Section IV. Excommunications Reserved to Ordinaries

First recall these words of canon 198, § 1: In law, by the name of Ordinary are understood, unless someone is expressly excepted, besides the Roman Pontiff, for his own territory each residential Bishop, Abbot or Prelate nullius and their Vicar General, Administrator, Vicar and Prefect Apostolic, and likewise those who, when the aforesaid are lacking, meanwhile succeed to governance by prescription of law or from approved constitutions; but for their own subjects, major Superiors in exempt clerical religious institutes.

Moreover, the following contract an excommunication reserved to the Ordinary:

I. Catholics: 1° who enter marriage before a non-Catholic minister against the prescription of canon 1063, § 1; 2° who are united in marriage with an explicit or implicit agreement that all or some of the offspring be educated outside the Catholic Church; 3° who knowingly presume to offer their children to non-Catholic ministers for baptism; 4° parents or those holding the place of parents who knowingly hand over children to be educated or instructed in a non-Catholic religion (canon 2319, § 1).

1. The prescription of canon 1063, § 1 is this: "Even if a dispensation has been obtained from the Church over the impediment of mixed religion, the spouses cannot, either before or after the marriage entered before the Church, also approach, whether by themselves or by proxy, a non-Catholic minister as one dedicated to sacred rites, in order to give or renew matrimonial consent." Hence it is not prohibited, indeed as § 2 has it, "it is not disapproved that, when civil law commands it, the spouses present themselves, even before a non-Catholic minister, performing only the function of a civil official, and that only for accomplishing the civil act, for the sake of civil effects." The censure is contracted, however, whether matrimonial consent is entered or renewed before a non-Catholic minister as one dedicated to sacred rites.

2. An implicit agreement is had, for example, when the Catholic party obliges himself to fulfill all the wishes of the non-Catholic party concerning religious education. The excommunication is incurred at the moment at which the marriage is contracted with the agreement, whether previously entered and not retracted or now entered.

3. On the word "knowingly" see what was said in n. 858. Since it is said "their children," for example, a midwife who offered another's offspring to a non-Catholic minister for baptism would be immune from the excommunication. For the rest, the excommunication is incurred also in a case in which baptism would probably be conferred invalidly.

4. Those holding the place of parents can be tutors or even others who are endowed with the right and office of looking after education or instruction.

Note. Those mentioned under 2, 3, and 4 are moreover suspected of heresy (canon 2319, § 2).

II. Whoever makes false relics, or knowingly sells, distributes, or exposes them to the public veneration of the faithful (canon 2326). The word "knowingly" refers to the acts of selling, distributing, and exposing to public veneration. Since it concerns false relics, one does not incur the excommunication who distributes or exposes for veneration relics whose document of authenticity has perished, or concerning whose genuineness he doubts (cf. canon 1285).

III. Whoever has laid violent hands on the person of other clerics, that is, clerics inferior to Bishops, or of religious of either sex (canon 2343, § 4). What violent laying on of hands imports, see p. 766 under X. For the excommunication to be incurred, it is required that the delinquent lay hands on the person of another, not on his own person, and that he know that person to be a cleric, religious, etc. The persons whose violent handling is punished with excommunication are:

1. Clerics, that is, those who by at least first tonsure have been assigned to divine ministries (canon 108, § 1), and have not been deprived of the privileges of clerics; hence even excommunicated, suspended, interdicted, and deposed clerics (cf. canon 2303, § 1), but not those perpetually deprived of the right of wearing ecclesiastical habit (canon 2304, § 2), the degraded (canon 2305, § 1), and all who have legitimately been reduced or have returned from the clerical state to the lay state (canon 213, § 1).

2. Religious of either sex, that is, those who have pronounced vows, whether solemn or simple, perpetual or temporary, in some religion (canon 488, 7°).

3. Male and female novices (cf. canon 614), but not postulants.

4. Members of either sex without public vows, living in common under the governance of Superiors according to approved constitutions (canon 680).

Note. The Ordinary should moreover punish the delinquent with other penalties, if the matter requires it, according to his prudent judgment (canon 2343, § 4).

IV. Those procuring abortion, the mother not excepted, the effect having followed (canon 2350, § 1).

1. Abortion is to be taken in the strict sense, that is, for the ejection of a fetus not yet viable (volume I, n. 733). Therefore the so-called acceleration of birth, the ejection of a dead fetus or a mere mole, and the expulsion of received semen, likewise embryotomy and similar illicit operations, are excluded. But no distinction is to be made between an animated and an unanimated fetus.

2. Those procuring abortion are understood to be the mother and others, whether female or male, who intend abortion and either physically cause it, or by command or by fear induced cause another to cause it. It is said, who intend abortion; hence one is immune from excommunication who, not intending abortion, for example, strikes his wife from anger, even if he foresees abortion. It is said, either by command or etc.; but if you were to deny that those commanding and those inducing fear come under the name of procurers, nevertheless one commanding, as the principal author of the delict, and one inducing fear, as inducing to the delict, are subject to the excommunication. Counselors and others concurring proximately are not counted among procurers, although as cooperators they contract the excommunication if the delict would not have been committed without their work (canon 2209, § 3). Those selling means do not ordinarily incur excommunication, both because ordinarily even without their work, namely with another selling the means, the delict would have been perpetrated, and because the concurrence is remote.

3. The effect having followed, that is, certainly followed; hence in doubt whether a fetus or a mere mole, whether a living or dead fetus, was ejected, the excommunication does not hold.

Whether one whom it repents of the committed crime before the effect follows incurs the excommunication, see p. 723.

Note 1. If the delinquent is a cleric, he is moreover to be deposed (canon 2350, § 1).

Note 2. Those who have procured the abortion of a human fetus, the effect having followed, and all cooperators, are irregular from delict (canon 985, 4°).

V. A religious, apostate from religion, incurs by the law itself an excommunication reserved to his own major Superior, or, if the religion is lay or non-exempt, to the Ordinary of the place in which he is staying (canon 2385).

1. One is called an apostate from religion who is professed from perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple, and who illegitimately leaves the religious house with the intention of not returning, or who, though having left legitimately, does not return with the intention of withdrawing himself from religious obedience (canon 644, § 1). The malicious intention mentioned in § 1 is presumed by law if the religious within a month has neither returned nor manifested to the Superior his intention of returning (canon 644, § 2).

2. The excommunication is reserved to his own major Superior if the religion is clerical exempt; if the religion is lay or non-exempt, it is reserved to the Ordinary of the place in which the delinquent is staying (canon 2385), that is, actually staying, even if he has domicile or quasi-domicile elsewhere.

Note. A religious apostate from religion is excluded from legitimate ecclesiastical acts and deprived of all privileges of his religion; and if he returns, he perpetually lacks active and passive voice, and moreover must be punished by the Superiors with other penalties according to the gravity of the fault, according to the norm of the constitutions (canon 2385).

VI. Professed members of perpetual simple vows, both in Orders and in religious Congregations, who presume to contract marriage even only civilly, both they themselves and all who contract with them (canon 2388, § 2). Note that the excommunication does not affect professed members of temporary vows. For the rest, see p. 772 under IX.