Article Two. On the Author of Censure.

11. Who can impose censures. He can impose censures who has either ordinary or delegated power for this.

1. Ordinary power is had by all and only ecclesiastical superiors having jurisdiction in the external forum.

a. The supreme pontiff has it over all the faithful, both taken collectively (diocese, province) and taken individually; he indeed receives this power immediately from Christ; all others participate in it from the supreme pontiff.

b. Apostolic legates have it in the territory assigned to them.

c. Bishops, archbishops, patriarchs have it over their subjects; however, archbishops and patriarchs cannot bind the subjects of their suffragans by censures; an episcopal vicar, who constitutes one tribunal with the bishop; when the see is vacant, the vicar of the chapter, who succeeds the bishop in jurisdiction, and a fortiori the chapter itself before the vicar has yet been elected.

d. Cardinals have it in the churches of their title.

e. A general council has it over the whole Church, and a provincial council over its province.

f. Abbots having quasi-episcopal jurisdiction have it.

g. Superiors of regulars (generals, provincials, locals) have it over their subjects from a privilege of the pontiff attached to their office,¹ yet according to the statutes of their order.

Parish priests do not have the power of imposing censures, because jurisdiction in the external forum does not belong to them.

2. Delegated power is had by all and only clerics to whom this has been committed by those having ordinary power.

Clerics: because all and only clerics are capable of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which is required for imposing censures, unless by positive law they have been declared incapable of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as married clerics have been declared.² Wherefore all lay persons and women, even abbesses, are excluded from the power, both ordinary and delegated, of imposing censures.

¹ C. Quum in ecclesiis 10. De maioritate et oboedientia (I. 33).

² C. Clerici un. De clericis coniugatis (III. 2) in 6°.

12. Conditions required on the part of the author. In order that an ecclesiastical superior can validly impose censures, there is required:

a. That he be in possession of reason and have the will of binding him against whom he imposes the censure: for to impose censure is an act of jurisdiction, which has its whole force from an act of the will. Wherefore a censure imposed by a drunken man would be null.

b. That he act freely, not by compulsion.

A censure carried from grave fear must of itself be called valid, because an act done from grave fear is of itself valid, unless it is annulled by special positive law; but a censure carried from fear is not annulled by positive law. Nevertheless the case must be excepted in which the one imposing the censure would have pronounced it only externally, without internal intention.

c. That he exercise power within the limits of his jurisdiction: for contentious jurisdiction cannot be exercised outside one's own territory.

Therefore a bishop existing outside his own diocese cannot impose censure, not even upon his own subject, unless he has obtained the consent of the bishop of the place in which he is found.

Nevertheless several cases must be excepted, in which a bishop, even existing outside the diocese, can impose censure:

a. If the censure is imposed not by way of a particular sentence, but by way of statute for guarding against future crimes.

b. If the censure is indeed imposed by way of sentence, which nevertheless does not need cognition of the cause, either because the contumacy is manifest, or because the cause has already been known in one's own territory.

c. If the bishop has been unjustly expelled from his own territory.¹

d. That he admonish the delinquent concerning the censure to be inflicted: for censure is imposed upon a contumacious person; but that contumacy may be established, a prior correction is required.

According to the diversity of censures, a diverse admonition is required.

a. In censures of a sentence already passed for future delicts, likewise in censures which are attached to some delict as of a sentence to be passed, legal admonition suffices, which consists in the law promulgated with the censure added: for a known law which threatens censure is judged continually to admonish subjects concerning their obligation and concerning the penalty to be incurred by transgressors.

b. In a censure which no law threatens, and which therefore is inflicted by man for a past or present delict, a canonical or express admonition is required, and indeed a threefold one with some interval of time (at least two days) between the individual admonitions. Nevertheless a single admonition suffices, provided it is expressed that it is peremptory, or that it avails for three. But in this case six days must intervene between the admonition and the infliction of the censure, unless the necessity of the fact advises otherwise.²

Note. A censure unjustly inflicted does not oblige in conscience, whether it is unjust because of defect of fault or because of defect of proof. Wherefore one unjustly censured is not bound to observe the censure in secret; but publicly, because otherwise it cannot be done without scandal, he is bound so to conduct himself as if he were bound by censure.

¹ Regular superiors can bind their subjects by censure by way of particular sentence wherever they are staying, because their jurisdiction is chiefly personal.

² C. Constitutionem 9. De sententia excommunicat. (V. 11) in 6°.