Article II: The Censures *Latae Sententiae* in Force by Common Law

In the Code there first occurs a very logically ordered distribution of penalties according to the varied nature and reason of delicts. For our use, we shall enumerate censures in order according to their severity. Those which pertain to moral theology have almost all been explained in their own places.

— I. Excommunications most specially reserved have been brought:

1. against him who has thrown away the consecrated species or has carried them off or retained them for an evil end (c. 2320).

Therefore there are punished the thief who throws away the species in order to steal the pyx, and the impious man who carries off or retains the consecrated species for sacrilegious abuses;

2. against him who has laid violent hands upon the person of the Roman Pontiff (c. 2343);

3. against one guilty of the absolution of an accomplice (c. 2367). Cf. what has been said at n. 502;

4. against a confessor who has presumed directly to violate the sacramental seal (c. 2368. Cf. what has been said at n. 524);

5. against those violating the secret of the Holy Office concerning the information required about candidates for the episcopate (cf. resp. S. C. Cons., 24 Apr. 1917, A.A.S. IX, 232);

6. against those who, having a part in the conclave, shall have directly or indirectly violated the secret in those things which regard the election of the Roman Pontiff and which are transacted in the conclave or in the place of election (Vacante Sede, Pius X, 25 Dec. 1904, nn. 51, 52).

You should observe that both of the latter are governed by a more severe law, since outside danger of death they cannot be absolved even by the Major Cardinal Penitentiary himself. But in practice the same Cardinal will be the smoother and safer way by which absolution can be obtained from the Supreme Pontiff.

— They incur an excommunication specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff:

1. apostates, heretics, schismatics (c. 2314);

2. those suspected of heresy, if, having been warned, after six months they do not amend themselves (c. 2315).

The following are suspected of heresy: those favoring the propagation of heresy or communicating in divine things with heretics (c. 2361); those who enter into a pact concerning the non-Catholic education of offspring or who procure its baptism or education outside the Catholic Church (c. 2319); those who sacrilegiously treat the consecrated species according to the norm of c. 2320; those appealing from the decrees of the Roman Pontiff to a Universal Council (c. 2332); those who, with hardened mind, for a year have remained sordid in excommunication (c. 2340); those who are ordained simoniacally, ordain, or administer other sacraments (c. 2371);

3. those publishing books of apostates, heretics, or schismatics which defend apostasy, heresy, or schism; those defending or knowingly reading the same books or books prohibited by name through apostolic letters (c. 2318; cf. n. 901 [apparent intended cross-reference: n. 904]);

4. one not promoted to the priesthood who simulates the celebration of Mass or hears a confession (c. 2322);

5. those appealing to a universal Council (c. 2332);

6. those impeding the letters or acts of the Holy See or of its legates (c. 2333);

7. those issuing laws, mandates, or decrees against the liberty or rights of the Church; those recurring to any lay power whatsoever to impede the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction (c. 2334).

"Those issuing," by force of the word, are only those promulgating, and Cerato, De censuris, n. 96, comprehends only them. Yet the more common opinion, relying on the interpretation of the old law, also embraces those who establish the same things either by individual will or by common and efficacious suffrage. Cf. Epitome Iuris, III, 684.

In the other part of the censure, recourse is understood as efficacious, and as made to some lay power;

8. those dragging before a lay judge a Cardinal, a Legate of the Holy See, a higher official of the Roman Curia, or their own Ordinary (c. 2341. Cf. n. 12 on the privilege of forum);

9. those laying violent hands upon a Cardinal, a Legate of the Holy See, a patriarch, archbishop, or bishop (c. 2343; cf. n. 10);

10. those usurping or detaining, by themselves or through others, the goods or rights of the Roman Church (c. 2345);

11. forgers of letters of the Holy See and those using forged ones (c. 2360);

12. one falsely denouncing a confessor for solicitation before Superiors (c. 2363; cf. n. 569).

— III. They incur an excommunication simply reserved to the Roman Pontiff:

1. those making gain from indulgences (c. 2327).

They make gain from indulgences who strive to obtain monies either for the obtaining, or for the concession, or for the publication of indulgences, even in favor of a pious cause. From the moment the money has been accepted, the excommunication is contracted. All, and no longer only those inferior to bishops, as in the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis, are punished by this penalty.

— 2. Those giving their name to a Masonic sect (c. 2355).

Sects here are distinguished by two notes: 1. by secrecy, by which, whether members or leaders, they are bound as to the constitution, ends, and means of the sect; 2. by machination, secret or open, against the Church or legitimate civil powers.

Religious or clerics giving their name to a sect of this kind must be denounced to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

You ask what things must be required for absolving him who has given his name to a Masonic sect?

1. If the faculty has been sought from the Sacred Penitentiary, its prescriptions must be observed, and recourse must be made to it if any difficulty seems to obstruct the execution.

But the Holy See is accustomed to require, besides separation from the sect and repair of scandal, abjuration of the sect [printed/OCR: "stopping up of the sect"] (excepting children and the dying), the handing over of books, manuscripts, and signs pertaining to the sect into the hands of confessors, so that they may be transmitted as soon as possible to the Ordinary, or at least, if just and grave causes demand it, burned; and the injunction of a grave penance with frequency of the sacraments.

2. Therefore we shall prudently try to obtain these things, even when recourse to the Holy See was not necessary. If too great a difficulty has obstructed this, at least those things must be required which the natural law demands: the suppression of cooperation, the repair of scandal, the revelation of a harmful secret. But let us explain the obligations in such a way that we seem to require nothing which is opposed to "honor."

Nor are those immediately to be dismissed unabsolved who, in order to avoid penalties, do not break off all communication with the sect, if the communication is neither scandalous, nor useful to the sect, nor spiritually dangerous to themselves (cf. d'Annibale, I, 391, note 4).

Those will be able to be absolved more easily who no longer attend meetings, but, for grave reasons, abstain from formal repudiation.

A dying man, near to death and who seems to be constituted in good faith, will be able to be absolved if in general he subjects himself to the authority and mandates of the Holy See. But the scandal is to be repaired in the best way in which it can be, even after death;

— 3. those absolving without faculty from an excommunication most specially or specially reserved to the Holy See (c. 2338);

4. those communicating in a delict or in divine things with an excommunicate to be avoided (c. 2338);

5. those dragging before a lay judge a Bishop, a Prelate nullius, or a supreme religious Superior (c. 2341);

6. those violating the cloister of nuns, and nuns illegitimately going out from the cloister (c. 2342; cf. n. 145);

7. those violating the cloister of Regulars (c. 2342; cf. n. 145);

8. those usurping ecclesiastical goods (c. 2346);

9. duelists and their accomplices (c. 2351; cf. tome II);

10. clerics in sacred orders and those bound by a solemn vow of chastity, attempting matrimony, and their partners (c. 2388; cf. n. 128);

11. simoniacs in offices, benefices, and dignities (c. 2392; cf. tome II);

12. those removing or changing a document from the episcopal Curia (c. 2405).

— IV. They incur an excommunication reserved to the Ordinary:

1. those entering into matrimony before a non-Catholic minister (c. 2319);

2. those contracting matrimony with a pact that offspring be educated outside the Church (c. 2319);

3. those knowingly offering children to be baptized by a non-Catholic minister (c. 2319);

4. those knowingly handing over children to be educated in a non-Catholic religion (c. 2319);

5. those making, distributing, or exposing false relics (c. 2326);

6. those laying violent hands upon simple clerics or religious (c. 2343; cf. n. 12);

7. those procuring abortion, the effect following (c. 2350; cf. tome II);

8. a religious apostate from religion (c. 2385; cf. n. 155);

9. professed of perpetual simple vows contracting matrimony, and their partners (c. 2388; cf. n. 137).

— V. They incur an excommunication reserved to no one:

1. those publishing without license books on Sacred Scripture (c. 2318; cf. n. 900):

— 2. those daring to order or compel that unbelievers, apostates, non-Catholics, censured persons excluded by c. 1240 be given ecclesiastical burial (c. 2339).

Unless before death they have given some signs of repentance, the following are deprived of ecclesiastical burial: 1. "notorious apostates from the Christian faith, or those notoriously attached to a heretical or schismatic sect, or to a Masonic sect or other societies of the same kind; 2° excommunicates or interdicted persons after a condemnatory or declaratory sentence; 3° those who killed themselves by deliberate counsel; 4° those who died in a duel or from a wound received from it; 5° those who have ordered their body to be given to cremation; 6° other public and manifest sinners" (c. 1240, §1).

To remove scandal in certain cases, as c. 1240, §2 insinuates, every funeral pomp will sometimes have to be denied; in doubt about this matter, the Ordinary will have to be consulted.

Ecclesiastical burial embraces three things: the transfer of the corpse to the church; the obsequies celebrated over it; its deposition in a place legitimately deputed for burying the faithful. Wherefore several authors, Cerato, n. 64; Eichmann, Strafrecht der Kirche, §41; Cappello, De Censuris, n. 173, think that the censure is not contracted by those who merely order inhumation, but not the sacred rite; nevertheless most judge that these are affected by the censure, e.g., Creusen, III, 538: that severity is required by the interpretation of the old law, by the end of the law, and by the manner in which the rights of the Church are violated today. Yet we would not wish to call the more benign opinion improbable, especially if we consider the number of those who are ordered to be deprived of burial.

Although even private persons can compel, nevertheless those ordering or compelling can be understood only of public powers. But those who are compelled by law are immune from censure, since a daring act is required.

Finally, on 30 March 1859, the Holy Office declared that it can be tolerated that non-Catholic blood-relatives be brought into the family tomb of Catholic families, to avoid greater evils.

Concerning cremation, let these things be noted. A twofold cremation must be distinguished: one which is sometimes commanded for reasons of public health or of promoting anatomical science; this the Church tacitly tolerates; another which attacks the very inhumation of bodies in a general way. This the decrees of the Holy Office severely forbid, as one which is opposed to the reverence of the Christian body, which is alien from the usages of the Church, and which is propagated with a mind hostile to religion. As is clear, those alone who by their own will have chosen cremation for themselves are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial. Besides, giving one's name to sects which promote cremation is forbidden; and never (therefore not even if an inheritance can be entered upon for this reason alone) is it licit to cooperate formally with cremation by command or counsel (S. Off., 27 July 1892). Material cooperation, with due cautions, for a proportionate cause, will sometimes be able to be tolerated: for example, that of workers who are hired in cemeteries. He also will sometimes be able to be excused who accompanies the corpse of a blood-relative or connected person as far as the place of combustion, scandal having been removed (Genicot-Salsmans, II, n. 628);

— 3. those omitting the apostolic beneplacitum for alienating ecclesiastical goods (c. 2347). Ecclesiastical goods are goods which belong to an ecclesiastical moral person.

Alienation designates every act by which ownership is either transferred or, a right in the thing having been conceded, diminished, e.g., sale, exchange, the constitution of a passive mortgage or servitude, the renunciation of an active servitude; and also a lease beyond nine years.

Besides the other conditions of every ecclesiastical alienation, the apostolic beneplacitum must be sought when there is question of precious things, or of things which, according to the estimation of experts, exceed the value of 30,000 lire or francs; or when the value of the lease (for individual terms) exceeds 30,000 lire or francs (cc. 1532, 1541).

But things are precious to which there belongs a notable value because of art or history or material (c. 1497, §2). But a notable value can be estimated at about 1000 lire or francs.

Those lire seem able to be taken as gold money, lest the value itself be too uncertain.

N.B. Nor can notable relics or relics of great devotion be alienated or transferred without the permission of the Holy See (c. 1281, §1);

4. those compelling someone to embrace the clerical or religious state (c. 2352);

5. one knowingly omitting to denounce a confessor by whom he has been solicited (c. 2368; cf. n. 611).

Although this censure is reserved to no one, nevertheless he cannot be absolved from it unless he has satisfied the obligation or has seriously promised that he will fulfill it.

— I. They incur a suspension reserved to the Holy See:

1. from divine things: those presuming to receive orders from an apostate, heretic, schismatic, or censured person (c. 2372; cf. n. 737);

2. a general one: a bishop consecrating a bishop without the mandate of the Holy See, and his assistants (c. 2370; cf. n. 683); those knowingly, through simony, ordaining or being ordained, administering or receiving sacraments (c. 2371; cf. n. 673).

II. They incur a suspension reserved to the Ordinary:

from office: those dragging before a lay judge a simple cleric or religious (c. 2341; cf. n. 12).

III. They incur a general suspension reserved to the major Superior: fugitive religious (c. 2386; cf. n. 144).

IV. They incur a suspension reserved to no one:

1. from hearing confessions: one absolving from reserved cases without faculty (c. 2366);

2. from divine things: one presuming to hear confessions without jurisdiction (c. 2366); one presuming to resign an office, benefice, or dignity into the hands of laymen (c. 2400); a capitular Vicar unduly granting dimissorial letters for ordination (c. 2409; cf. c. 958);

3. from the order received: one ordained without dimissorial letters, before the age, or by leap (c. 2374; cf. n. 737);

4. from jurisdiction: a Prelate nullius not seeking the blessing within the due time (c. 2402, §2; cf. 322, §2).

— I. They incur an interdict specially reserved to the Holy See:

moral persons appealing to a universal Council (c. 2332).

II. They incur a personal interdict reserved to no one:

those who have given cause to a local interdict or to an interdict upon a community (c. 2338, §4).

III. They incur an interdict from entrance into a church reserved to the Ordinary:

those spontaneously giving ecclesiastical burial to those whom the law prohibits (c. 2339).

— I. On penalties in general. 1. Penalties are established in law as latae sententiae, which are incurred at the very moment of the delict, without a sentence, and as ferendae sententiae, which require condemnation. Penalties are of ferendae sententiae unless they are expressly or equivalently said to be contracted by the fact itself or by the law itself.

2. Before a sentence, at least a declaratory one, he who cannot observe it without infamy is excused from observing the penalty.

3. If the amendment of the delinquent is principally intended, the penalty is medicinal; otherwise it is vindicative. A medicinal penalty is a censure, which always supposes a grave delict, external, consummated according to the description of the law, and joined with contumacy, i.e., with some evil will from which there must be withdrawal. If there is withdrawal from this, the penalty does not cease by the fact itself, but the guilty party has the right of obtaining absolution.

A penalty established by law is also incurred by one who has concurred in the delict by physical or moral, necessary or principal causality.

The impubes escape penalties latae sententiae, and so do Cardinals, unless they are expressly named.

Affected ignorance excuses from no penalties latae sententiae; nor does crass or supine ignorance, unless the law has used the words: has presumed, knowingly, studiously. Simple ignorance excuses from medicinal penalties, but not from vindicative penalties which are established without the words "has presumed" or similar words.

Grave fear of itself excuses, unless the delict tends to contempt of faith or of ecclesiastical authority, or to the public harm of souls.

II. On censures. 1. They can annex censures to a law or precept who can make laws or command by force of jurisdiction.

Concerning the reservation of censures and absolution, cf. what has been said in the treatise on Penance. There are three censures: excommunication, suspension, interdict.

II. Excommunication directly excludes from the communion of the faithful; and consequently: a) it deprives one of the right of assisting at divine offices, preaching excepted, of the licit reception of the sacraments, and, after sentence, also of sacramentals, of the licit confection and administration of the sacraments, saving the temperaments indicated where the sacraments were treated; of indulgences, suffrages, public prayers; b) it prohibits the attainment and execution of offices, acts of jurisdiction, election, presentation, nomination: for validity, an excommunicate to be avoided and one declared excommunicated must be distinguished from another excommunicate.

An excommunicate is not to be avoided unless, in the decree or sentence, the Apostolic See has expressly said that he must be avoided, or unless he has been a notorious striker of the Supreme Pontiff.

III. Suspension prohibits by office or benefice, or by both; it is total, or partial in various ways.

Suspension from informed conscience is had when the Ordinary, to avoid grave inconveniences, declares by simple decree that he imposes suspension from causes known to himself. The Ordinary must be certain concerning the grave delict, which is not notorious.

IV. Interdict directly prohibits from sacred things. It is distinguished into personal and local, which can be general or particular.

Interdict from entrance into a church prohibits participation in divine offices in church, and ecclesiastical burial.

V. On certain absolutions or censures. 1. He who absolves an adherent of a Masonic sect by force of a faculty given by the Sacred Penitentiary must observe its prescriptions, and must recur to it if a difficulty arises. He who absolves without recourse, for example by force of a privilege, must always prudently require what the natural law requires: suppression of cooperation, repair of scandal, revelation of a harmful secret. And unless too great a difficulty obstructs, he will prudently ask the other things which the Holy See is accustomed to require.

2. On the apostolic beneplacitum in alienation. Alienation designates every act by which ownership is either transferred or, a right in the thing having been conceded, diminished, and also a lease beyond nine years. The apostolic beneplacitum must be sought when there is question of precious things, or of things which, according to the estimation of experts, exceed the value of 30,000 lire or francs, or when the value of a lease made beyond nine years, for individual terms, exceeds the same sum.

But precious things are things in which there is a notable value of art or history or material. Notable value can be estimated at about 1000 lire or francs. And the lire seem able to be taken as gold money.

Nor without the permission of the Holy See can notable relics or relics of great devotion be alienated or transferred elsewhere.

3. On those compelling that ecclesiastical burial be given. Those ordering or compelling are understood as those who, endowed with public authority, command, or those who compel others by force or fear. If they themselves are compelled by law, they do not act with rash daring, which here is required for the censure. And since ecclesiastical burial embraces the obsequies and deposition in a sacred place, this censure seems to certain commentators not now to punish merely inhumation alone in a sacred place.

Cremation which is commanded by no different reason of public utility is so prohibited from being chosen by Christians in place of inhumation that formal cooperation is never excused.