§ 4. Sanctions Laid Against Simony

1. C. 729 renders void by full right every simoniacal contract, and, in the matter of benefices, offices, dignities, the provision or nomination which follows thence, for example from presentation, even if, without the knowledge of the one provided, simony was committed by a third person, provided it was not done in fraud of the same provided person, for example to impede his otherwise certain promotion, or with him contradicting. "Wherefore," c. 729 thus continues, "1) before any sentence of a judge, a thing simoniacally given and accepted, if it is capable of restitution and the reverence owed to the spiritual thing does not stand in the way, must be restored; and the benefice, office, dignity, resigned; - 2) the one simoniacally provided does not make the fruits his own; but if he has perceived them in good faith, it is permitted to the prudence of the judge or Ordinary to condone the fruits perceived to him wholly or in part." For this reason, he who has promised either stipends for bination Masses, or, on the occasion of sacred administration, anything beyond legitimately admitted offerings, must not stand by his promises. Yet since a celebrated Mass or a sacred administration done cannot be restored, even today it is not established that anything must be restored by him who has wrongly received those remunerations, unless he has at the same time been unjust, as if he has demanded money for an administration which was incumbent upon him to do from justice, for example as pastor.

2. If a patron has attempted to transfer the right of patronage to another simoniacally, from c. 1470, §1, 6°, the right of patronage is extinguished.

3. "Those perpetrating the delict of simony in any ecclesiastical offices, benefices, or dignities: 1) incur excommunication latae sententiae simply reserved to the Apostolic See; - 2) by the fact itself they remain deprived forever of the right of electing, presenting, naming, if they have any; - 3) if they are clerics, besides let them be suspended (c. 2392)." - Since the delict is not fully perpetrated unless the effect has followed, the penalty is not contracted unless it has been perfected at least by the handing over of the spiritual thing. The old interpretation agrees (Laymann, L. 4, tr. 10, c. ult., n. 68 and 78).

All, even bishops, are declared suspect of heresy who knowingly promote anyone to sacred orders through simony, or who in the same way have knowingly been promoted, or who have simoniacally ministered or received other sacraments; clerics besides incur suspension reserved to the Apostolic See (c. 2371).

4. Those making gain from indulgences are punished by the fact itself with excommunication simply reserved to the Apostolic See (c. 2327).

5. Those variously delinquent concerning Mass stipends are said to be punished in c. 2321. Cf. III, 302.

6. Besides the obligation of restitution for taxes unjustly received, those who increase them are said to be punished in c. 2408.

Irreligiosity is opposed to religion by defect, whether it sins by irreverence toward God: temptation of God, blasphemy, perjury, and violation of a vow; or whether it treats sacred persons or things unworthily: sacrilege and simony.

I. - Temptation of God properly consists in a rash demand for divine intervention, although he tempts God more strictly who, as if doubting, wishes to explore the divine perfection or divine good pleasure: these are the two other ratios of conceiving temptation of God. And they distinguish express and tacit temptation; the latter lies hidden in the manner of acting. Moreover it is formal as often as someone with conscious rashness asks that God come to his aid or manifest Himself. He sins mortally of itself who, without a special divine instinct, absolutely wills or promises a miracle; generally only venially who without sufficient cause demands a miracle even conditionally. What is commonly called temptation of God, committed by one who rashly exposes his health, is rather presumption, whose gravity is to be estimated from the importance of the foreseen harm.

II. - Blasphemy 1. is an insult brought against God, whether in heart, or mouth, or deed, or insulting action. The reserved sin of blasphemy is understood of blasphemous speech alone, oral or written.

It is distinguished as direct, from a formal intention of dishonoring God, indirect, from the will alone of saying insulting things; they differ in degree, not in species; formal, material; simply insulting, heretical, imprecatory; that by which God is dishonored in Himself or in His saints and in sacred things: this can also attack the proper excellence of the saints; vulgar, which is conceived in customary utterances, and affected, which is conceived in studiously sought expressions.

2. Gravity. Of sins against religion, blasphemy is the gravest of its genus, so that in true blasphemy no excuse is to be drawn from lightness of matter. Direct blasphemy has as its root the appetite of vengeance against God; indirect, too swift anger or impatience. All formally infidel and impious writers are guilty of most grave blasphemy. Common use can add or remove a blasphemous signification from words. In order that there be blasphemy, these words must be said significatively, not merely historically or by way of jest. Those who, from anger against creatures or from custom, utter blasphemous words without attention to God, often seem capable of being excused from grave sin, although they must lay aside that custom. Blasphemies uttered in drunkenness, according as they are uttered mechanically or from a certain anger, will not or will be blameworthy in their cause.

3. Vain usurpation of the name of God is of itself a venial sin, graver or lighter according to the adjuncts.

4. Imprecations against men are often excused from grave sin when a serious will is lacking.

5. Let the confessor a) unteach errors; b) turn vulgar blasphemers away from the custom, by suggesting suitable remedies; c) more gravely rebuke parents or masters who blaspheme with scandal of children or inferiors. Lest sin be committed scandalously before children, formulas similar to blasphemies must also be avoided.

III. - Sacrilege 1. broadly is every sin against the virtue of religion; strictly it is violation of a sacred thing, irreverence which specially conflicts with its sanctity. But a thing or person is not sacred unless by a public institution, whether of God, of Christ, or of the Church, it has been dedicated to divine worship. Moreover, that sacrilege may be had, an action is required which is directly opposed to that sanctity, or contrary to a law which under the same ratio of sanctity prescribes or prohibits certain things. Violations will be estimated as sacrilegious partly from the very nature of the violation, especially when the sanctity is of divine origin; partly from the positive determination of the Church.

Sacrilege is customarily distinguished as personal, real, local, as if these were three ultimate species. Yet what specifically intervenes between local and real sacrilege scarcely appears. But in unworthy treatment of the Eucharist, a twofold sanctity is violated: the absolute sanctity of God, and the relative sanctity of the sacrament.

The sanctity of a person is more partial; the sanctity of a place more extrinsic and of positive law; the sanctity of a thing can be so total that every profane use is sacrilegious. Sacred is the very right of the Church in sacred places or things.

2. Grave of its genus, sacrilege admits slightness of matter. - Every contempt of a sacred quality is sacrilegious; and besides there is committed: a) personal sacrilege by every real injury inflicted on a cleric or religious of either sex, and by lustful pleasure of a cleric in sacred orders, or of a person bound by a public vow of chastity; perhaps also by violation of the privilege of forum; b) local, through actions by which a church, an oratory consecrated or endowed with public blessing, and a blessed cemetery are violated; i.e., through homicide, suicide, injurious killing in a sacred place, grave shedding of blood, impious and sordid uses, burial of an infidel or excommunicated person after condemnatory or declaratory sentence (c. 1172); then through violation of immunity and of the tempered right of asylum, insofar as they subsist; c) real, by unworthy reception, treatment, and administration of the sacraments; by carnal sin committed shortly after communion, or when someone celebrates, carries the Eucharist, or is vested for celebrating sacred rite; by profanation of sacred vessels and instruments which are at least blessed; by unworthy treatment of sacred images and relics; by abuse of Sacred Scripture; by theft of a sacred thing or of a thing committed to the custody of a temple. - Touch, by the bare hand, of the chalice with the paten, and, before washing, of the purificator, pall, corporal used in the sacrifice of the Mass, is prohibited under venial sin to lay persons who do not have custody of them; and the first washing is of itself to be reserved to clerics in sacred orders.

Profane use of sacred furnishings is prohibited; especially of that which is consecrated or blessed by a constitutive blessing, or which is used in public worship; for honest use of the remaining furnishings is easily excused. Moreover, sacred things wholly changed can be used for every use. And today sacred vestments, consumed by use, seem, with their form changed, capable of receiving a civil or profane use.

Scruples are to be removed by the confessor in this matter in such a way that nothing derogates from reverence for sacred things.

IV. - 1. Simony is a real sacrilege of agreements which, concerning a spiritual thing or a temporal thing connected with it, are prohibited in view of religion. It is distinguished as of divine law, when, by tacit or express agreement, a temporal price, money, words, services, is promised or given for a spiritual thing or for a temporal thing which can in no way exist without the spiritual thing (c. 727, §1); and of ecclesiastical law.

Simony of divine law contains the malice of injurious equation of a sacred thing with a temporal thing; of usurpation of perfect dominion of a sacred thing; of neglected gratuitous intention of God's benefit (2, 2, q. 100, art. 1).

By ecclesiastical prohibition the sin of simony is extended to certain exchanges of things of the same genus, if this is prohibited by the Church because of danger of irreverence toward spiritual things. Yet they refer simony of divine law and simony of ecclesiastical law to the same genus, since the prohibition is commanded by the same motive of religion, while they acknowledge in each a special ratio of real sacrilege.

An agreement supposes a true obligation of the promissory party; nor is the mode or condition of a spiritual thing or work, appended to a liberal promise or donation of a temporal thing, simoniacal, at least if the spiritual work does not yield to the utility of the donor. - A spiritual thing can be such formally, gifts of the Holy Spirit; causally, sacraments, preaching, prayers; or effectively, or by way of effect of power, consecration, blessing. But communication of knowledge, even sacred, is not spiritual. A temporal thing which cannot exist without the spiritual thing is a benefice, or a right to ecclesiastical revenues.

Labor extrinsic joined with a spiritual action can be sold or hired; concerning intrinsic labor, or concerning the work to be spent in making a spiritual thing, for example in celebrating Mass, it is doubted whether it can be sold or hired; and when there is question of inseparable labor, it is commonly denied that it can be sold or hired without simony of divine law.

2. Concerning the stipends of Mass and of sacred functions. The long-standing use of the Church already proves it lawful that the faithful, with a stipend paid formally or virtually, acquire a right to the spiritual fruit of Masses and sacred functions, provided the stipend is offered and accepted under title of sustenance. How, without any simony, a priest who has received a stipend should be bound by commutative justice itself to apply the Mass to the intention of the giver: this they try to explain by various opinions. Which explanation is to be preferred is declared in the treatise itself. In our opinion, setting aside the intervention of the Church, or for functions for which reception of a stipend is not permitted, simony of divine law would be committed. It is also established from the use of the Church that stole fees can be honestly received by sacred ministers.

3. The stipend of Masses is defined by the local Ordinary, or, in the absence of a decree, by the custom of the diocese, even for exempt religious, so that no one can exact more; indeed, if the Ordinary has prohibited it, neither can he be content with less.

The local Ordinary, by counsel of the cathedral chapter, also composes the list of funeral taxes, beyond which nothing can be exacted; a bishop or quasi-bishop, in synod or after hearing the chapter, but not a Capitular Vicar nor, without special mandate, a Vicar General, also defines the stipend which a poor church can exact, for the expenses of celebration, from priests celebrating there for their own advantage (c. 1303). The other taxes must be approved by the Apostolic See (c. 1507).

The provincial Council or meeting of bishops defines the taxes for judicial expenses. The Holy See itself is accustomed to define what can be sought by Ordinaries for the execution of its rescripts.

4. He is not simoniacal who by money entices another to acts of piety or of another virtue to be exercised, or who sells a sacred thing for the value of the matter, or who removes an unjust vexation by money given, or who redeems relics lest they perish or be profaned, with the Ordinary nevertheless admonished, if opportunity is given.

5. The monies which are given to the poor so that they may pour forth prayers for certain intentions are to be explained by the intention of liberality. Cf. 2, 2, q. 100, art. 3 ad 2.

6. Simony at least of ecclesiastical law is committed by forbidden exchanges of benefices or by other similar acts.

7. A simoniacal contract is, from c. 729, null by full right, just as provision or nomination simoniacally obtained, even for another, unless the price was given in fraud of the provided person or with him contradicting. And the delict is punished by the Code.