§ I. On the Privileges of Clerics in Common

Clerics enjoy certain privileges from canon law, indeed according to many from divine law.

All the faithful owe reverence to clerics, according to their different grades and functions, and they stain themselves with the crime of sacrilege if at any time they have inflicted real injury upon clerics (Can. 119).

§1. Clerics in all causes, whether contentious or criminal, must be summoned before an ecclesiastical judge, unless provision has been legitimately made otherwise for particular places.

§2. Cardinals, Legates of the Apostolic See, Bishops even titular, Abbots or Prelates nullius, supreme Superiors of religions of pontifical right, major Officials of the Roman Curia, on account of business pertaining to their function, cannot be summoned before a lay judge without the permission of the Apostolic See; others enjoying the privilege of forum, without the permission of the Ordinary of the place in which the cause is carried on; which permission, nevertheless, the Ordinary, especially when the plaintiff is a layman, should not deny without a just and grave cause, especially when he has given effort in vain to settling the controversies between the parties.

§3. If nevertheless they are summoned by one who has had no previous permission, they can, by reason of necessity, appear in order to avoid greater evils, yet after the Superior from whom permission was not obtained has been informed (Can. 120).

All clerics are immune from military service, and from civil public functions and offices foreign to the clerical state (Can. 121).

For clerics who are compelled to satisfy creditors, let those things be safe which, according to the prudent judgment of the ecclesiastical judge, are necessary for honorable support of themselves, yet with the obligation of the same clerics to satisfy creditors as soon as possible remaining firm (Can. 122).

A cleric cannot renounce the aforesaid privileges; but he loses them if he is reduced to the lay state or is punished with perpetual privation of the right of wearing ecclesiastical garb, according to the norm of can. 213, §1, 2304; but he recovers them if this penalty is remitted or he himself is again admitted among clerics (Can. 123).

Religious of either sex, even lay religious, enjoy the privilege of the canon. Cf. Can. 2343, §4.