§ 3. On Local Sacrilege

545. Notions. Local sacrilege is the violation of a sacred place or of local immunity. A sacred place in the strict sense is said to be one which by the authority of the Church is deputed to divine worship or to the burial of the faithful through the consecration or blessing which the approved liturgical books prescribe for this.⁸⁴⁸ Such sacred places are churches, public oratories, and blessed cemeteries. Since semipublic and private oratories need not necessarily be blessed,⁸⁴⁹ they are not to be numbered among sacred places in the strict sense.

Religious places and pious places must be distinguished from sacred places. Religious places are those in which works of piety and mercy are exercised habitually and by office, and which have been erected with the authority or express permission of the bishop. Such religious places are monasteries, hospitals erected by the authority of the Church, seminaries of clerics, the bishop's palace, etc. To these religious places, which are sometimes called sacred in a broader sense, the right of asylum and the privilege of immunity are customarily competent. Pious places are those which without the intervention of the Church have been deputed to the exercise of pious works, for example, private oratories, civil orphanages, civil cemeteries, etc.

⁸⁴⁸ Code of Canon Law, c. 1154. Some authors, such as Laymann and Billuart (l.c.), do not require sacred places to be blessed, but this opinion does not seem true.

⁸⁴⁹ Code of Canon Law, c. 1196.

546. The modes by which local sacrilege is committed are the following:

1. Pollution of a sacred place, which only the following four acts cause, provided that they are certain, notorious, and performed in the church:⁸⁵⁰

a) Unjust homicide, even without the shedding of blood, for example, by strangulation.

Every killing (even suicide) perpetrated with full deliberation in a church, unless it is done for just defense with the moderation of blameless defense, is sacrilege. But in order that a killing be said to have been perpetrated in a church, it is required and suffices that the proximate cause of death, for example, a wound or poison, be received in the church, although death occurs outside the church.⁸⁵¹

b) The unjust and copious shedding of human blood.

Therefore, if someone, for example, because of a light slap received in church sheds blood from his nostrils, neither pollution nor local sacrilege is present, since this does not arise except from a grave and unjust wounding.

c) Several impious or sordid actions which either from their own nature or from a special prohibition of the Church are opposed to the sanctity of a sacred place.

The Second Council of Lyons (1274) enumerates such actions: secular trials, both civil and criminal, commercial dealings, fairs, profane theatrical performances, public assemblies of profane societies, banquets, etc.⁸⁵²

On the occasion of funerals or festivities, the banners of societies manifestly opposed to the Catholic religion or whose statutes have been condemned must not be admitted into a church. If banners bearing manifestly impious or perverse emblems are carried in a funeral procession, the clergy are to withdraw from it.⁸⁵³ Dramatic performances by cinematographs and other projections are prohibited in churches.⁸⁵⁴

The stabling of horses, human filth, and dances greatly injure the sanctity of a sacred place. Privately eating something in sacred places, however, does not exceed a venial sin; indeed, when a reasonable cause is present (for example, if workmen labor in a church and cannot easily leave), it is no sin. Selling candles or devotional articles in a cemetery or in the atrium of a church is tolerated in some regions. Actions of this kind can more readily be permitted in a cemetery than in a church. But if cemeteries are not blessed, but civil, as often happens today, then they are no longer sacred places.

d) The burial of an infidel or an excommunicated person, but only after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence.

⁸⁵⁰ Code of Canon Law, c. 1172, § 1.

⁸⁵¹ c. 4, X 3, 4, and Many, De locis sacris n. 31.

⁸⁵² c. 2, in VI 3, 23.

⁸⁵³ Cf. Holy Office, 4 April 1887 and 24 November 1897, and Sacred Congregation of Rites, 26 March 1924.

⁸⁵⁴ Sacred Consistorial Congregation, 10 December 1912 (Act. Ap. Sed. IV [1912], 724).

547. Note. 1. All the enumerated actions pollute a sacred place and require its reconciliation, provided, however, that they were certain, notorious, and performed in the church itself. When notoriety is lacking, pollution is not indeed caused, but sacrilege more probably remains.

2. A church is no longer polluted through a gravely sinful emission of human seed, as was decreed in the old law; but such a sin nevertheless seems to constitute true sacrilege, since the Code of Canon Law has changed nothing in this matter. Therefore, for example, if someone, even in a secret manner, procured sinful pollution for himself in a church, he must declare in confession the circumstance of the sacred place.⁸⁵⁵ Whether other grave external sins of lust committed in a sacred place (touches, looks, lascivious conversations), apart from danger of pollution, are true sacrileges in the strict sense is controverted. St. Alphonsus⁸⁵⁶ calls the affirmative opinion the more probable; and it is much better that the circumstance of the sacred place be declared in these sins, both because grave scandal has often arisen from them and because otherwise the confessor cannot judge well concerning the state of the penitent. Some authors hold as probable that acts of this kind are not sacrileges strictly so called, and therefore that the circumstance of the sacred place need not necessarily be declared.⁸⁵⁷ Sins of lust perpetrated merely internally in a sacred place are not sacrileges in the strict sense. What older authors say concerning lawful conjugal intercourse in a sacred place can scarcely occur in our times.

⁸⁵⁵ Vermeersch teaches the contrary, Theol. mor. II, n. 268, and IV, n. 100.

⁸⁵⁶ Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 459.

⁸⁵⁷ Thus Noldin, De praeceptis n. 178; Tanquerey, De virt. relig. n. 933; and several older authors cited by St. Alphonsus, l.c.

548. 2. Grave theft committed in a sacred place.

For thus it is established in the Decree of Gratian:⁸⁵⁸ "Sacrilege is committed by taking away the sacred from a sacred place, or the non-sacred from a sacred place, or the sacred from a non-sacred place." The sacred is taken away from a sacred place, for example, if someone steals a consecrated chalice from a church. Those most wicked men take away the non-sacred from a sacred place who approach a church full of people in order to commit thefts upon the faithful staying there.⁸⁵⁹ Several authors, however, for example, Lugo,⁸⁶⁰ Tamburinus,⁸⁶¹ Lessius,⁸⁶² and Noldin,⁸⁶³ think that a theft committed in a sacred place is a grave sacrilege only when the thing taken away is joined to the sacred place by some special bond, and therefore either belongs to the sacred place or at least has been entrusted to its custody. The opposite opinion, which St. Alphonsus⁸⁶⁴ calls more probable and which is more conformable to the text of canon law⁸⁶⁵ cited above, teaches that every grave theft committed in a sacred place is a true sacrilege. Hence, if someone has stolen another's purse (which contains a large sum of money) in a church, he probably must declare the circumstance of the sacred place in confession.

If someone steals the sacred from a non-sacred place, for example, a consecrated chalice in a lay house, he does not commit local sacrilege, but real sacrilege.

⁸⁵⁸ c. 21, C. 17, q. 4.

⁸⁵⁹ Taschendieb [pickpocket].

⁸⁶⁰ De sacr. poenit. disp. 16, n. 470.

⁸⁶¹ Method. conf. l. 2, c. 8, n. 5.

⁸⁶² De iust. et iure l. 2, c. 45, n. 14.

⁸⁶³ De praeceptis n. 178.

⁸⁶⁴ Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 39; cf. also Billuart, De relig. diss. 10, a. unic.

⁸⁶⁵ The text cited is not, indeed, from John VIII, as Gratian seems to suppose, but from Ivo of Chartres; cf. Berardi, Gratiani Canones genuini, etc., III, 344 (Turin ed., 1752).

549. 3. Violation of local immunity.

Local immunity is a privilege granted to some place, by force of which several profane actions are prohibited in it (cf. above, n. 546) and the right of asylum is granted. The privilege of immunity belongs not only to sacred places, but also to religious places.⁸⁶⁶ Cf. above. The right of asylum was already received in the customs and laws of ancient peoples, and especially among the Hebrews.⁸⁶⁷ At that time this right was very useful, since criminal justice was sometimes excessively severe. In the Middle Ages several crimes were designated which could not claim the right of asylum for themselves, for example, blasphemy, perjury, usury, etc. The right of asylum is in itself very fitting, especially as regards sacred places. For in this way a public profession is made of the reverence due to those places, and earthly justice, as it were, reverently bows itself before divine justice, which judges all the guilty in equity. In our times the right of ecclesiastical asylum is scarcely recognized anywhere by civil governments. Almost the sole exception is the Vatican palace, which still has the privilege of extraterritoriality. The law of asylum is to be observed at least as regards its substance even in our days, insofar as this is possible;⁸⁶⁸ and therefore care is to be taken according to one's ability that a criminal man not be seized by violence in a church during divine offices, or that he not be seized without the consent of the Ordinary or at least of the rector of the church. Certain civil governments also observe this practice.

Wonderful to say! Although the right of ecclesiastical asylum is recognized almost nowhere, the right of civil asylum still exists under a diverse form. Thus, for example, consular houses situated in foreign cities possess the right of asylum, at least for political crimes; if someone flees to a warship⁸⁶⁹ of another nation, he cannot be seized unless the consent of the government to which the warship belongs has first been obtained.⁸⁷⁰

⁸⁶⁶ Cf. c. 21, C. 17, q. 14.

⁸⁶⁷ Cf. Ex. 21:13; Deut. 19:2ff.

⁸⁶⁸ Cf. Holy Office, 22 December 1880; Code of Canon Law, c. 1179.

⁸⁶⁹ Kriegsschiff [warship].

⁸⁷⁰ Cf. Staatslexikon, s.v. Asylrecht [right of asylum].

550. Note. The actions indicated in the two preceding numbers do not cause sacrilege unless they were perpetrated strictly in a sacred place, that is, within the boundaries of the sacred place; or, if there is question of churches, in the space which is enclosed by the walls, floor, and ceiling of the church. Therefore sacrilege is not present if, for example, the shedding of blood was done in the sacristy, or in the portico, or in an underground crypt, or in the tower, or above the ceiling, etc. The actions indicated in the third number, or the violation of immunity, constitute sacrilege even if they were done not strictly within the space of the sacred place, but also in adjoining places. For the rest, sacrilege because of the violation of immunity rarely occurs today, as has been said.