Case 2. Parochial Rights

Caius, a priest and religious who, although he does not have the care of souls, nevertheless enjoys faculties from the Ordinary for administering the sacraments of Baptism, Matrimony, Extreme Unction, and Holy Viaticum, with the permission of the priest exercising the care of souls, is called to his friend Paul, who lies dangerously ill. Caius indeed knows that the priest who exercises the care of souls there obstinately stands upon his rights and requires that his permission be sought on every occasion; nevertheless, because the priest seems unreasonable to him, without seeking permission he hastens to his sick friend and administers the last sacraments to him. His superior therefore considers him excommunicated and commands that he first seek absolution from the censure before he celebrates Mass. Hence it is asked:

1. What is a censure?

2. What are the effects of excommunication?

3. Explain the censure in question in the case.

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is a censure?

A censure is a spiritual and remedial penalty by which a baptized and contumacious delinquent is deprived by ecclesiastical authority of the use of certain spiritual advantages.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 307.

2. What are the effects of excommunication?

Excommunication deprives the excommunicated person of the use of the sacraments, sacramentals, and indulgences of the Church, of public suffrages and prayers; of the administration of the sacraments; of participation in the liturgical offices; of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; of the right to ecclesiastical burial; and it makes null and void presentation to a benefice, or the conferring of an ecclesiastical dignity with jurisdiction annexed to it.²

2 Ibid., 377.

3. Explain the censure to which the case alludes.

The fourteenth excommunication of those reserved to the Holy See by the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis is as follows: “ Religious who presume to administer to clerics or laypeople, outside a case of necessity, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction or the Eucharist as Viaticum without the permission of the parish priest.” The terms of this censure should be strictly interpreted and therefore any ignorance or good faith will excuse a person from incurring it, and probably it is not incurred in countries like Great Britain and most parts of the United States, where parishes have not yet been erected and where therefore there are not parish priests.³

3 Génicot, vol. ii, n. 604; Sabetti, n. 1002.

4. The case. Caius may be excused from the censure because he acted to some extent in good faith, inasmuch as he thought the priest of the place an unreasonable stickler for his rights. Even if we grant that this idea of his was false, nevertheless it prevented him from presuming in the technical sense. If there are no parish priests in the place where the case happened, Caius may be excused on this ground also. However, he did wrong in intruding into the district assigned to another without leave. His Superior, therefore, was justified in forbidding him to say Mass until he had obtained absolution. The Superior regarded him as under censure in the external forum.