Section — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
§ 3. On Irregularities From Delict
Preliminary note. What St. Paul says of a bishop, "It is necessary that a bishop be without crime,"138 holds likewise for all clerics, or even those who wish to embrace the clerical state. Therefore criminals are rightly and deservedly barred from receiving and exercising orders. And so the Church has established certain irregularities which arise from seven crimes.
For the following are irregular from delict:
138 Titus 1:7.
620. 1. apostates from the faith, heretics, schismatics, and those who are or have been enrolled in an atheistic sect (Pontifical Commission, July 30, 1934: A. A. S. XXVI, 494);
those who, except in a case of extreme necessity, have permitted baptism to be conferred upon themselves by non-Catholics in any manner. Thus the irregularity from abuse of baptism is limited and can occur most rarely;
those who have dared to attempt marriage or to place merely a civil act, whether they themselves are bound by the bond of marriage, sacred order, or religious vows, even simple and temporary, or with a woman bound by the same vows or joined in a valid marriage. This irregularity is nothing other than an extension of that which was called by the ancient authors similitudinary bigamy. Concerning the other penalties against bigamists who attempt another marriage while the prior marriage remains, and against clerics and religious who attempt marriage, see above in the treatise on ecclesiastical penalties, n. 515.
621. 4. those who have perpetrated voluntary homicide or procured the abortion of a human fetus, the effect having followed, and all who cooperate;
- those who have mutilated themselves or others, or have attempted to take their own lives.
To understand these two irregularities correctly, it must be kept before the eyes that no delict causes irregularity unless it is a grave and external sin. Consequently, he does not incur these irregularities who kills or mutilates another either with the moderation of blameless defense, or from ignorance, or accidentally beyond intention and grave fault. Likewise these irregularities are not incurred if the death of the other person did not actually follow. Hence he who administers poison to kill a man indeed sins immediately, but does not incur irregularity if the poison does not cause death; likewise he who administers a drug to procure an abortion sins gravely, but is not irregular unless the abortion actually followed. But if someone attempts to take his own life, he is immediately irregular, although suicide does not follow.
In order that mutilation induce irregularity, it is required that there be a gravely illicit cutting off or separation of some member from the body, for example, the cutting off of a hand, foot, or genital member, but not of one finger, an ear, etc. Hence a eunuch who has been castrated through his own grave fault incurs irregularity, but not otherwise.
622. 6. clerics practicing the medical or surgical art forbidden to them, if death follows from it.
Two things appear to be necessary: a) the gravely prohibited practice of the medical or surgical art; b) death actually following from it.
- those who place an act of order reserved to clerics constituted in sacred order, either lacking that order, or prohibited from its exercise by a canonical penalty, whether personal, medicinal or vindicative, or local.
This irregularity was already contained in the ancient law, but was not expressed clearly enough. According to the new law, every person (whether cleric or layman) incurs this irregularity who exercises an act of sacred order (that is, of the subdiaconate, diaconate, priesthood, or episcopate), although a) he has not yet been initiated into that order, or b) he is gravely prohibited from exercising this order because of canonical penalties. Therefore this irregularity can arise from a twofold head: 1. from the usurpation of an order not possessed; 2. from the exercise of an order indeed possessed, but gravely prohibited because of certain ecclesiastical penalties. Such penalties are: local interdict, censures, vindicative penalties. According to the present discipline, when necessity exists, it is permitted that a tonsured cleric perform the office of subdeacon in a solemn Mass, provided that he does not wear the maniple (Sacred Congregation of Rites, July 17, 1894; Decr. auth., n. 3832, ad VII). In such a case the cleric cannot touch or wipe the chalice. A subdeacon (and, a fortiori, a minor cleric or layman) does not appear able to sing the Gospel in a solemn Mass, even when not vested with the stole, because such chanting is truly an act of the order of diaconate, which he lacks. Some teach the contrary, such as Noldin, Laurentius, and others. In the chanting of the Passion of the Lord, however, it is tolerated that, when a deacon is lacking, the third chanter (acting the part of the synagogue) not be a deacon.
623. Scholion 1. On impediments to ordination. In the new Code of Canon Law, c. 987, besides irregularities from defect and from delict, temporary impediments to ordination are assigned. These impediments are enumerated as seven. For the following are declared simply impeded:
"children of non-Catholics, as long as their parents remain in their error." Among non-Catholics are included also those cited in n. 620, 1. But grandsons in the paternal line are no longer irregular, as they were previously.139 If non-Catholic parents have died, their children appear able to be licitly ordained, since the infamy of law formerly inflicted upon these children is no longer transferred to blood relatives and relatives by affinity.140 On the contrary, an impediment is present if not both parents, but only one or the other, has remained in error.141
"men having a wife." Therefore, although the wife grants permission and vows continence, nevertheless the husband cannot receive orders without the previous permission of the Holy See, which is customarily granted with difficulty.
"those who hold an office or administration forbidden to clerics, of which they must render accounts, until, having laid down the office and administration and rendered the accounts, they have become free."
"slaves in slavery properly so called, before receiving liberty."
"those who are bound by civil law to ordinary military service, before they have completed it." All who are indicated under these last four numbers labor under defect of liberty, which in the ancient law was considered an irregularity.
"neophytes, until, in the judgment of the Ordinary, they have been sufficiently proved." The ancient authors called this defect of confirmed faith.
"those who labor under infamy of fact, as long as it endures in the judgment of the Ordinary."
139 Pontifical Commission, July 14, 1922.
140 Code of Canon Law, c. 2293, § 4.
141 Pontifical Commission, October 16, 1919.
624. Scholion 2. On the notation and testimony of a completed ordination. When the ordination has been completed, the names of each one ordained and of the ordaining minister, and the place and day of ordination, are to be noted in a special book to be carefully preserved in the Curia of the place of ordination, and all the documents of the individual ordinations (for example, dimissorial letters, testimonial letters, etc.) are to be accurately preserved.142
An authentic testimony of the ordination received is to be given to each one ordained. Those ordained, if they were promoted by a foreign bishop with dimissorial letters, are to exhibit it to their own Ordinary for the notation of the ordination in a special book to be preserved in the archive.
Furthermore, the local Ordinary for secular clerics, and the major religious superior for his ordained religious, is to transmit notice of the ordination celebrated for each subdeacon to the pastor of baptism, who is to note it in his register of the baptized.143
142 Code of Canon Law, c. 1010, § 1.
143 Ibid., cc. 1010 and 1011.