Article Six. On Absolution from Censures.

26. On absolution itself. 1. A censure once contracted cannot be taken away except through absolution conceded by a legitimate superior.¹

a. Censure is not taken away through the amendment of the guilty person, nor through the death or removal of the one imposing the censure, nor through the death of the censured person, who, even if he has died contrite, is deprived of the suffrages of the Church and ecclesiastical burial unless he has been absolved; for censure once inflicted remains until it is taken away through absolution.

b. Hence an excommunicated person who elicits an act of contrition is in the state of grace, but nevertheless remains excommunicated and deprived of the communion of the Church. Therefore, although fault is required for incurring censure, the penalty can nevertheless remain after the fault has been remitted.

2. Absolution of censure is remission of the penalty made by a legitimate superior.

It differs from dispensation, because absolution is an act of justice, which is owed to him who has laid aside contumacy and has offered satisfaction, if any was needed; but dispensation, by which someone is exempted from a common law, is an act of grace, which can be denied even to one disposed. Moreover, for granting absolution validly and licitly, besides the disposition of the guilty person, no other cause is required; for granting dispensation validly or at least licitly, a just cause is required. Medicinal penalties are taken away by absolution, vindicative penalties by dispensation.

¹ C. Quum desideres 15. C. A nobis 28. De sentent. excom. (V. 39).

27. Absolution from censures can be conceded in manifold ways:

a. In the internal forum, which of itself takes away the effects of censure for the internal forum alone.

b. In the external forum, which takes away the effects of censure also for the internal forum.

c. Absolution to re-incidence, or under penalty of re-incidence, is absolution conceded under a determined condition, so that if this is not fulfilled the same censure is again incurred by the very fact.

The censure into which the absolved person falls back is of the same species, but new and distinct in number; wherefore one cannot add the penalty of re-incidence to absolution unless he has the power of imposing censures. For re-incidence there is required new fault and contumacy, and for its removal a new absolution.

d. Absolution for caution is given when it is unknown or doubted whether someone is in fact bound by censure. Of this kind is the absolution which is given in the sacrament of penance before absolution from sins.

e. Absolution for an effect is sometimes conceded in pontifical rescripts, and tends to this, that censure not impede the effect of obtaining the grace conceded, while with respect to other effects the censure remains. Thus spouses in rescripts of dispensation are absolved from censures, that they may certainly become participants in the dispensation.¹

f. Absolution can be given absolutely or conditionally, and indeed under a condition concerning the past, concerning the present, and concerning the future. Generally it is not licit to use a condition concerning the past or concerning the present; but a condition concerning the future (e.g. I absolve you if within a month you shall have restored) is licit from a grave cause.

¹ The form of this absolution, which is accustomed to be appended to pontifical rescripts, is this: "We therefore, absolving the same N. N. from any excommunications ... if he in any way exists bound by them, for the sole effect of obtaining the present things, and judging him to be absolved."

28. Who can absolve. 1. From reserved censures only he can absolve who imposed them, his superior, his successor in office, and the delegate of these; for to absolve belongs to the same one to whom it belongs to bind.

It must be noted that censures carried by man by way of precept, or through particular sentence, are reckoned among reserved censures; on the contrary, censures carried by man by way of statute, or through general sentence, are reckoned among non-reserved censures.

2. From non-reserved censures any confessor can absolve, both for the internal forum and for the external forum.¹ The confessor can grant this absolution both within and outside confession. Nevertheless, in order that one notoriously censured may publicly use the absolution, for preventing scandal it is required that the granted absolution be publicly established.

Concerning absolution from censures, whether reserved or non-reserved, which is granted to strangers, the same must be said as is established concerning absolution from sins in the treatise on the sacrament of penance.²

3. In the article of death any priest, even one not approved, indeed even when an approved or privileged one is present, can absolve from all censures, even reserved ones.³

One who in the article of death is absolved from censures reserved to the Roman pontiff is not bound to present himself to the superior if he recovers, if he was absolved from censures simply reserved.⁴ But if he was absolved from censures reserved in a special mode, under grave sin and under penalty of re-incidence he must present himself to the superior, i.e. either by himself or through the confessor he must have recourse to the holy see and stand by its mandates, or seek a new absolution from one having the power of absolving.⁵

4. In more urgent cases any confessor can give absolution from censures reserved to the pope, yet under this condition, that the absolved person, under penalty of re-incidence into the same censures, within a month by letter or through the confessor have recourse to the holy see.⁶

¹ C. Nuper 29. De sentent. excom. (V. 39).

² Cf. De sacramentis^3 n. 349, 378.

³ Council of Trent, sess. 14, c. 7.

⁴ Holy Office, June 17, 1891.

⁵ Holy Office, August 19, 1891.

⁶ Holy Office, June 23, 1886. Cf. De sacramentis^3 n. 381.

29. On absolution in occult cases. Bishops have the faculty of absolving in the internal forum, even outside the sacrament, any delinquents subject to themselves from censures contracted from an occult delict and reserved to the Roman pontiff simply, but not in a special mode.

a. The terms occult and public have a different sense in diverse matters. Where matrimonial impediments are concerned, they are understood more strictly;¹ where crimes are concerned, a little more broadly.²

b. A crime can be occult in two ways: materially, namely when the fact itself is unknown, e.g. entrance into enclosure; or formally, if the fact is known, but either is thought to have been done rightly, e.g. entrance from permission (error of fact), or the attached censure is unknown (error of law). Now a bishop can absolve not only if the crime is materially occult, but also if it is only formally occult; and indeed if there is error of fact, all concede this; if there is error of law, it is commonly admitted.

1. This faculty is conceded to bishops by the Council of Trent in the celebrated chapter Liceat,³ and the same is confirmed and restricted to simply reserved cases by the Pian constitution Apostolicae sedis.⁴

But besides this faculty conceded in law, bishops are accustomed to receive from the holy see, for a time, the faculty of absolving either by themselves or through others even from cases reserved in a special mode, whether they are occult or public. In practice, therefore, the faculty of absolving from papal cases will almost always be able to be obtained from the bishop.

2. Regular prelates, by the constitution Apostolicae sedis, lack a perpetual faculty of absolving from papal cases not only seculars but also their own subjects;⁵ nevertheless this power is accustomed to be conceded to them for a time.

Regular prelates can absolve their own subjects from censures which by pontifical law are reserved to bishops.

3. Although Trent does not concede to bishops the power of absolving except with respect to their own subjects, nevertheless from universal custom they can absolve even subjects of others, or strangers, by power conceded by the tacit consent of the bishop of the strangers.⁶

4. From c. Liceat, bishops can absolve their own subjects from occult cases in the forum of conscience. Now these words do not signify that this must be done in sacramental confession, but that the absolution of itself avails only for the internal forum.

¹ Cf. De sacramentis^3 n. 619.

² Cf. above n. 10 and De praeceptis^3 n. 649.

³ Sess. 24, c. 6, De reform.

⁴ "Nevertheless we will that the faculty of absolving conceded to bishops by the Tridentine synod remain firm in any censures reserved to the apostolic see by this our constitution, excepting only those which we have declared reserved to the same apostolic see in a special mode."

⁵ Sacred Penitentiary, December 5, 1873.

⁶ Cf. De sacramentis^3 n. 378.

30. On the conditions required for absolving. 1. Someone can be absolved from censure even absent and unwilling; nevertheless it is fitting that absolution be given only to one present and asking.

Just as one absent can be struck by censures through letters, so also he can be absolved from censures; nevertheless the presence of the censured person conduces more both to reverence for censures and to the humiliation of the censured person himself; therefore it is conceded to one absent only from a reasonable cause.

2. The conditions to be fulfilled by the censured person are generally accustomed to be expressed by these words: those things having been enjoined which must be enjoined by law; but in particular there must be enjoined:

a. That he satisfy the injured party, if he injured any (by revocation, restitution, petition for pardon), or if he cannot satisfy, that he at least promise that he will satisfy as soon as he can, unless the injured party has remitted the injury or the guilty person is unable to satisfy.

b. That he repair scandal, if any was given, which is necessary by divine law. But scandal must be repaired in the better way in which it can be done, according to the prudent judgment of the ordinary or confessor.

c. That a salutary penance be imposed besides the sacramental penance.

3. For validly absolving from censure a determined formula of words is not required, but the will of the superior manifested by a sensible sign suffices, whether this is done by words or in writing or by another sign.

For licitly absolving in the internal forum, whether sacramental or extra-sacramental, from the prescription of the Roman Ritual the formula which is had in the very form of sacramental absolution is to be used;¹ but in the external forum, from the prescription of law, the form which is had in the Roman Ritual or Pontifical is to be used.²

¹ Roman Ritual, tit. III, c. 3, n. 8.

² C. A nobis 28. De sentent. excom. (V. 39).

31. On whether absolution from censure is to be given in the internal or external forum. In practice a difficulty not rarely arises whether absolution must be conceded for the external forum or whether it suffices for the internal forum. A censure carried by man through condemnatory sentence certainly needs absolution for the external forum; concerning a censure of a sentence already passed, these things must be held:

1. If a censure of a sentence already passed was contracted in the internal forum alone, absolution for the internal forum suffices.

If the delict is occult, the censure pertains to the internal forum and it is treated in the internal forum alone. Both a delict which became public neither by law nor by fact, and a delict which in the place where the guilty person is now staying neither is nor will be known, even if in another place it is known by fact, are judged occult.

2. If a censure of a sentence already passed was contracted in the external forum, absolution for the external forum is required.

Only if the censure is not reserved does absolution for the internal forum suffice, even if the censure is notorious, provided the absolution conceded is publicly established.

3. Absolution conceded for the external forum avails also for the internal forum; but absolution for the internal forum of itself does not avail for the external forum. Nevertheless an ecclesiastical judge can recognize it also for the external forum if the absolution conceded is publicly established.

That the absolution conceded is publicly established is judged if it is publicly known that the censured person has confessed and has offered due satisfaction, if any was necessary.