Point I. On Personal Sacrilege

I. A person becomes sacred from the fact that he is deputed by public authority to divine worship. Such are clerics and those who share their privileges, namely male and female religious and their novices (can. 614, 490), pious associates living in common, of whom title XVII of the Code treats (can. 680), and likewise one who has emitted a public vow, whether solemn or simple, of chastity.

II. Personal sacrilege is committed:

1. By violating the privileges of clerics, which are the privilege of the canon, of the forum, of personal immunity, and of competent benefice (cf. can. 119-123). But the violation of the said privileges contains sacrilege, not because the person under the aspect of the privilege is deputed to divine worship, but because a right is granted to him from a motive of religion; and this is something sacred, annexed to the person, so that the person is violated if the right is violated.

2. By luxuriously violating a sacred person, one's own or another's, whether by reason of a vow of chastity emitted, or by reason of major Order received. It is said:

a) A sacred person by reason of a vow of chastity emitted. Now a person certainly becomes sacred through a public vow of chastity, whether solemn or simple. Canon 132 indeed speaks only of the obligation of chastity annexed to major Orders; but it is commonly extended to all public vows of chastity, or in other words also to the vow of chastity of religious. There is dispute concerning a private vow of chastity (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 99, a. 3, ad 3; in IV Sent., dist. 38, q. 1, a. 3, quaestiunc. 2, ad 1; St. Alphonsus, III, 47). Some affirm and judge that a peculiar holiness belongs to the body by the very fact that through a vow of chastity it is dedicated to God. Others deny this, because in their opinion a person, in order to become sacred, must be deputed by public authority to divine worship. In this opinion the violation of a public and a private vow differ in species, because in the former there is true sacrilege, in the latter another sin against religion, so that it would not suffice to confess that one was bound by a vow. Yet carnal sacrilege does not differ in species according as it was committed by a person bound by a solemn vow or by a person bound by a simple public vow, for example a religious of simple vows. Finally, the violation of a vow other than chastity does not involve sacrilege (St. Alphonsus, III, 47).

b) A sacred person by reason of major Order received (can. 132, § 1). Major Order received suffices, even if someone in receiving major Order had excluded the vow of chastity.

c) By luxuriously violating. Moreover, both an internal and an external act of lust violates one's own person; only an external act violates another person.

Corollary. Personal carnal sacrilege is perpetrated by: 1. a sacred person¹ who sins against chastity; 2. every person who commits lust with a sacred person; if each is sacred, each is guilty of a twofold sacrilege; 3. a sacred person who, from an affection of lust, gives another person an occasion of sinning against chastity. It must be said sufficiently probably otherwise if he proceeds from another motive. The reason is that an absolute affection of lust is specially repugnant to the holiness of the person, but not, sufficiently probably, an affection in a qualified sense, such as is involved in an act by which a sacred person, from a motive other than lust, gives someone an occasion of violating chastity (St. Alphonsus, III, 457).

One who is at the same time a priest and a religious can indeed be called a sacred person by a twofold title; nevertheless, by sinning against chastity he commits only one personal carnal sacrilege, because the communicated holiness is not distinguished as twofold (St. Alphonsus, III, 455).

¹ Understand here and in what follows a sacred person, whether by reason of a vow of chastity or by reason of major Order received.