Scholion. On Penalties Against Heretics, Apostates, and Schismatics

I. Denunciation of delinquents. The obligation of denouncing presses whenever someone is driven to this either by law or by a peculiar legitimate precept, or from the natural law itself on account of danger to faith or religion or another imminent public evil (can. 1935, § 2).

II. Penalties of delinquents. 1. All apostates from the Christian faith and all and each heretics or schismatics: 1. incur excommunication by the fact itself; 2. unless, having been warned, they come to their senses, they are to be deprived of benefice, dignity, pension, office, or other function, if they have any in the Church, are to be declared infamous, and clerics, after repeated warning, are to be deposed; 3. if they have given their name to a non-Catholic sect or have publicly adhered to it, they are infamous by the fact itself, and clerics who have publicly defected from the Catholic faith are by the fact itself and without any declaration deprived of office, and, after warning has been given in vain, are to be degraded (can. 2314, § 1). It is said:

a) All, etc.; but it is required that the delict also have been perpetrated externally.

b) If they have publicly adhered to a non-Catholic sect. Now public adherence is sometimes manifest, as if someone accepts some office there, or intervenes in the elections of ministers. If he only attends meetings, adherence is considered public after a more or less long time; but because of this difficulty a sentence declaring the crime is rather often required.

2. One suspected of heresy who, having been warned, does not remove the cause of suspicion, is to be prohibited from legitimate acts, and a cleric besides, after warning has been uselessly repeated, is to be suspended from divine things; but if within six full months from the penalty contracted the one suspected of heresy has not amended himself, let him be held as a heretic, liable to the penalties of heretics (can. 2315). It is said:

a) One suspected of heresy. Now those suspected of heresy are: 1. whoever in any way spontaneously and knowingly assists the propagation of heresy, or communicates in divine things with heretics contrary to the prescription of can. 1258 (can. 2316); 2. those who are joined in marriage with the explicit agreement that all or some of the offspring be educated outside the Catholic Church; those who knowingly presume to offer their children to non-Catholic ministers to be baptized; likewise parents or those holding the place of parents who knowingly hand over their children to be educated or instructed in a non-Catholic religion (can. 2319, 2, 3, 4); 3. one who has thrown away consecrated species or has taken them away or retained them for an evil end (can. 2320); 4. all and each, of whatever status, grade, or condition, even if they were of royal, episcopal, or cardinalitial dignity, who appeal from the laws, decrees, or mandates of the Roman Pontiff for the time being to a Universal Council (can. 2332); 5. one who, with hardened mind, has remained for a year in the censure of excommunication (can. 2340, § 1); 6. all, even those increased by episcopal dignity, who through simony knowingly promoted or were promoted to orders, or administered or received other Sacraments (can. 2371).

Can. 1258 declares: It is not licit for the faithful in any way actively to assist or to have part in the sacred rites of non-Catholics (§ 1). Passive or merely material presence can be tolerated, for the sake of civil office or honor, on account of a grave reason to be approved by the Bishop in a case of doubt, at the funerals, weddings, and similar solemnities of non-Catholics, provided danger of perversion and scandal is absent (§ 2).

b) Who, having been warned; and so one suspected of heresy per se contracts no penalty, but it is necessary that a warning which has remained in vain have come in addition.

III. Absolution from penalties. 1. Absolution from excommunication, to be imparted in the forum of conscience, is reserved in a special manner to the Apostolic See (can. 2314, § 2). The faculty of absolving any penitents whatsoever, except heretics deliberately disseminating heresy among the faithful, from any censures and ecclesiastical penalties whatsoever incurred on account of heresies externalized either when no one was hearing or noticing or before others, is usually granted by the Folio of the Sacred Penitentiary. Yet it cannot be exercised except in the act of sacramental confession and only for the forum of conscience, with secret abjuration previously made before the confessor. Besides, a salutary penance is to be imposed, with frequency of the sacraments and the obligation of repairing the scandals brought about.¹ For the forum of conscience no form of abjuration seems prescribed; hence, for example, these words of the Profession of Faith at the end suffice: "Heresies of whatever sort condemned by the Church, I likewise condemn and reject."

2. If the delict of apostasy, heresy, or schism has in any way been brought to the external forum of the local Ordinary, even by voluntary confession, the same Ordinary, but not the Vicar General without a special mandate, can absolve the one coming to his senses in the external forum by his ordinary authority, after abjuration has first been juridically carried out and after other things to be observed by law have been observed; but one thus absolved can afterward be absolved from the sin by any confessor in the forum of conscience. Abjuration, however, is held to have been juridically carried out when it is made before the local Ordinary himself or his delegate and at least two witnesses (can. 2314, § 2). As regards the form of abjuration, practically the Profession of Faith which is placed at the beginning of the Code suffices.

¹ Thus in the Folio.