Section III. Excommunications Simply Reserved to the Roman Pontiff

This excommunication is contracted by:

I. Those making gain from indulgences (canon 2327). By force of this canon, those are excommunicated who, after receiving a price, gain profit either by granting, publishing, or causing indulgences to be published. It is required that the price have been accepted, but not that a simoniacal intention was present; it does not matter whether the price is expended on pious works. By force of this canon those are also excommunicated who, because of indulgences, sell for more objects enriched with indulgences.

Bishops also can contract this censure.

II. Those giving their name to a Masonic sect or to other associations of the same kind which machinate against the Church or legitimate civil powers (canon 2335). For the penalty to regard a certain association, it is required that it machinate against the Church or legitimate civil powers. It is disputed whether there are also required, as obtains in the Masonic sect, a strict bond by which members are united and a hidden organization. Some deny this, because they take the words "which machinate..." as merely explanatory of "of the same kind." Others affirm it, because they judge the words "of the same kind" to be taken in a broader sense, so that they also include the hidden organization which obtains in the Masonic sect. Given the doubt, we follow the milder opinion, the more so because if it were enough that an association machinated against the Church or legitimate civil powers, the legislator would certainly have omitted from the new Code the words "of the same kind," which gave occasion to the dispute. Hence canon 2335 certainly regards, besides the sect of Masons, the societies of the Carbonari,¹ Fenians,² Anarchists, Nihilists, and Internationalists; but not, although they are prohibited, socialist,³ biblical,⁴ clerico-liberal societies; nor the workers' societies called Odd Fellows,⁵ Sons of Temperance, Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Good Templars (Guttempler-Orden)⁶ and societies which promote the cremation of human corpses.⁷ Moreover:

1. Clerics who have committed the delict discussed under II are punished with the penalty of suspension or privation of the benefice, office, dignity, pension, or function itself, if perhaps they have any in the Church; religious, however, with privation of office and of active and passive voice and with other penalties according to the norm of the constitutions. In addition, clerics and religious giving their name to a Masonic sect and other similar associations must be denounced to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (canon 2336).

2. The confessor to whom the faculty is granted of absolving from the censure set forth should require from the delinquent those things which the Holy See is accustomed to require: that they separate themselves entirely from the prohibited society and abjure it. But in a case in which great damage would flow from this for them, they can materially sustain the enrollment, but they are bound formally to renounce the society; and therefore: 1° let them promise that never again will it be the case that they involve themselves in any act of those societies, whether secret or public, and especially that they will never again pay the required contribution; 2° let scandal be removed in the best way that can be done; 3° let them be disposed in mind to withdraw their name if and when they can do this without grave damage.⁸

In the faculties of the Sacred Penitentiary it is established: 1° let them separate themselves entirely from the prohibited society and abjure it; 2° let them denounce ecclesiastical and religious persons, if they know any enrolled in it; 3° books, manuscripts, and signs pertaining to the same, if they retain any, let them hand over into your hands, to be cautiously transmitted to the Holy Office as soon as possible, or at least, if just and grave causes demand it, to be destroyed; 4° with a grave salutary penance joined according to the measure of the faults, together with frequency of sacramental confession and the obligation of repairing the scandals caused.

III. Those presuming, without due faculty, to absolve from an excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See in a most special or special manner (canon 2338, § 1). As to the word "presuming," see what was said in n. 858. For the rest, it is required that they actually absolve from the censure; it is not enough that they merely hear the delinquent or pretend to absolve him.

IV. Those furnishing any help or favor whatever to an excommunicated person to be avoided in the delict for which he was excommunicated; likewise clerics knowingly and spontaneously communicating with the same in divine things and receiving him in divine offices (canon 2338, § 2).

1. As to the former, it should be noted that it concerns a delict already committed, and therefore help or favor furnished by which someone can persist in the delict for which he was excommunicated.

2. As to the latter, observe: 1° since the law is to be interpreted strictly, religious do not come under the name of clerics unless they have received first tonsure (canon 108); 2° those communicating in divine offices are those who perform divine things with one to be avoided; 3° those receiving in divine offices are understood to be those who, enjoying the right or office of admitting to divine offices, admit an excommunicated person to be avoided to them.

V. If anyone against the prescription of canon 120 has dared to drag before a lay judge another, that is, not his own, Bishop, even merely titular, or an Abbot or Prelate nullius, or one of the supreme Superiors of religions of pontifical right (canon 2341). The prescription of canon 120, insofar as it must here be attended to, establishes that Bishops, even titular ones, Abbots or Prelates nullius, and supreme Superiors of religions of pontifical right cannot be summoned before a lay judge without the permission of the Apostolic See, unless in some place by special concession there has been derogation at least in part from the privilege of forum.

On the phrase "has dared," see n. 858; on the phrase "those dragging," p. 766.

Note. A cleric who, without having obtained permission from the local Ordinary, has dared to drag before a lay judge another person enjoying the privilege of forum, apart from those enumerated here and on p. 766 under IX, incurs ipso facto suspension from office reserved to the Ordinary; but a layman is to be punished by his own Ordinary with suitable penalties according to the gravity of the fault (canon 2341).

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¹ Cf. Constitution of Pius VII, Ecclesiam, September 25, 1821, and Leo XII, Graviora, March 13, 1825.

² Cf. Holy Office, January 12, 1870.

³ Encyclical of Leo XII, Quod Apostolici, December 28, 1878.

⁴ Constitution of Pius IX, Qui pluribus, 1846.

⁵ Syllabus, § 178.

⁶ Holy Office, August 20, 1894.

⁷ Holy Office, August 9, 1893; Holy Office, May 19, 1886.

⁸ Holy Office, March 7, 1883 (Collectanea, n. 1593).