Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article One. On the Nature of Censure.
8. Notion of censure. A censure is a medicinal penalty by which the use of certain spiritual goods is taken away by the Church from a delinquent and contumacious Christian. Therefore two things are needed for incurring a censure: a delict and the contumacy of the delinquent.
a. Among the ancient Romans the name censure signified both the dignity and office of the censor, and also the sentence of the same, by which he either branded with a mark or inflicted a penalty upon citizens. In ecclesiastical usage censure signifies both a judgment by which it is noted whether something is worthy of praise or of blame, and a penalty inflicted for crime.
b. Medicinal: for in inflicting censure the Church chiefly intends the restraint of crime and the amendment of the delinquent; wherefore, once amendment has been posited, censure by its own nature demands that it be taken away; and if sometimes it is carried against those whose amendment is despaired of, this is done for striking terror into others. For the same reason censure is to be inflicted simply, not perpetually nor to a certain day, so that when the guilty person has amended himself, he can be absolved.
c. Censure can also have the character of a vindicative penalty, but only secondarily; but if it is inflicted chiefly for punishing a delict, it cannot be a censure properly so called.
d. Contumacious: censure is inflicted for breaking contumacy (virtual contempt of authority and of censure, disobedience), whose nature is described below. Therefore contumacy as a condition for incurring censure is always required; and as soon as contumacy ceases through the amendment or satisfaction of the delinquent, the censure is to be taken away, just as once health is recovered the use of medicine ceases.
e. Of spiritual goods, namely those which are subject to the power of the Church. Indeed, besides the goods which inhere habitually in each person, goods of a threefold kind exist in the Church: goods which proceed from the Head, or from Christ; goods which proceed from the members taken privately; goods which proceed from the body, or from the Church. Now, one censured cannot be deprived of goods habitually inhering in himself, such as the sacramental character, the power of order, faith, hope, and charity, etc.; nor of goods which proceed from Christ, the Head of the Church, such as manifold graces, because these goods do not depend upon the Church; nor can he be deprived of goods which proceed from the members of the Church taken individually, such as the prayers and good works of the faithful, because the Church cannot impede the communion of saints; but only of goods which are administered and conferred by the Church, such as the use of the sacraments, the sacrifice, indulgences, common suffrages, jurisdiction, ecclesiastical benefices. And if sometimes the Church deprives someone of temporal goods, as of civil commerce with the faithful, this is done secondarily and indirectly, insofar as it conduces to the spiritual good both of him who is bound by censure and of others.
1 Suarez, De censuris. Covarruvias, Operum t. I, p. 315. Dicastillo, De censuris. Tamburini, De censuris et irregularitate. St. Alphonsus l. VII, De censuris eccles. Bucceroni, De censuris etc.^4 (Rome: Typographia S. C. de Prop. Fide, 1896). Hilarius a Sexten, Tractatus de censuris ecclesiasticis (Mainz: Kirchheim, 1898). Hollweck l. c., Die Zensuren, p. 86 ff. Heiner, Die kirchlichen Zensuren (Paderborn: Bonifatius-Druckerei, 1884). I. Kock, Die kirchlichen Zensuren latae sententiae (Graz: Styria, 1902). Paschalis de Siena, Commentarius in Const. Ap. sedis^3 (Pustet: Rome, 1902).
9. Division of censures. a. By reason of essence they are divided into three species, into excommunication, suspension, and interdict: for each of these penalties has the common character of censure and deprives the guilty person of other and diverse spiritual goods; but other ecclesiastical penalties, by whatever name they are called, are not censures.1
b. By reason of the efficient cause, into a censure which is from law, if it is inflicted by stable law against future sins; and which is from man, if it is inflicted by a superior through judicial sentence against future or past sins.
A censure carried by man is carried either by way of precept or particular sentence, as if a bishop suspends a contumacious cleric from office, or if he prohibits a cleric from the game of dice under penalty of suspension, or by way of law or general statute, as if a bishop decrees that all who are about to commit some crime be bound by excommunication.
c. By reason of the power of absolving, into reserved censures, which cannot be taken away except by the one imposing them, his successor, or his superior; and non-reserved censures, which by the disposition of the legislator can also be taken away by inferior ministers.
d. By reason of publicity, into notorious censures, when either by sentence of a judge or by perpetration of the delict in a public place it is so known that someone has incurred censure that it can no longer be hidden; and occult censures, when this is not known.
e. By reason of the mode by which they are incurred, into censures of a sentence already passed, which are incurred by delinquents by this very fact, that they have committed the delict; and of a sentence to be passed, which, once the delict has been posited, are to be imposed by sentence of a judge.
f. By reason of the mode by which they are reserved:
a. into censures reserved to the Roman pontiff in a special mode;
b. into censures reserved to the Roman pontiff in the ordinary mode, or simply reserved;
c. into censures reserved to bishops;
d. into censures reserved to no one, which are indeed true censures insofar as they produce the effects of others, but from which the censured person, provided he is truly sorry for the sin, can be absolved by any confessor.
a. Several censures are called reserved in a special mode: a. because for them a general faculty of absolving from censures reserved to the Roman pontiff does not suffice, but an altogether special faculty is required; b. because they are not contained in the faculty conceded to bishops by c. Liceat, namely of absolving from all occult censures even those reserved to the pope; c. because those presuming to absolve from these without due faculty incur a special excommunication reserved to the Roman pontiff; d. because those absolved from these in the article of death by one not having power, if they recover, are held by a special obligation of presenting themselves to the superior and standing by his mandates.
b. From the declaration of the Holy Office of April 4, 1871, in the special faculty of absolving from censures reserved to the Roman pontiff in a special mode, there is not contained the faculty of absolving from cases reserved in the bull Sacramentum poenitentiae, which need a most special faculty and therefore are called reserved to the supreme pontiff in a most special mode. The cases reserved in the aforesaid bull are: a. absolution of an accomplice; b. malicious denunciation of a priest concerning the crime of solicitation.
1 C. Quaerenti 20. De verborum sign. (V. 40).
10. Since censures in the specific sense, namely insofar as they pertain to the external forum, are called public or notorious, it is useful to indicate what is required for a censure to be notorious. But a censure is notorious if the delict prohibited under censure is notorious. A delict can be notorious either by law or by fact.
a. A delict is notorious by law when it is established: a. by the declaratory sentence of a judge, whether because the guilty person himself confessed the delict, or because he has been convicted of it; b. from public acts or from authentic protocols.
Thus if a cleric constituted in sacred orders contracts civil marriage; if a Catholic enters marriage before a heretical minister; if someone is punished by a civil judge because of a duel, these delicts are notorious by law, because they are established from public acts.
b. A delict is notorious by fact when it was perpetrated in a public place before several persons who can testify concerning it.
a. Since both elements must concur at the same time, a delict is not notorious which was perpetrated in a private or hidden place, although before many, nor a delict which was perpetrated in a public place before few persons, or indeed before many who nevertheless cannot testify about it, because they did not attend to it, e.g. to the heresy uttered. How many persons must know the delict so that it can be called notorious is indicated elsewhere.1
b. A delict public by law is public everywhere, nor can it ever become occult; but a delict public by fact in one place can be occult in another, and if it consists in a transitory fact (the striking of a cleric), through oblivion it can become occult; not likewise if it consists in a permanent fact (illicit possession of ecclesiastical goods).
1 Cf. De praeceptis n. 649.