Suspension from Informed Conscience

I. Notion. Suspension from informed conscience is suspension from office, whether total or partial, which is inflicted by the Ordinary by simple decree, by an extrajudicial way and without prior canonical warnings (cf. canons 2186, § 1; 2187). It is not licit to use this extraordinary remedy if the Ordinary can, without grave inconvenience, proceed against the subject according to the norm of law (canon 2186, § 2).

II. Mode of proceeding. A decree of this kind is to be given in writing, unless circumstances demand otherwise, with the day, month, and year designated; and in it:

1. It must be expressly said that the suspension is issued from informed conscience, or from causes known to the Ordinary himself;

2. The time of duration of the penalty must be indicated; moreover, the Ordinary should abstain from inflicting it in perpetuity. But it can be inflicted even as a censure, provided that in this case the cause for which the suspension is imposed is made known to the cleric;

3. The acts which are prohibited must be clearly indicated, if the suspension is inflicted not in whole but in part (canon 2188).

Note. If a cleric is suspended from an office in which another must be substituted in his place, for example, an administrator in the care of souls, the one who is substituted is to receive a wage from the fruits of the benefice to be determined according to the prudent judgment of the Ordinary (canon 2189, § 1). A suspended cleric, if he feels burdened, can seek diminution of the pension from the immediate Superior who in the judicial way would be the judge of appeal (canon 2189, § 2).

III. The cause for proceeding in this way is a delict of the cleric: 1° so grave that it must be coerced by a penalty of this kind; 2° morally certain; that is, from investigations conducted the Ordinary must have gathered proofs of such a kind as make him certain that the cleric truly perpetrated the delict (canon 2190). Moreover, concerning the delict observe:

1. A just and legitimate cause is an occult delict (canon 2191, § 1; n. 846).

2. On account of a notorious delict, suspension from informed conscience can never be issued (canon 2191, § 2); but suspension from informed conscience is valid if from several delicts only one was occult (canon 2192).

3. In order that a public delict (n. 846) can be punished by suspension from informed conscience, it is necessary that some one of the following circumstances occur: 1° if upright and serious witnesses indeed disclose the delict to the Ordinary, but can by no means be induced to give testimony about it in trial, nor can the delict be proved in judicial process by other proofs; 2° if the cleric himself prevents, by threats or other means used, a judicial process from being instituted or, once begun, from being completed; 3° if impediments to carrying out the judicial process and issuing the sentence arise from adverse civil laws or from grave danger of scandal (canon 2191, § 3).

IV. Disclosure of the cause to the guilty person. 1. In the case of a censure, that is, of a medicinal penalty, the cause for which this suspension is imposed is to be made known to the cleric, so that he may know in what matter he is to be corrected and, once corrected, can seek absolution.

2. In the case of a vindicative penalty, it is left to the prudent judgment of the Ordinary whether to disclose or withhold from the cleric the cause of the suspension, or the delict, pastoral solicitude and charity nevertheless being used, so that, if he has judged that the delict should be made known to the cleric, the penalty, from the paternal admonitions which he has interposed, may serve not only for the expiation of guilt, but also for the amendment of the delinquent and the removal of the occasion of sin (canon 2193).

V. Recourse from a censure is given only in devolutive effect (canon 2243, § 1), but from a vindicative penalty also in suspensive effect (canon 2287).

If a cleric lodges recourse from a suspension inflicted on him, the Ordinary must send to the Apostolic See the proofs by which it is established that the cleric truly perpetrated the delict which can be punished by this extraordinary penalty (canon 2194).