from the new Code constitute irregularity are these seven: a. defect of legitimate birth; b. defect of body; c. defect of soul; d. defect of sacrament; e. defect of reputation; f. defect of lenity in judgment; g. defect of lenity in bloodshed.

¹ Cn. 983.

² Cn. 988.

³ Cn. 989.

⁴ Cn. 984, 5.

⁵ Cn. 985, 1.