CODEX IURIS CANONICI

BOOK VI : SANCTIONS IN THE CHURCH

PART II : PENALTIES FOR PARTICULAR OFFENCES

TITLE I: OFFENCES AGAINST RELIGION AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH

Can. 1364 §1 An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication, without prejudice to the provision of Can. 194 §1, n. 2; a cleric, moreover, may be punished with the penalties mentioned in Can. 1336 §1, nn. 1, 2 and 3.

§2 If a longstanding contempt or the gravity of scandal calls for it, other penalties may be added, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state.

Can. 1365 One who is guilty of prohibited participation in religious rites is to be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1366 Parents, and those taking the place of parents, who hand over their children to be baptised or brought up in a non-catholic religion, are to be punished with a censure or other just penalty.

Can. 1367 One who throws away the consecrated species or, for a sacrilegious purpose, takes them away or keeps them, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished with some other penalty, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state.

Can. 1368 A person who, in asserting or promising something before an ecclesiastical authority, commits perjury, is to be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1369 A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.

TITLE II: OFFENCES AGAINST CHURCH AUTHORITIES AND THE FREEDOM OF THE CHURCH

Can. 1370 §1 A person who uses physical force against the Roman Pontiff incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; if the offender is a cleric, another penalty, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state, may be added according to the gravity of the crime.

§2 One who does this against a Bishop incurs a latae sententiae interdict and, if a cleric, he incurs also a latae sententiae suspension.

§3 A person who uses physical force against a cleric or religious out of contempt for the faith, or the Church, or ecclesiastical authority or the ministry, is to be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1371 The following are to be punished with a just penalty:

1° a person who, apart from the case mentioned in Can. 1364 §1, teaches a doctrine condemned by the Roman Pontiff, or by an Ecumenical Council, or obstinately rejects the teaching mentioned in Can. 752 and, when warned by the Apostolic See or by the Ordinary, does not retract;

2° a person who in any other way does not obey the lawful command or prohibition of the Apostolic See or the Ordinary or Superior and, after being warned, persists in disobedience.

Can. 1372 A person who appeals from an act of the Roman Pontiff to an Ecumenical Council or to the College of Bishops, is to be punished with a censure.

Can. 1373 A person who publicly incites his or her subjects to hatred or animosity against the Apostolic See or the Ordinary because of some act of ecclesiastical authority or ministry, or who provokes the subjects to disobedience against them, is to be punished by interdict or other just penalties.

Can. 1374 A person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty - one who promotes or takes office in such an association is to be punished with an interdict.

Can. 1375 Those who hinder the freedom of the ministry or of an election or of the exercise of ecclesiastical power, or the lawful use of sacred or other ecclesiastical goods, or who intimidate either an elector or one who is elected or one who exercises ecclesiastical power or ministry, may be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1376 A person who profanes a sacred object, moveable or immovable, is to be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1377 A person who without the prescribed permission alienates ecclesiastical goods, is to be punished with a just penalty.

TITLE III: USURPATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICES AND OFFENCES COMMITTED IN THEIR EXERCISE

Can. 1378 §1 A priest who acts against the prescription of Can. 977 incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

§2 The following incur a latae sententiae interdict or, if a cleric, a latae sententiae suspension:

1° a person who, not being an ordained priest, attempts to celebrate Mass;

2° a person who, apart from the case mentioned in §1, though unable to give valid sacramental absolution, attempts to do so, or hears a sacramental confession;

§3 In the cases mentioned in §2, other penalties, not excluding excommunication, can be added, according to the gravity of the offence.

Can. 1379 A person who, apart from the cases mentioned in Can. 1378, pretends to administer a sacrament, is to be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1380 A person who through simony celebrates or receives a sacrament, is to be punished with an interdict or suspension.

Can. 1381 §1 Anyone who usurps an ecclesiastical office is to be punished with a just penalty.

§2 The unlawful retention of an ecclesiastical office after being deprived of it, or ceasing from it, is equivalent to usurpation.

Can. 1382 Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

Can. 1383 A Bishop who, contrary to the provision of Can. 1015, ordained someone else's subject without the lawful dimissorial letters, is prohibited from conferring orders for one year. The person who received the order is ipso facto suspended from the order received.

Can. 1384 A person who, apart from the cases mentioned in cann. 1378-1383, unlawfully exercises the office of a priest or another sacred ministry, may be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1385 A person who unlawfully traffics in Mass offerings is to be punished with a censure or other just penalty.

Can. 1386 A person who gives or promises something so that some one who exercises an office in the Church would unlawfully act or fail to act, is to be punished with a just penalty; likewise, the person who accepts such gifts or promises.

Can. 1387 A priest who in confession, or on the occasion or under the pretext of confession, solicits a penitent to commit a sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the offence, with suspension, prohibitions and deprivations; in the more serious cases he is to be dismissed from the clerical state.

Can. 1388 §1 A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; he who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the offence.

§2 Interpreters and the others mentioned in can. 983 §2, who violate the secret, are to be punished with a just penalty, not excluding excommunication.

Can. 1389 §1 A person who abuses ecclesiastical power or an office, is to be punished according to the gravity of the act or the omission, not excluding by deprivation of the office, unless a penalty for that abuse is already established by law or precept.

§2 A person who, through culpable negligence, unlawfully and with harm to another, performs or omits an act of ecclesiastical power or ministry or office, is to be punished with a just penalty.

TITLE IV: THE OFFENCE OF FALSEHOOD

Can. 1390 §1 A person who falsely denounces a confessor of the offence mentioned in can. 1387 to an ecclesiastical Superior, incurs a latae sententiae interdict and, if a cleric, he incurs also a suspension.

§2 A person who calumniously denounces an offence to an ecclesiastical Superior, or otherwise injures the good name of another, can be punished with a just penalty, not excluding a censure.

§3 The calumniator can also be compelled to make appropriate amends.

Can. 1391 The following can be punished with a just penalty, according to the gravity of the offence:

1° a person who composes a false public ecclesiastical document, or who changes or conceals a genuine one, or who uses a false or altered one;

2° a person who in an ecclesiastical matter uses some other false or altered document;

3° a person who, in a public ecclesiastical document, asserts something false.

TITLE V: OFFENCES AGAINST SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS

Can. 1392 Clerics or religious who engage in trading or business contrary to the provisions of the canons, are to be punished according to the gravity of the offence.

Can. 1393 A person who violates obligations imposed by a penalty, can be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1394 §1 Without prejudice to the provisions of can. 194, §1, n. 3, a cleric who attempts marriage, even if only civilly, incurs a latae sententiae suspension. If, after warning, he has not reformed and continues to give scandal, he can be progressively punished by deprivations, or even by dismissal from the clerical state.

§2 Without prejudice to the provisions of can. 694, a religious in perpetual vows who is not a cleric but who attempts marriage, even if only civilly, incurs a latae sententiae interdict.

Can. 1395 §1 Apart from the case mentioned in can. 1394, a cleric living in concubinage, and a cleric who continues in some other external sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue which causes scandal, is to be punished with suspension. To this, other penalties can progressively be added if after a warning he persists in the offence, until eventually he can be dismissed from the clerical state.

§2 A cleric who has offended in other ways against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the crime was committed by force, or by threats, or in public, or with a minor under the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.

Can. 1396 A person who gravely violates the obligation of residence to which he is bound by reason of an ecclesiastical office, is to be punished with a just penalty, not excluding, after a warning, deprivation of the office.

TITLE VI: OFFENCES AGAINST HUMAN LIFE AND LIBERTY

Can. 1397 One who commits murder, or who by force or by fraud abducts, imprisons, mutilates or gravely wounds a person, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the offence, with the deprivations and prohibitions mentioned in can. 1336. In the case of the murder of one of those persons mentioned in can. 1370, the offender is punished with the penalties there prescribed.

Can. 1398 A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.

TITLE VII: GENERAL NORM

Can. 1399 Besides the cases prescribed in this or in other laws, the external violation of divine or canon law can be punished, and with a just penalty, only when the special gravity of the violation requires it and necessity demands that scandals be prevented or repaired.


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