Section 5. Mutilation, Attempt of Suicide.

495. Because of Mutilation or Attempt of Suicide these are irregular: those who mutilated themselves or others, or attempted to take life from themselves.¹

1. Mutilation is the cutting off of a member. By the name of member is understood a part of the body having a proper and distinct office, such as eye, arm, foot, hand, tongue, ear, etc.

In applying this definition difficulty arises when it must be determined what part of the body has a proper function and therefore is signified by the name of member. For although almost all parts of the body are paired, it may be asked whether one part, an eye, ear, leg, can be considered as having a proper office. Now, with regard had to common estimation, it seems it must be said that those parts which are distinct and separated as the eyes are, have a proper function, but those which are not distinct and separated, as the nostrils, do not have a proper function and therefore are not members. And certainly where the eye is torn out, a member is cut off; where the nostril is cut, a part of a member, the nose, is cut off.²

a. Therefore he who harms some member or renders it useless, e.g., does not tear out an eye but blinds it, does not become irregular, because he did not cut off the member; for mutilation is cutting off or separation from the body.

b. He who knocks out a tooth, cuts off the ear, the cartilage of the ear, or cuts off a finger, is not made irregular, because he has not cut off a member; for these do not have a proper function in the human body.

2. Attempt to take life from oneself must be gravely sinful in order to induce irregularity. It can happen that with this irregularity a twofold other irregularity is joined, one from the delict of mutilation, another from deformity of body.

¹ Cn. 985, 5.

² Ballerini-Palmieri VII, n. 444 ss.