§ 4. On Real Sacrilege

551. Notion. Real sacrilege is the violation or unworthy treatment of a sacred thing.

Modes. Real sacrilege is committed in two ways: 1. by treating sacred things unworthily; 2. by usurping sacred goods. Some add: also by unlawfully buying or selling sacred things; but this is rather simony, concerning which treatment will be given below in n. 555ff.

All sacred things can be reduced to three categories, namely: 1. sacraments and sacramentals; 2. sacred vessels and ecclesiastical ornaments; 3. ecclesiastical goods.

552. 1. The unworthy treatment of the sacraments is the principal real sacrilege.

Among all unworthy treatments of the sacraments, the worst sacrilege is the reception and consecration of the Eucharist in the state of mortal sin, because the sacrament of the Eucharist surpasses all the others in dignity.⁸⁷¹ Other irreverences against the Eucharist are also reduced to the malice of sacrilege, for example, if the sacred species are cast away, or even are not renewed at the due time when there is danger of their corruption; if the lamp before the altar in which the Eucharist is reserved does not burn for a long time (an entire day); if unbecoming vessels, torn or unworthy vestments, or soiled linens are employed for the sacrifice of the Mass; if the Eucharist is administered by a minister who is in the state of mortal sin. All these matters will be treated specifically in the tract on the Eucharist. The unworthy reception, confecting, and administration of the other sacraments is also sacrilege. Probably the unworthy reception, confecting, and administration of diverse sacraments are not specifically diverse sacrileges. Some authors, however, except the unworthy treatment of the Eucharist, which they hold to be a sacrilege specifically distinct from sacrileges committed by the unworthy treatment of the other sacraments, at least if the sin of blasphemy is added in the injurious treatment of the Eucharist.⁸⁷² In practice it is altogether to be counseled that the penitent declare distinctly against which sacrament he committed sacrilege. The unworthy treatment of sacramentals is likewise reduced to sacrilege; rarely, however, does it constitute a grave sin if formal contempt is absent. Certainly it would be a sin if someone were to cast holy water into a latrine. But it is lawful from a reasonable cause to employ things that are simply blessed for decent profane uses. Thus, for example, when another light is lacking, it is lawful to employ a blessed candle in order to have light for study; likewise it is lawful to employ blessed salt for seasoning foods, and holy water for tempering wine.⁸⁷³

⁸⁷¹ Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 99, a. 3; 3, q. 73, a. 1 ad 2.

⁸⁷² Cf. Lehmkuhl, Theol. mor. I, n. 522.

⁸⁷³ Cf. Noldin, De praeceptis n. 179.

553. 2. To employ consecrated sacred vessels, for example, a consecrated chalice, and blessed ecclesiastical ornaments, for example, a chasuble, for profane uses without the greatest necessity is a grave sacrilege.

Nevertheless, according to the present discipline it is lawful to employ vessels of this kind and other blessed things for profane use if their form has first been entirely destroyed, for example, if a chalice has been reduced to common material by the melting of the metal. Nevertheless this profane use is to be avoided according to one's ability. Thus, for example, it is unbecoming to employ sacred linens, even when torn and cut up, for making a shirt. In practice it is much better and more becoming to employ again, for fashioning other sacred things, the parts which belonged to sacred things, or to burn them.⁸⁷⁴ The practice of certain priests who sell old blessed or even consecrated ecclesiastical ornaments to Jews and other dealers in old goods is also evil and reprehensible. For experience establishes that an altogether insufficient price is often obtained for things sold in this way, and moreover that they are sometimes afterward treated irreverently. For the rest, it is not apparent (if there is question of grave matter) how alienators of this kind, acting without the previous permission of the competent authority, escape the excommunication imposed against those who alienate ecclesiastical goods.⁸⁷⁵ Ecclesiastical vessels and ornaments which are not blessed (with a constitutive blessing), such as candlesticks, seats, benches, curtains, etc., can for a reasonable cause be employed for a profane end, provided that such an end carries nothing dishonorable with it. Likewise, the wood and stones of a demolished church seem able to be employed for profane uses, because universal custom has mitigated the older, more severe canons in this matter.⁸⁷⁶

⁸⁷⁴ Cf. S. theol. 3, q. 83, a. 3 ad 3; c. 39 de consecr. D. 1; St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 41.

⁸⁷⁵ Cf. concerning this censure below in the tract on censures.

⁸⁷⁶ Cf. c. 38 de consecr. D. 1; D'Annibale, Summula theol. mor. III, n. 16.

554. 3. The usurpation of sacred things and ecclesiastical goods is commonly called sacrilege in canon law.⁸⁷⁷

Those goods (whether movable or immovable) are considered ecclesiastical goods which belong to ecclesiastical institutes, for example, to churches, clerical seminaries, monasteries, etc., and the administration of which by law belongs to the Church; or, as St. Alphonsus⁸⁷⁸ says after St. Thomas: "those which pertain to the adornment of the church and of the ministers; then those which are deputed to the sustenance of the ministers." But the private goods of clerics and of other ecclesiastical persons are not ecclesiastical goods. The defrauding of ecclesiastical tithes is held by some authors to be true sacrilege; by others, however, it is called a sin of irreligion.⁸⁷⁹ The penalties imposed against usurpers of ecclesiastical goods will be treated in the tract on censures (cf. III, 512 and 518).

There are still several actions which possess to a greater or lesser degree the malice of sacrilege, for example, the abuse of the words of Sacred Scripture for jests,⁸⁸⁰ the irreverent treatment of relics, especially the theft of relics, the irreverent treatment of sacred images, etc. The gravity of the malice in these cases is to be weighed from the gravity of the irreverence voluntarily and knowingly inflicted.

⁸⁷⁷ Cf. the allocution of Pius IX, Quibus luctuosissimis, 5 September 1851. The word usurpation is taken here also for theft, detention, or defrauding; but not in that sense in which it is employed in the tract on censures, III, n. 525.

⁸⁷⁸ L.c. n. 42.

⁸⁷⁹ Cf. St. Alphonsus, l.c., and the authors cited there.

⁸⁸⁰ Noldin (l.c.) aptly observes: "Care must be taken that a jocular sense not be attached to the words of Sacred Scripture which occur in the Mass and Divine Office, lest occasion be given for distractions that will arise during prayer."