Section V. Excommunications Not Reserved

The following incur an excommunication not reserved:

I. Authors and publishers who, without due permission, arrange for the books of Sacred Scripture, or notes or commentaries on them, to be printed (canon 2318, § 2).

1. The excommunication regards both the books of Sacred Scripture themselves and notes or commentaries on them. The printing of one book suffices, but not of only a part; likewise the printing of notes or of a commentary on one book, even if they present entirely correct doctrine.

2. The excommunication affects both authors and publishers who, without due permission, arrange for either books or notes or commentaries to be printed; but not the owner of the workshop, typesetters, and those who distribute what has been printed.

II. Those who have dared to command or compel that infidels, apostates from the faith, or heretics, schismatics, or others, whether excommunicated or interdicted, be handed over to ecclesiastical burial against the prescription of canon 1240, § 1, 2° (canon 2339). Excommunicated and interdicted persons are understood after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence (canon 1240, § 1, 2°). Canon 1240, § 1, however, establishes that the persons enumerated in the cited canon are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial, unless before death they gave some signs of repentance. For the rest, note:

1. On the phrase "have dared," see what was said in n. 858.

2. The excommunication regards the handing over of the enumerated persons to ecclesiastical burial. Ecclesiastical burial consists in the transfer of the corpse to the church, the funeral rites celebrated over it in the same place, and its deposition in a place legitimately deputed for burying the faithful departed (canon 1204). A place legitimately deputed for this is understood not only as a cemetery (canon 1205, § 1), but also a blessed tomb in an unblessed cemetery (canon 1206, § 3). Moreover, for incurring the censure, deposition, even if performed with a sacred rite, in a profane place does not suffice. It is disputed: 1° whether it is enough that the deceased be placed in a sacred place without a sacred rite; 2° whether it is enough that he be placed in a sacred place and with a sacred rite, or whether it is required that all the elements contained in canon 1204 be present. Those who deny that all these are required rely on the explanations of old authors, by which they think one must stand. But the obvious sense of the law so favors the more benign opinion that in practice we admit the opinion which requires all the elements contained in canon 1204 for excommunication.

3. The excommunication affects those commanding and compelling the enumerated persons to be handed over to ecclesiastical burial. Those commanding are those who order it by authority, whether public or private. Thus those burying or assisting at burial are not excommunicated.

Note. Those who spontaneously give burial to the persons enumerated above contract an interdict from entrance into a church reserved to the Ordinary (canon 2339).

III. All those in any way guilty, whether by giving, receiving, or furnishing consent, when the apostolic beneplacitum required in alienating ecclesiastical goods has knowingly been omitted (canon 2347, 3°).

1. The word "knowingly" refers both to those giving and to those receiving and furnishing consent.

2. The excommunication regards the perfected alienation of ecclesiastical goods for which the apostolic beneplacitum is required. Moreover:

a) Alienation now, as before, seems to be taken not only for alienation properly so called, by which bare or useful ownership of a thing is transferred to another, but also for alienation in a broader sense, by which ownership of a thing, whether bare or useful, is burdened (cf. canon 6). Alienations are: donation, sale, exchange, pledge, mortgage, imposition of a passive servitude, remission of an active servitude, compromise, settlement, lease. Perfect alienation, however, is required; hence, if in some place ownership of a sold thing is not transferred except by delivery, this must have been done for the excommunication to be incurred.

b) Ecclesiastical goods are temporal goods, whether corporeal, both immovable and movable, or incorporeal, which belong either to the universal Church and to the Apostolic See or to another moral person in the Church (canon 1497, § 1); the Sacred Congregation of the Council declared that public securities are not excluded.¹

c) The apostolic beneplacitum is required: 1° Generally for alienating ecclesiastical goods which are either precious or exceed the value of thirty thousand lire or francs² (canon 1532, § 1, 1° and 2°), according to what was said and explained in volume I, n. 974. Nevertheless, bearer bonds, as they are called, can be exchanged for other bonds more safe, or at least equally safe and fruitful, with any kind of trade or negotiation excluded, and with the consent of the Ordinary, the diocesan Council of administration, and others whose interest it is (canon 1539, § 2). 2° The apostolic beneplacitum is required for leasing, if the value of the lease, considering, as it seems, the whole time for which the lease is established, exceeds thirty thousand lire or francs, and the lease is beyond nine years (canon 1541, § 2, 1°). A lease made under the condition, "If the apostolic beneplacitum is obtained," is in no way affected by the excommunication, because such a lease is not perfected before the condition is fulfilled, that is, before the beneplacitum is obtained.

3. The excommunication affects those giving, those receiving, and those furnishing consent. Those giving are understood to be those who by themselves or through others alienate goods, but not agents of those alienating, nor those who destroy or steal goods.³ Those receiving are those for whose benefit the contract is entered. Those furnishing consent are excommunicated if their consent must be sought, which also applies to lay persons.

IV. All, shining with any dignity whatever, who in any way coerce either a man to embrace the clerical state, or a man or woman to enter religion or to emit religious profession, whether solemn or simple, whether perpetual or temporary (canon 2352).

1. The excommunication regards coercion:

a) Either to embracing the clerical state. The clerical state is embraced through reception of first tonsure (canon 108, § 1). Likewise he seems liable to the censure who would coerce someone to receive major orders (cf. canon 971).

b) Or to entering religion. Religion is a society approved by legitimate ecclesiastical authority, in which members, according to the proper laws of that same society, pronounce public vows, perpetual or temporary, though to be renewed after the time has elapsed, and thus tend to evangelical perfection (canon 488, 1°). It is all the same whether it concerns an Order or a Congregation, a clerical or lay religion, a religion of pontifical right or diocesan right. Entrance into religion is now made, as it seems to many, by admission to postulancy, and, where there is no postulancy, by admission to the novitiate. That admission to postulancy suffices seems to be drawn from the fact that the ancient law distinguished entrance into a monastery and reception of the habit, or entrance into the novitiate, and that it also punished with excommunication one who coerced someone to enter a monastery or to begin postulancy.

c) Or to emitting religious profession. One who would coerce someone both to enter religion and to emit profession would incur a twofold excommunication.

2. The excommunication affects all, even Bishops but not Cardinals (canon 2227, § 2), all, I say, coercing in any way, whether directly or indirectly, say by acting upon parents, whether by grave fear, importunate entreaties, or other means without which the effect would not have followed.

3. The excommunication is not incurred unless the effect has followed.

V. A faithful person who knowingly has omitted to denounce within a month the one by whom he was solicited, against the prescription of canon 904 (canon 2368, § 2). Canon 904 sets forth the obligation of denouncing in these words: According to the norm of the apostolic constitutions and especially of the Constitution of Benedict XIV Sacramentum poenitentiae, June 1, 1741, the penitent must denounce, within a month, to the local Ordinary or to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, the priest guilty of the delict of solicitation in confession; and the confessor must, with his conscience gravely burdened, warn the penitent of this burden. Moreover:

1. The excommunication regards omission of the denunciation to be made by the solicited person; concerning this denunciation, see n. 416 sq.

2. The excommunication affects only the solicited persons themselves, but not those who know that another has been solicited. Moreover, it is required that the solicited person knowingly omitted the denunciation; from this it follows that there can be a cause excusing from excommunication which does not excuse from the obligation of denouncing; namely, any cause diminishing imputability excuses from this excommunication (n. 858). An impubes is indeed bound by the obligation of denouncing, but not by the excommunication, unless after attaining puberty he omits the obligation.

3. The delinquent is not to be absolved unless after he has satisfied, or has seriously promised that he will satisfy (canon 2368, § 2). One absolved who seriously promised that he would satisfy the obligation, but afterward, with his will changed, does not satisfy, does not fall back into the excommunication, although the obligation of denouncing persists.

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¹ January 17, 1906.

² Lest the value fluctuate too much, the value of gold money is safely attended to.

³ Holy Office, March 2, 1870.