Chapter II. On Interdict

I. Notion. Interdict is a censure by which the faithful, remaining in the communion of the Church, are prohibited from the sacred things which are enumerated in the canons which follow (canon 2268, § 1). It is said censure, but it can besides be inflicted as a vindicative penalty (n. 890). It is said sacred things; these are divine offices, Sacraments and Sacramentals, or ecclesiastical burial. Furthermore, those personally interdicted sometimes cannot exercise certain rights. The effects of interdict can be separated, so that it is left to the judgment of the Superior which privations he commands, unless it is an interdict established by common law.

II. Division. Interdict is: 1° personal or local;¹ 2° general or particular, according as the subjects of the penalty differ.

1. Interdict is personal when the use of sacred things is directly interdicted to the persons themselves; local, when the use of sacred things is indirectly interdicted to persons, because in certain places the dispensation or reception of sacred things is forbidden (cf. canon 2268, § 2).

2. It is general when it is issued against a group of persons, and is a general personal interdict; or against some territory, whose sacred and profane places it affects, and is a general local interdict. It is particular when it is issued against particular persons expressly designated, and is a particular personal interdict; or against particular sacred places, namely churches, altars, cemeteries, and is a particular local interdict.

Finally, a personal interdict can be issued at the same time both against a community as such and against the individual delinquent persons of some community, so that the interdict is at once general and particular.

¹ Formerly there existed a mixed or ambulatory interdict, which held any place during the presence of the interdicted person; now it has been abolished.

III. Author. 1. A general interdict against a diocese, whether against the territory or against the people, can be issued only by the Apostolic See or at its mandate (canon 2269, § 1).

2. A general interdict against a parish, and also any particular interdict against subject persons or places, can be issued by a Bishop (cited canon). A religious Superior cannot issue a local interdict, because his jurisdiction is only personal.

IV. Interpretation. 1. When a city is interdicted, accessory places, even exempt ones, and the cathedral church itself also remain interdicted; when a church is interdicted, contiguous chapels are interdicted, but not the cemetery; when a chapel is interdicted, the whole church is not interdicted, nor, when a cemetery is interdicted, is the church contiguous to it interdicted, but all oratories erected in the cemetery are interdicted (canon 2273).

2. A personal interdict follows the persons who are held by the interdict everywhere, so that in whatever place they suffer the effects of the penalty (canon 2269, § 2); but a general personal interdict does not hold infants and others not liable to penal law, nor arriving persons, travelers, and vagrants; but it does hold the innocent, and even the absent, who, for example by domicile, are members of the community. Furthermore, from the common and more benign interpretation, when the people are interdicted, the clergy are not of themselves judged interdicted; and also conversely, so that when the clergy are interdicted, the non-interdicted people can call other clerics. Likewise, when the clergy are interdicted, religious are not judged interdicted unless they have a secular benefice (St. Alphonsus VII, 331).

3. A local interdict does not press outside the interdicted place; but in the interdicted place all, even outsiders or exempt persons, a special privilege excluded, must observe it (cited canon). The reason is that it directly affects the territory, but indirectly the persons; nevertheless for the innocent and travelers, or even for infants, such an interdict does not have the character of a penalty, but of a disciplinary privation. The same is valid concerning the innocent in a personal interdict.

V. Effects of a local interdict. A local interdict, whether general or particular, prohibits in the place any divine office or sacred rite, with the following exceptions (canon 2270, § 1):

1. In every local interdict: 1° All sacraments and sacramentals can be ministered to the dying, with the things to be observed being observed; the chief of these are that the ministers not be impeded and solemnities be omitted (canon 2270, § 1, compared with canon 2271, 2°). 2° A local interdict is suspended on the day of the Nativity of the Lord, Easter, Pentecost, the Most Holy Body of Christ, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven,¹ and only the conferral of orders and the solemn nuptial blessing are prohibited (canon 2270, § 2). It is said on the day, so that the octave is excluded.

2. In a general local interdict, unless the decree expressly provides something else:

a) Clerics, provided they themselves are not personally interdicted, are permitted to perform privately all divine offices and sacred rites in any church or oratory, with closed doors, in a subdued voice, and without bells being rung (canon 2271, 1°).

b) But in the cathedral church, parochial churches, or in the church which is the only one in the town, and in those alone, there are permitted: the celebration of one Mass, reservation of the Most Holy Sacrament, administration of baptism, Eucharist, and penance, assistance at marriages, with the nuptial blessing excluded, funeral obsequies of the dead, any solemnity nevertheless being forbidden, the blessing of baptismal water and of sacred oils, and the preaching of the word of God. In these sacred functions, however, chant and pomp in sacred furnishings and the sound of bells, organs, or other musical instruments are prohibited; and sacred Viaticum is to be carried privately to the sick (canon 2271, 2°).

3. In a particular local interdict:

a) If the altar or chapel of some church has been interdicted, no sacred office or sacred rite is to be celebrated in them (canon 2272, § 1).

b) If the cemetery has been interdicted, the bodies of the faithful can indeed be buried there, but without any ecclesiastical rite (canon 2272, § 2).

c) If the church or oratory of some Chapter has been interdicted, and the Chapter has not been interdicted, because then nothing is permitted to it, the Chapter is permitted to perform all divine offices and sacred rites of its function privately, according to canon 2271, 1°, in any church or oratory, even in its own interdicted church or oratory, unless the decree of interdict commands that in another church or oratory the conventual Mass be celebrated and the canonical hours be publicly recited (canon 2272, § 3, 1°).

d) If the parochial church has been interdicted, it is permitted to perform in it all the things which above, canon 2271, 2°, were said concerning the cathedral church and other parochial churches under a general interdict, unless the decree of interdict substitutes another church for it during the time of the interdict (canon 2272, § 3, 2°).

¹ Furthermore in Spain on the day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary by privilege of Leo X.

VI. Effects of personal interdict. Those personally interdicted by force of canon 2275:

a) Cannot celebrate divine offices or assist at them, except the preaching of the word of God; those passively assisting need not be expelled; but interdicted persons after a condemnatory or declaratory sentence has been issued, or otherwise notoriously interdicted, are to be repelled from active assistance which carries with it some participation in celebrating divine offices (cited canon, 1°).

b) They are prohibited from ministering and confecting Sacraments and Sacramentals, unless the interdicted person before sentence has been requested by the faithful, who may seek this for a just cause, especially if other ministers are lacking; or unless after sentence he has been requested in danger of death, either to absolve the faithful sacramentally, although another priest is present, or to give the other Sacraments and Sacramentals if other ministers are lacking.

c) They are prohibited from receiving the Sacraments; and after sentence they also receive Sacramentals illicitly, except exorcism (canon 1152); but an interdicted person also receives Sacramentals validly, because he communicates with the prayer of the Church.

d) They are also held by the prescription of canon 2265; therefore the things said on p. 735, 8, a) and b), alpha-delta, are to be applied to them.

e) After sentence they are deprived of ecclesiastical burial (cf. canon 1204), unless before death they have given some signs of penitence; and under the same restriction there must be denied to them both any funeral Mass, even an anniversary one, and other public funeral offices.

f) Finally, after sentence, a pastor or local Ordinary assists at marriage invalidly, whether by himself or through another (canon 1095). Before sentence he assists even licitly.

VII. Effects of an interdict issued because a community or college has perpetrated a delict. An interdict of this kind can be issued either against the individual delinquent persons, or against the community as such, or against the delinquent persons and the community (canon 2274, § 1). Now:

1. If the interdict has been issued against the individual delinquent persons, those persons, but not the innocent, are personally interdicted, and therefore are held by the things set forth under VI (canon 2274, § 2).

2. If the interdict has been issued against the community as such, the community or college cannot exercise any spiritual right which belongs to it (canon 2274, § 3). Spiritual rights are judged to be: the right of electing, presenting, conferring benefices, celebrating the divine office by office,¹ etc.; but not the right of administering goods and similar things.

3. If the interdict has been issued against the delinquents and against the community, the effects assigned under 1 and 2 are cumulated (canon 2274, § 4).

¹ For example, celebrating the conventual Mass and reciting the canonical hours in common, if there is question of a Chapter interdicted as such (canon 2272, § 3, 1°).

Question 1. To what extent does interdict redound upon the innocent?

Response 1. One who is subject to a local interdict, without having given cause for it and without being prohibited by another censure, can, if he is duly disposed, receive the Sacraments without absolution from the interdict or any other satisfaction; and indeed, in the interdicted place itself, those sacraments which are licitly administered there (canon 2276; cf. canon 2271, n. 878), or in another non-interdicted place, the other sacraments. Likewise he can freely go to other places so that he may assist at divine offices and be freed from the other privations of the local interdict.

Response 2. An innocent person, if an interdict is issued against the individual delinquents of the community of which he is a member, undergoes the effects of those personally interdicted only indirectly, because he cannot receive sacraments or other things from them. He himself is free in all things, and not even for the external forum does he need absolution in order to receive the Sacraments (canon 2276).

Response 3. An innocent person, being subject to an interdict against a community as such, cannot exercise the common rights of the community; but because he is not held by the censure, since it supposes a delict, he does not need absolution in order to receive the Sacraments (canon 2276).

Response 4. If the things placed under responses 2 and 3 are cumulated, the things said there are to be observed (cited canon).

Note. Those who have given cause for a local interdict or for an interdict against a community or college are by the fact itself personally interdicted (canon 2338, § 4).

Question 2. What does interdict from entrance into the church import?

Response. Interdict from entrance into the church, which is a certain part of a special personal interdict, does not deprive one of those goods which we indicated under VI, but from canon 2277 it carries with it the prohibition that one celebrate divine offices in church or assist at them, except preaching, or have ecclesiastical burial. Therefore he can, provided he is duly disposed, receive the Sacraments, even in church, when divine offices are not being celebrated; or celebrate divine offices or assist at them outside the church, taken in the strict sense according to canon 1161. But if he assists, actively or passively, in church, he need not be expelled; nor if he is buried in a sacred place is it necessary that the body be removed.

In present Law it is established in only three cases (canon 2329; canon 2338, § 3; canon 2339); it can be issued as a vindicative penalty.

VIII. Cessation of interdict. It is proper to interdict that, besides the modes common to all penalties, it also ceases when the interdicted place has been destroyed or the interdicted community extinguished. But it is clear of itself that absolution given in the internal forum never touches the local interdict itself, or a general personal interdict as such. One who without fault is subject to an interdict against a community is freed by the fact itself from this interdict when he ceases to be a member of the community; nor does he need absolution.

IX. Violation of interdict is a grave or light sin according as the act excluded by interdict is of grave or light importance (cf. St. Alphonsus VII, 336).