Article I: General Things Concerning Penalties and Censures

— I. Notions. 1. A censure is a penalty by which the correction of the delinquent is primarily intended. Wherefore it is called medicinal, and is distinguished from a vindicative penalty, which immediately follows upon the punishment of the delict.

But it is defined by the Code: "A penalty by which a baptized man, delinquent and contumacious, is deprived of certain spiritual goods or goods annexed to spiritual things, until, withdrawing from contumacy, he is absolved" (c. 2211, §1).

It always supposes a grave, external delict, consummated in its juridic character, joined with some present contumacy. Wherefore, for a past delict, to which no obligation, at least of repairing consequences, is joined, a censure cannot be imposed; but there lies place only for a vindicative penalty. Thus a thief can be punished by censure not because of the theft, but that he may restore what was taken.

But there are three censures: excommunication, suspension, interdict; but suspension and interdict can also be vindicative penalties.

2. Penalties which are established in the law itself are called from the law, or latae sententiae; while those are from man which have been imposed by way of precept or by a condemnatory sentence. "A penalty of ferendae sententiae added to a law, before a condemnatory sentence, is from the law only; afterwards it is from the law and at the same time from man, but it is considered as from man" (c. 2217). If a merely declaratory sentence is pronounced, the censure remains from the law, and is considered to have been contracted from the moment of the delict.

3. "A penalty is always understood to be of ferendae sententiae, unless it is expressly said to be of latae sententiae, or to be contracted by the very fact or by the law itself, or unless other similar words are used" (c. 2217, §2).

Nevertheless, not once only must censures concerning which those words are lacking be ascribed to penalties of latae sententiae. This happens whenever a censure is declared reserved to the Ordinary or to the Holy See. For a censure of ferendae sententiae is necessarily reserved to him who brought the sentence.

— II. Author and subject of censure. 1. All who possess the power of making laws or imposing precepts by force of jurisdiction can annex censures to their law or precept.

Yet an Ordinary cannot bring another censure reserved to himself against a delict to which a censure reserved to the Holy See is annexed (c. 2247, §1).

2. a) They who hold the supreme principate of peoples, and their sons and daughters or those to whom there is the proximate right of succeeding in the principate; Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church; Legates of the Holy See, are subject only to penalties inflicted or declared by the Roman Pontiff. Nor are Cardinals comprehended by any penal law nor Bishops by suspension or interdict unless they are expressly named (c. 2277).

b) The impubes are exempt from penalties latae sententiae; but the puberes who have induced them to violate the law or have concurred with them in the delict, by physical or moral causality either necessary or principal, themselves indeed incur the penalty established by law (c. 2230). Here impubes can be understood as all who, even girls, have not completed 14 years.

c) Cooperators of the kind described under b) are held by penalties unless the law has expressly provided otherwise, while the other cooperators, by secondary and non-necessary action, escape penalties unless they are expressly named.

d) Affected ignorance, whether of the law or of the penalty alone, excuses from no penalties of latae sententiae; if the law has used words: has presumed, knowingly, studiously, etc., any diminution of imputability whatsoever, whether on the part of the intellect or on the part of the will, exempts from penalties of latae sententiae. If these words are lacking in the law, ignorance which was neither crass nor supine excuses from medicinal penalties, but not from vindicative penalties latae sententiae (c. 2229).

e) Grave fear of itself excuses, unless the delict tends to contempt of faith, or of ecclesiastical authority, or to the public harm of souls (c. 2229, §3, 3°).

f) An ecclesiastical penalty always supposes grave sin (cf. I, 63 and c. 2218, §2).

— III. Obligation of censure. A censure latae sententiae indeed holds the delinquent, conscious of the delict, by the fact itself in both forums; before a sentence, however, he is excused from observing the penalty as often as it cannot be observed without infamy (c. 2232, §1).

— IV. Absolution of censure. 1. A censure once contracted is not removed except by legitimate absolution; yet this cannot be denied as soon as the delinquent has withdrawn from contumacy. But once removed by absolution, it does not revive unless the burden imposed under penalty of reincidence has not been fulfilled (c. 2248).

2. But some censures are not reserved (for absolution), others are reserved.

Concerning the various reservations and absolution, cf. what was said, nn. 473-476.

Only observe that absolution from censure in the sacramental forum is already contained in the customary form of absolution from sins; in the non-sacramental forum it can be given in any manner whatsoever, yet, for excommunication, a form is handed down in the ritual books which it is fitting to observe (c. 2250, §3).

Moreover c. 2252 does not strictly impose in danger of death the admonition concerning recourse to be made, which c. 2255 enjoins to be made by the confessor who in more urgent cases absolves from reserved censures.

— Unless perhaps scandal given or the special gravity of transgression requires otherwise, the violator of a law which has no sanction placed upon it (you may say the same of the violation of a precept) cannot be punished unless first an admonition has been made with threat of penalty.

A vindicative penalty is now recognized by this sign: that it is brought for a definite time or in perpetuity. Brought without a term, or indefinitely, it is equated with a perpetual one. When the day to which it was brought arrives, the vindicative penalty ceases by the fact itself; while a censure is not removed except by received absolution.

— I. On Excommunication. 1. Excommunication is a censure by which someone is excluded from the communion of the faithful with the inseparable effects enumerated in the Code. An excommunication solemnly imposed is called by the special name anathema.

2. Excommunicates: a) some are to be avoided, others not. No one is to be avoided unless he has been excommunicated by name by the Apostolic See, has been publicly denounced, and in the decree or sentence it is expressly said that he must be avoided, or unless he has notoriously laid violent hands upon the person of the Supreme Pontiff; b) some are before such a sentence [printed/OCR: "have avoided the sentence"], others have been marked by a condemnatory or declaratory sentence of censure.

3. Effects of excommunication. It deprives: a) of the right of assisting at divine offices, preaching excepted; b) of the reception of the sacraments (which nevertheless are validly received), and, after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence, also of sacramentals; c) of licit confection and administration of the sacraments, saving the temperaments indicated at n. 211; d) of indulgences, suffrages, and the public prayers of the Church. Yet priests can privately and with scandal removed apply Mass for an excommunicate; but, if he is one to be avoided, only for his conversion. Moreover, an excommunicate is removed from legitimate ecclesiastical acts (e.g., the office of sponsor); he is prohibited from performing ecclesiastical offices, from placing acts of jurisdiction; from electing, presenting, nominating; he cannot obtain ecclesiastical offices. For the validity of acts, an excommunicate who is to be avoided, or who by sentence has been condemned or declared excommunicated, must be distinguished from another excommunicate (cf. cc. 2259-2266).

Communication in profane matters is not imposed as to be avoided except with an excommunicate to be avoided, and the excuse of kinship, service, and reasonable cause is admitted, so that this prohibition is not judged grave (c. 2257).

— II. 1. "Interdict is a censure by which the faithful, remaining in the communion of the Church, are prohibited from the sacred things" enumerated in the Code.

It is distinguished into personal, by which certain persons are directly prohibited from those goods, and local, by which in certain places the dispensation or reception of the same is forbidden. It is subdivided into general, of some territory or people, and particular (cf. cc. 2268-2276).

Interdict from entrance into a church contains the prohibition "that someone celebrate divine offices in church or assist at them or have ecclesiastical burial; but if he assists, it is not necessary that he be expelled, nor, if he is buried, is it necessary that the corpse be removed" (c. 2277).

— III. 1. "Suspension is a censure by which a cleric is prohibited by office or benefice or both" (c. 2278). Therefore it directly deprives at least of the licit use of ecclesiastical power. And it can be total or partial. Suspension brought without addition is understood as total, and it carries with itself all the effects indicated by the canons. Partial is suspension from office, which forbids every act of the power of order and jurisdiction, indeed of mere administration competent from office, except the administration of the goods of one's own benefice (c. 2279, §1); and suspension from benefice. And there are more partial ones. Thus suspension from jurisdiction forbids every act of the power of jurisdiction for both forums, both ordinary and delegated; suspension from divine things forbids every act of power which someone obtains either through sacred ordination or through privilege; from orders, every act of the power of order received through ordination; from sacred orders, every act of the power of order received through ordination in sacred orders; from exercising a certain and definite order, suspension prohibits every act of the designated order, and besides the conferral of the same order and the reception of a higher order and the exercise of this, if it has been received after the suspension (c. 2279, §2, 3°-5°).

2. Suspension from informed conscience is an extraordinary remedy, whose use is not licit if the Ordinary can proceed by the ordinary juridic way without grave inconvenience. But it consists in this, that the Ordinary expressly, by simple decree, declares that he, from causes known to himself, imposes suspension. The Ordinary must be certain concerning the delict and its gravity; he can never act thus on account of a notorious delict (cf. cc. 2186-2191).