Article — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
Article IV. On The Object Of Censure
484. The object, which is also sometimes called the matter or cause of censure, is the crime on account of which this ecclesiastical penalty is inflicted. Such a crime, however, cannot be punished with censure unless it is: 1. grave (both subjectively and objectively); 2. external; 3. consummated in its kind; 4. joined with contumacy.70
- Grave.
For censure is considered a grave penalty. But a grave penalty cannot licitly be imposed except on account of grave fault. Sometimes, however, suspension and interdict are inflicted upon a guilty community in which innocent persons may be present, and then they must indeed be patiently endured by all, even by the innocent, but it is not so certain whether they are censures strictly so called. - When a crime becomes light for some reason, for example, smallness of matter, imperfection of the act, inability to fulfill the law, and so forth, a censure or another ecclesiastical penalty is no longer incurred.71
- External.
For a merely internal crime cannot be punished with an ecclesiastical censure, because the Church does not judge merely internal acts. It must be noted that an internal crime is one thing and an occult crime, which is known to few or to the delinquent alone, is another. Nothing prevents an occult crime, for example, heresy uttered in secret, from being punished with censure.
- The crime to be punished with censure must be consummated or complete (and not merely attempted), or, in other words: a censure is not present unless the crime has all the conditions placed in the very promulgation of the censure.
For censures are of strict interpretation. Hence, for example, one who indeed fires a gun at a cleric but does not strike him does not incur a censure imposed upon assailants of clerics; likewise, one who reads a book which he falsely thought was prohibited under excommunication does not incur excommunication. On the other hand, one who administered a drug causing abortion, but who repents before the effect has followed, appears to incur the excommunication imposed against those procuring abortion. The reason is that the effect which followed was voluntary and gravely sinful, and had all the conditions required for excommunication.72 St. Alphonsus,73 however, calls the contrary opinion more probable in a similar case, without nevertheless rejecting the other opinion.
You will resolve the case thus: Caius administered a drug which after three days will cause an abortion in the pregnant Tullia. Immediately struck with repentance, he confesses the sin perpetrated. Even a simple confessor can grant absolution, since the abortion has not yet followed. After three days the abortion actually follows, and then the excommunication appears to be incurred, from which Caius must be absolved in his next confession by a competent confessor. Thus the more probable opinion. Nor should anyone say that no excommunication is incurred without grave sin, but that in the proposed case the sin has been blotted out through sincere repentance. The response is that certainly no excommunication is incurred without a causative sin, but it is by no means required that the causative sin persevere throughout the entire time during which the excommunication exists. For nothing prevents someone from being excommunicated and nevertheless being in the state of grace, for example, through perfect contrition. Concerning this matter, see the controversy between Ballerini and the Vindiciae Alphonsianae.74
- Joined with contumacy,75 that is, with at least virtual contempt of the censure.
Express and formal contempt is indeed not required for incurring a censure; rather, virtual or even interpretative contempt suffices, consisting in this: that someone knows something to be prohibited under censure by a law or a legitimate ecclesiastical superior and nevertheless presumes to do it.76 Therefore, for incurring a censure, there is required in the sinner knowledge both of the prohibiting law and of the special penalty to be inflicted upon transgressors; and consequently ignorance and fear sometimes excuse, concerning which discussion will return in the following article.
70 Code of Canon Law, c. 2242.
71 Ibid., c. 2218, § 2.
72 Cf. Lugo, De poenit. disp. 16, sect. 9, n. 453.
73 Loc. cit., n. 40; cf. also ibid., nn. 280 and 368.
74 Ballerini-Palmieri, Opus theol. VII, n. 143, and Vindic. Alphons. nn. 841-848.
75 In German: "with defiance and obstinacy."
76 Cf. Reiffenstuel, Ius can. l. 5, tit. 39, n. 14.
485. Note. At least virtual contumacy is altogether required for incurring censures in the internal forum; in the external forum, however, presumed contumacy sometimes suffices. For when some ecclesiastical law has been sufficiently promulgated, knowledge of it is presumed in all subjects, who, if they transgress this law, must undergo the penalties and censures sanctioned. Hence, for example, a Catholic who contracts marriage before a non-Catholic minister incurs the imposed excommunication, although he is ignorant of the existence of this censure.77 Therefore, such a Catholic who is actually ignorant of the excommunication can be absolved in the internal forum by any confessor, but in the external forum he still needs an absolution which is to be given according to the form prescribed in the individual dioceses. Contumacy is to be said to have ceased when the guilty person has truly repented of the delict committed and at the same time has given suitable satisfaction for the damages and scandal, or at least has seriously promised it; but it belongs to the one from whom absolution from the censure is sought to judge whether the repentance is true, the satisfaction suitable, or the promise of it serious.78
Corollary. An act clothed with the qualities enumerated above can therefore be punished with censure. But according to the diversity and multiplication of acts, censures also are diversified and multiplied; and therefore one and the same man can be bound by many censures. Hence, for example, one who a) contracted marriage before a non-Catholic minister, b) stipulated that the offspring would be educated in heresy, c) knowingly presumed to offer the offspring to a non-Catholic minister to be baptized, and d) on seven different occasions knowingly read heretical books, incurred ten censures.79
77 Cf. Holy Office, May 11, 1892 (Collect. de Prop. Fide, n. 1793).
78 Code of Canon Law, c. 2242, § 3.