Duelling (Can. 2351)

Duellum.—A single combat with deadly weapons undertaken. by agreement. Those who actually fight or challenge, or accept a duel, or afford any assistance or favour to those who do, incur this censure. Spectators of set purpose, those who permit it or do not stop it as far as they can, though they be kings or generals of armies, also incur it. Canon 2388 VIII. Clerici in sacris constituti vel regulares aut moniales post votum sollemne castitatis, itemque omnes cum aliqua ex praedictis personis matrimonium etiam civiliter tantum contrahere praesumentes, incurrunt in excommunicationem latae sententiae Sedi Apostolicae simpliciter reservatam. (Clerics constituted in sacred orders, or regulars or nuns after a solemn vow of chastity, and likewise all who presume to contract marriage, even merely civilly, with any of the aforesaid persons, incur an excommunication latae sententiae simply reserved to the Apostolic See.)

1182. I. "Those perpetrating a duel, or simply provoking another to it, or accepting it, or furnishing any assistance or favor whatever, as also those deliberately watching it and those permitting it, or, as far as lies in them, not prohibiting it, of whatever dignity they may be."⁷

⁷ Code, c. 2351.

1. By what excommunication are they punished:

A) The duelers themselves, that is, those who perpetrate a duel; indeed also he who provokes another to a duel, or who accepts, even if in reality the duel does not follow;

B) Those furnishing any assistance or favor whatever, that is: (a) all and individual persons cooperating in any way in a duel;

Thus: seconds, unless they accept this office with the intention and hope of wholly impeding the duel; those ordering that the duel take place; those persuading, or advising, if the counsel or reason was of itself efficacious and the duel follows; the physician who, asked by the duelers, assists at the duel; the physician and confessor who, by agreement with the duelers, station themselves in a neighboring house or in a nearby place.

(b) Those deliberately watching, even from mere curiosity, but not those who see it by chance as passers-by, or in secret, nor those who go to the place of combat in order wholly to impede the duel;

(c) Those positively permitting the duel, and indeed those who, possessing authority, do not prohibit it, as far as lies in them, when they ought and are able to prohibit it.

1183. 2. By delegated law, bishops formerly absolved "from censures established against duelers, in cases only not brought to the forum of the Ordinary: with a grave salutary penance imposed, and with other things imposed which by law were to be imposed."⁸ Today the Holy See is to be approached.

⁸ Indult of the Sacred Penitentiary, n. 2.