Chapter III. Interdict

INTERDICT is a censure which prohibits the use of liturgical offices, some sacraments, and ecclesiastical burial. It differs from excommunication and suspension, even when the effects are similar, in that excommunication deprives the delinquent of the use of the sacraments, for example, inasmuch as that use is a communication with the faithful, and suspension deprives the delinquent of the exercise of ecclesiastical power in the administration of the sacraments, while interdict forbids their use inasmuch as they are sacred actions and objects of which for just reasons the delinquent is deprived.

An interdict is local, personal, or mixed, as the prohibition immediately affects the place, certain persons, or both.

It is general or special as it affects the whole of some country or body; or only some particular place or person, physical or moral.

A local interdict, whether general or special, does not forbid the administration of the sacraments and sacramentals to the dying under proper conditions, but it forbids in the place any divine office or sacred rite with the following exceptions: On the feasts of Christmas, Easter, Whit Sunday, Corpus Christi and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a local interdict is suspended, and the conferring of orders and the solemn nuptial blessing are alone forbidden.

If the interdict was local and general and the decree of interdict did not expressly state otherwise:

(r) Provided that they are not personally interdicted, clerics are allowed in private to exercise all divine offices and sacred rites in any church or oratory, with closed doors, in a low voice and without the ringing of bells.

(2) Moreover, in the cathedral, in parish churches, and in the only church in the place, and in these places alone, the celebration of one Mass, the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, the administration of Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance, assisting at marriage, with the exclusion of the nuptial blessing, funerals excluding all pomp, the blessing of baptismal water, and of the holy oils, and preaching the word of God are permitted.

Moreover, in these sacred functions singing is forbidden and pomp in the sacred furniture, the ringing of bells, the playing of the organ and of other musical instruments; and Holy Viaticum should be carried to the sick privately.

Even if a cemetery is specially interdicted the bodies of the faithful may be buried there, but without any ecclesiastical rite (Can. 2270-2272).

The violation of an interdict by doing what it forbids is a grave sin, and a cleric who violates a personal interdict by the exercise of an action belonging to sacred orders or who performs such an action in a place which is interdicted by name incurs irregularity (Can. 985, vii).