Section 3. On the Dispensation of Vow

233. Declarations. Dispensation is the remission of the obligation of a vow made in the name of God. Dispensation immediately touches the effect of the vow, or the obligation.

a. By force of a vow, man has contracted an obligation before God, from which he cannot be loosed except by him who has received power for this from God. Now that the Church has the power of dispensing in vows is deduced from the general concession of loosing all bonds: whatsoever you shall loose,¹ therefore also the bond of divine or natural law, whose existence nevertheless depends upon the human will, as in vows and oaths.² The Church herself has always used this power.

b. Dispensation differs from irritation: alpha. because for dispensation the power of jurisdiction is required; for irritation dominative power suffices; beta. because dispensation is made in the name of God, but irritation is made in the proper name of the one irritating; gamma. because for valid dispensation a just cause is required, but not likewise for irritation; delta. because irritation can be made even when the one vowing is unwilling, but dispensation when the one vowing is unwilling is null, because he imposed the obligation upon himself; epsilon. because dispensation immediately touches the effect of the vow, but irritation touches either the act of vowing or the matter of the vow.

¹ Matt. 18:18.

² Cf. De principiis^9, n. 181.

234. Requisites for dispensing. 1. For validly dispensing in vows a just cause is required; for the one dispensing does not act in his own name, but in the name of God, who is not judged to have given the power of dispensing without a legitimate cause; therefore he who dispenses without a cause effects nothing.

a. He who doubts whether a cause for dispensing is present cannot dispense; he who doubts whether the cause for dispensing is sufficient validly and licitly dispenses.

b. If someone in good faith dispenses, thinking that a cause for dispensing is present, and afterward knows that none was present, the dispensation is invalid; if someone in good faith dispenses, thinking that the cause for dispensing is sufficient, and afterward knows that it was not sufficient, the dispensation is valid.

c. From the use which the Church observes, some commutation is customarily joined to dispensation; and this indeed ordinarily must be done when there is question of relaxing a vow made with full deliberation, but especially when the cause for dispensing does not seem to be sufficient.

235. 2. For validly and licitly dispensing there is required and sufficient a moderately grave cause, which nevertheless ought to be the graver the more excellent the vow is.

The just causes of dispensing, according to St. Alphonsus, are the following:

a. The good of the Church or the common good of the republic or family, or the progress of the one vowing.

b. Danger of transgression because of the particular indisposition of the one vowing or because of the common fragility of men.

c. Great difficulty in execution, whether it was foreseen or not foreseen.

d. If the one vowing is vexed by great scruples.

e. If the vow was made rashly, namely with too much facility or without mature deliberation. For this reason, in the vows of impubescent persons, without another cause, dispensation can be given absolutely without commutation.

f. If the vow was made because of fear, whether arising from an external cause or from an internal cause: for in this case vows are usually made immaturely, and therefore dispensation can be given in them without commutation.¹

¹ St. Alphonsus, n. 252 ff.

236. Whether a vow made for the benefit of a third party can be dispensed.

a. If a gratuitous promise made in favor of a third party, even a determinate third party, has not yet been accepted, it certainly can be dispensed: for the promisor is held to give the thing promised only by reason of the vow; but he can be dispensed from the vow.

From these things it is clear that dispensation can be given in vows made for the relief of the dead, since the promise has been accepted by God alone.

b. If the promise has been accepted by the other, it cannot be dispensed: for in this case the one vowing is obligated not only toward God by force of the vow, but also by force of the promise toward the man, who by accepting the promise has acquired a right to the thing promised; but this right cannot be remitted without the consent of the one accepting.

alpha. Yet if the vow in this case was made principally in honor of God and only secondarily in favor of the third party, it probably can be dispensed even without his consent, provided there is question of a gratuitous promise: for with the remission of the vow, probably the right of the man also falls, since the accessory follows the principal. Nevertheless, dispensation cannot be given if the promise made to the man is principal and the vow secondary, or if each is equally principal.

beta. But if the promise is not gratuitous, but onerous and mutual, as happens in the vow and oath of perseverance which is made in some congregations, dispensation cannot be given without the consent of the congregation, even if the vow is made principally in honor of God: for the vow follows the nature of the contract to which it is annexed; but a contract cannot be dissolved without mutual consent.

237. Who can dispense. Only ecclesiastical superiors who have spiritual jurisdiction in the external forum have the ordinary power of dispensing; others cannot dispense except by a power delegated by those who have ordinary power. Therefore, by ordinary power, there can dispense:

1. The supreme pontiff in all vows of all the faithful. Therefore he can dispense: a. not only in the solemn vow of chastity which is annexed to sacred order, but b. also in solemn religious profession; and in fact he has already often dispensed in each case.

Concerning the practice of the Church in dispensing in solemn vows, these things are to be noted.

a. As to the solemn vow of chastity: alpha. subdeacons and deacons, with a cause of the common good of the Church or kingdom intervening, have often been dispensed for entering marriage, yet with this condition, that they abstain from every exercise of order; beta. but no example exists of a dispensation (publicly) conceded to a priest for contracting marriage; yet there are several examples of dispensation conceded to priests for convalidating a marriage invalidly contracted, with every exercise of orders nevertheless removed. Thus there were dispensed both priests who, in the time of the English schism, and priests who, in the time of the French Revolution, had attempted marriage.

b. As regards religious vows, full dispensation indeed has been given from the vow of poverty and obedience, but no example exists of full dispensation from the vow of chastity. For dispensation is restricted either in such a way that the dispensed person can pass to another order, in which only the vow of conjugal chastity is made, and can enter only one marriage; or in such a way that he can return to the world, but is held to enter only one marriage and to observe conjugal chastity from vow.¹

2. Bishops and abbots having episcopal jurisdiction in all vows of their subjects, except vows reserved to the supreme pontiff.

a. They have the power of dispensing in vows by force of their office, which office indeed demands that they be able to dispense in those things which frequently occur. Legates and apostolic nuncios also have this in their own province; vicars capitular, when the see is vacant. Archbishops cannot dispense the subjects of their suffragans in vows, not even when they visit some diocese.

b. Parish priests, because of defect of jurisdiction in the external forum, lack the faculty of dispensing in vows, nor do they have it from custom, as they have it with respect to feasts and fasts.

3. A regular superior in non-reserved vows of his subjects, if he is exempt; but a non-exempt regular superior cannot dispense, because the prelate of non-exempt persons is properly the bishop.

In non-reserved vows of novices made either in the world or in the novitiate, both their own bishop and the regular superior can dispense. The former indeed, because novices before profession are not yet altogether exempt from episcopal jurisdiction; the latter, because he possesses jurisdiction over them.

4. Regular confessors by delegated power from special privilege can dispense in non-reserved vows of the faithful, whether within or outside confession, whether they are the ordinary confessors of those vowing or are not.

a. All concede that regular confessors can commute the vows of the faithful by dispensing; most attribute to them also the power of simply dispensing, from the privilege granted by Julius II to the Canons Regular of the Most Holy Savior and by Leo X to the Camaldolese Hermits, which through communication of privileges passed also to other regular confessors. The privilege consists in this, that regular confessors can dispense with any of the faithful in all vows in which bishops by ordinary power can dispense with their subjects.²

b. Any confessor (having the privilege of dispensing in vows and of commuting the same) can do this even outside confession, unless in the document of delegation the power is restricted to the forum of penance, because this power of itself pertains to the external forum, nor is it anywhere prescribed generally that the dispensation be made in confession.

¹ Cf. Scavini, Theologia moralis universa^2 (Mediolani: Oliva, 1890), II, n. 224; Archiv fur k. Kirchenrecht 1889, I, p. 329 ff.

² Cf. Piat, Praelectiones iuris regularis (Tornaci: Casterman, 1890), II, p. 504.

238. On reserved vows. 1. Vows reserved to the supreme pontiff, besides religious profession and the vow of clerical chastity, are these five:

a. a vow of perfect and perpetual chastity;

b. a vow of entering religion approved by the Church;

This vow can be made in two ways: either simply of entering religion, or additionally of professing or persevering in it. Yet since entrance into religion for undergoing the probation of the novitiate of itself tends toward profession, he who explicitly vows entrance implicitly vows also profession and perseverance. Now the vow reserved to the pope is the vow of entering religion, whether by this vow entrance into religion in general is promised, or entrance into a determinate order or into a determinate monastery.

c. a vow of Roman pilgrimage to the thresholds of the apostles;

d. a vow of Hierosolymitan pilgrimage to the sepulcher of the Lord;

e. a vow of Compostellan pilgrimage to the relics of St. James.

Therefore in the general faculty of dispensing in all vows these reserved vows are not comprehended, unless express mention of them is made.

alpha. From recent Roman law there are also reserved to the pontiff the simple religious vows made before solemn profession,¹ and those which are made in more recent congregations approved by the Apostolic See, whether these vows are perpetual or temporary. For vows made in religion have the character of an onerous contract, from which there arises a right acquired for a third party, which can be taken away only by the supreme pontiff.

beta. In the body of law the reservation of these five vows is not established, but is supposed; wherefore it seems to have been introduced by use and custom.²

2. Since reservation, as being odious, is of strict interpretation:

a. The vow of not marrying is not reserved, nor the vow of virginity, nor the vow of not sinning against chastity, nor the vow of conjugal chastity, nor the vow of temporary chastity even if perfect, nor the vow of receiving sacred orders, because it is not a vow of chastity but a vow of assuming a state to which the vow of chastity is annexed; likewise, the vow of entering an institute in which only simple vows are made is not reserved.

b. These five reserved vows themselves are not reserved if they are not perfect, that is, obligating under grave obligation; if they are not perfectly free (made without all fear, even light fear), absolute, that is, neither conditioned (I shall enter religion if I escape unharmed) nor disjunctive concerning reserved and non-reserved matter (either of fasting or of religion), and certain.

c. They are reserved only as to substance, not likewise as to circumstances; thus he who vowed to enter a stricter religion can be dispensed by the bishop or by another having privilege, so that he may enter a milder one.

¹ S. C. Ep. et Reg., 12 Jan. 1858, which at the same time declared that these simple vows are dissolved in the act of dismissal, so that, dismissal having been given, the professed become by that very fact free from every bond and obligation of these vows.

² C. Etsi dominici 5, De poenit. et remiss., Extrav. com. (V. 6).

239. Dispensation in reserved vows. Nevertheless, bishops can dispense in reserved vows when necessity urges, namely when in delay there is danger of grave harm, whether spiritual or temporal, and the supreme pontiff cannot be approached at once.

a. If a bishop dispensed in a doubtful reserved vow, which afterward is known by the one vowing to have been certain, a new pontifical dispensation is not necessary: for since a doubtful vow is not reserved, it has already been dissolved by the bishop.

b. Whether bishops, when necessity urges, dispense by ordinary power or from presumed license is certainly not established; but since it is probable that this is done by ordinary power, the power of dispensing in reserved vows when necessity urges probably also belongs to regular confessors, as those who can dispense in those vows in which bishops dispense by ordinary power.¹

c. The power of dispensing in reserved vows is customarily granted by the supreme pontiff only on this condition, that the vow be commuted into other works of penance. Now these works enjoined by the one dispensing have the character and obligation of a vow, yet not of a reserved vow, which can be taken away by any confessor having the power of dispensing in vows.

d. Whether an oath of chastity or of religion is reserved just as a vow. - It is not reserved if the one swearing intends to obligate himself by oath alone: for the obligation of an oath is not reserved; but if the one swearing intends to obligate himself by a double bond, both of oath and of vow, that is, if he willed to make a vow and to confirm the vow by oath, the vow certainly is reserved, but not the oath. This formula, I promise, I vow, and I swear, from the common acceptance of men contains only an oath.

¹ Cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 3, n. 258; on the contrary Kirchberg, l. c., n. 151. What regular confessors can do with respect to married persons who have made a vow of perpetual chastity, see De sexto praecepto etc.^11, n. 101.