Morals of the Church
Library › Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology › Volume II › Book IV. On the Sanction of Christian Life, or on Ecclesiastical Penalties › Treatise II. On the Penalties of Delict › Dissertation II. On Penalties in Species › Part II. On Vindicative Penalties

Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Section II. On Common Vindicative Penalties

890.

From canon 2291, the vindicative penalties which can affect all the faithful according to the gravity of delicts, in the Church, especially,1 are:

I. A local interdict and an interdict against a community or college, in perpetuity or for a predefined time or at the good pleasure of the Superior.

II. An interdict from entrance into the church, in perpetuity or for a predefined time or at the good pleasure of the Superior.

III. Penal transfer or suppression of an episcopal or parochial see; concerning this notice: 1° penal suppression or transfer of an episcopal see is reserved to the Roman Pontiff; 2° but that of a parochial see cannot be decreed by local Ordinaries except with the counsel of the Chapter (cf. canons 248, § 3; 1421; 1428).

IV. Infamy of law; concerning this note:

  1. Infamy is either of law or of fact (canon 2293, § 1). Infamy of law is that which is established in cases expressed by common law (canon 2293, § 2). Infamy of fact is contracted when someone, on account of a perpetrated delict or on account of depraved morals, has lost good reputation among upright and serious faithful, the judgment concerning which belongs to the Ordinary (canon 2293, § 3).2 Neither affects the delinquent's blood-relatives or affines; nevertheless infamy of fact arising from the deed of household members or blood-relatives with whom an irremovable pastor lives can be for him a canonical cause of removal (canon 2293, § 4).

  2. One who labors under infamy of law is not only irregular from defect, but besides is incapable of obtaining benefices, pensions, offices, and ecclesiastical dignities, of performing legitimate ecclesiastical acts,3 of exercising an ecclesiastical right or function, and finally must be barred from exercising ministry in sacred functions (canon 2294, § 1). One who labors under infamy of fact, as long as it endures in the judgment of the Ordinary, is simply impeded from receiving orders, and must also be repelled from ecclesiastical dignities, benefices, and offices strictly so called, from exercising sacred ministry, and from legitimate ecclesiastical acts (canon 2294, § 2); nevertheless he is not incapable, and therefore he validly acquires and acts.

  3. Infamy of law ceases only by dispensation granted by the Apostolic See; infamy of fact ceases when, all circumstances having been weighed and especially by long amendment of the guilty person, good reputation among upright and serious faithful has been recovered in the prudent judgment of the Ordinary (canon 2295).

V. Deprivation of burial; concerning this observe:

  1. What both ecclesiastical burial and deprivation of it import was said on p. 733.

  2. All baptized persons are to be granted ecclesiastical burial unless they are expressly deprived of it by law (canon 1239, § 3). Catechumens who without any fault of their own die without baptism are to be numbered with the baptized (canon 1239, § 2).

  3. Those who have died without baptism are not to be admitted to ecclesiastical burial (canon 1239, § 1); yet in them this does not have the character of a penalty. But by way of penalty, from canon 1240, § 1, the following are deprived of ecclesiastical burial, unless before death they have given some signs of penitence:4

a) 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.

b) Excommunicated or interdicted persons after condemnatory or declaratory sentence; from this it is clear that deprivation of ecclesiastical burial depends not only on common law, but also on particular law, for the Ordinary can establish these penalties.

c) Those who have killed themselves by deliberate plan; this plan is presumed in doubt, according to canon 2200, § 2.

d) Those who died in a duel or from a wound received from it.

e) Those who have commanded their body to be handed over to cremation.

f) Other public and manifest sinners, for example those who for a long time have contemned reception of the Sacraments.

Note. If some doubt occurs in the aforesaid cases, the Ordinary should be consulted if time permits; if the doubt remains, the body is to be handed over to ecclesiastical burial, yet in such a way that scandal is removed (canon 1240, § 2); cf. also the decision of the Sacred Penitentiary handed down on p. 734.

VI. Deprivation of Sacramentals.

VII. Deprivation or suspension for a time of a pension which is paid by the Church or from the goods of the Church, or of another ecclesiastical right or privilege (cf. canons 1429; 2161; 2299, § 3).

VIII. Removal from exercising legitimate ecclesiastical acts.

IX. Incapacity for ecclesiastical graces or functions in the Church which do not require the clerical state, or for obtaining academic degrees by ecclesiastical authority; concerning this notice:

  1. If there is question of things for obtaining which capacity is established by common law,5 the Apostolic See alone can inflict the penalty of incapacity (canon 2296, § 1).

  2. Rights already acquired are not lost on account of supervening incapacity, unless the penalty of deprivation is added to this (canon 2296, § 2).

Note. The things said under 1 and 2 are said generally, and therefore are to be applied to incapacity, whether as it is an effect of infamy of law, or as it is a penalty common to the faithful under IX, or peculiar to clerics (canon 2298, 5°).

X. Deprivation or suspension for a time of a function, faculty, or grace already obtained.

XI. Deprivation of the right of precedence (canon 106), or of active and passive voice, or of the right of bearing titles of honor, vesture, or insignia which the Church has granted.

XII. Pecuniary fine. Pecuniary fines inflicted by common law, the expenditure of which is not predefined by the same law, and other fines established or to be established by particular law, local Ordinaries must expend for pious uses, not for the benefit of the episcopal or capitular table (canon 2297).

1 Whence it is drawn that the enumeration is not taxative; therefore the Superior, the things to be observed being observed, can inflict a congruous penalty not contained in this series.

2 Infamy of law alone is a true penalty, but not infamy of fact, as is also clear from the mode of cessation.

3 "According to the norm of law" is understood (cf. canon 2263), because, for example, before sentence one infamous with infamy of law would be only illicitly a sponsor in the Sacraments, but after it invalidly (cf. canons 765, 766, 795, 796); concerning the right of patronage see canon 1470, § 4.

4 It is not enough that one deprived of the senses has received absolution under condition, since this can be given although signs of penitence do not appear.

5 For example, capacity for acquiring graces (canon 36).

Vindicative PenaltiesCommon Vindicative Penalties