Category: Canon Law

This is a GREAT question!

The way the law is written, it would seem to do so–at least in normal circumstances–since any perservering in manifest grave sin are to be denied Communion, and typical politicians who are pro-abort would seem to be persevering in manifest grave sin.

I’d be up for barring the whole lot of them.

But one should recognize the consequences of doing so, and these consequences may not always be good, depending on the circumstances. Consider this case:

In 1989, the Bishop [Maher of San Diego] barred a California Assemblywoman, Lucy Killea, from taking Communion because she supported the right to abortion. He told her that her views amounted to "a grave scandal against the Church."

The action drew nationwide attention to a bid by Mrs. Killea for a seat in the State Senate. It also created voter sympathy for Mrs. Killea, a Democrat, who won the seat in a heavily Republican district.

It’s an interesting question: "What do you place first? Your native pro-life instincts or possible longer-term harm to innocent life?"

I know what my instincts say . . . but longer-term questions also have to be asked. . . . And this kind of calculus may be part of why some bishops don’t take a more confrontational line with pro-abort politicians.

Or maybe not.

GET THE STORY.

Church law honors the principle that in certain circumstances, ecclesia supplet: "the Church supplies."

But what is it that the Church supplies?

Is it jurisdiction for situations in which a person operating in the name of the Church lacks the faculties to execute a particular act?

Or is it the grace that would come from a sacrament that would otherwise be invalid?

Has God promised to grant grace through the sacraments even when they are administered invalidly?

We must be careful about the answer.

ED PETERS ADDS CLARITY.

The U.S. BCL Newsletter reports:

Holydays of Obligation in England and Wales

The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has recently revised its policy on Holy Days of
Obligation, approving the transfer to Sundays of those Holydays of Obligation which are
Solemnities of the Lord, namely, Epiphany, Ascension and The Body and Blood of the Lord.
The decision was confirmed by the Holy See on July 13, 2006.

The Newsletter of the Committee on Liturgy of that Conference explains that due to the
importance of these days “the bishops were anxious that all members of the Catholic Church
should be able to celebrate them. The bishops have long been concerned about the way that large
numbers of the faithful are unable to take part in the celebration of Mass on days of obligation
which fall during the week. Their consultation within their dioceses, and in particular the
representation made by Councils of Priests, persuaded that it was now timely to approve the
change.”

Flipping to the appendix of my copy of the Red Code, that leaves the non-Sunday holy days of obligation in England and Wales as the following:

1. the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

2. the Epiphany  (transferred to Sunday if falls on Saturday or Monday) (now always Sunday)

3. the
Ascension (now always Sunday)

4. the Body and Blood of Christ (now always Sunday)

5. Holy Mary the Mother of God

6. her
Immaculate Conception

7. her Assumption (transferred to Sunday if falls on Saturday or Monday)

8. Saint Joseph

9. Saint Peter and Saint Paul
the Apostles (transferred to Sunday if falls on Saturday or Monday)

10. All Saints (transferred to Sunday if falls on Saturday or Monday)

Since most JA.O readers are Americans, they’ll likely be curious how that compares to our situation. According to the USCCB’s complimentary norm on the subject, our non-Sunday holy days of obligation are:

1. the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ 

2. the Epiphany  (always on a Sunday)
 

3. the
Ascension (may be on a Sunday depending on which ecclesiasical province you live in)

4. the Body and Blood of Christ (always on a Sunday)

5. Holy Mary the Mother of God (not if it falls on a Saturday or Monday)   

6. her
Immaculate Conception

7. her Assumption (not if it falls on a Saturday or Monday)
 

8. Saint Joseph 

9. Saint Peter and Saint Paul
the Apostles

10. All Saints (not if it falls on a Saturday or Monday)

Both of these schedules are robust compared to Canada, of course. Its non-Sunday holy days are as follows:

1. the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ 

2. the Epiphany (always on a Sunday)

3. the
Ascension (always on a Sunday)

4. the Body and Blood of Christ (always on a Sunday)

5. Holy Mary the Mother of God

6. her
Immaculate Conception

7. her Assumption

8. Saint Joseph

9. Saint Peter and Saint Paul
the Apostles

10. All Saints

There are press reports about an Austrian bishop saying that a business owner who rented shopping mall space to an abortion clinic has excommunicated himself.

HERE’S JOHN ALLEN’S VERSION OF THE STORY.

Allen goes a bit too far when he says:

It’s long been a subject of debate whether more remote forms of cooperation, such as the contractor who builds a clinic, also trigger automatic excommunication.

Not that I’m aware of. Not in serious canonical circles.

The canon that provides automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication for abortion is this:

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

As phrased, that would strike only the person who has actually procured the abortion. However, canon 1329 also provides that:

§2. Accomplices who are not named in a law or
precept incur a latae sententiae penalty attached to a delict if without their
assistance the delict would not have been committed, and the penalty is of such
a nature that it can affect them; otherwise, they can be punished by ferendae
sententiae penalties.

The clause in blue allows not only the procurer of the abortion to be struck with automatic excommunication but also those directly involved in the abortion itself, such as the abortionist, the person who paid the money for the abortion, and possibly a few others (nurses, the person who drove the patient to the clinic). It does not apply to people whose cooperation is more remote and thus whose role might have been substituted for by someone else. At least, in the absence of an authentic interpretation to the contrary, it is doubtful whether the law applies to remote cooperators, which means that the following canon kicks in:

Can. 18 Laws which
establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an
exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation.

That means that in cases of doubt you have to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who would be struck by a penalty.

Since the cooperation of a person who rents space to a "sexual health clinic" that performs abortions is only remotely involved (like the people who supply electric power and gas and who stamp the legal forms at city hall and to handle the clinic’s money at the bank, and who provide cleaners, and who provide medical supplies), you can’t–as the law presently stands–say that these people are automatically excommunicated.

The green CLSA commentary on the Code concurs:

A properly strict interpretation means that the canon applies primarily to those directly participating in the abortion, not those removed from such participation [p. 1603, n. 308].

If a bishop with the proper jurisdiction over the shopping mall owner concludes that the owner is gravely at fault for renting space to the clinic (an extremely resonable conclusion) then he could declare an excommunication (ferendae sententiae), but it would not be an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication.

My sense on this is that the Austrian bishop (apparently an auxiliary of Cardinal Shonborn) simply misspoke, which is why Cardinal Schonborn hasn’t backed him up.

In any event, the press reports on this are a mess.

MORE FROM ED PETERS.

A reader writes:

I wanted to comment on this section [i.e., Marriages in Church] but did not want to contradict what you have stated.

Don’t worry about contradicting me. That wasn’t a Rule 20 post, so there was no "e-mail me if you want to object to my answer" rule in effect.

I do have a question, why did you cite the Cannon Law and not the Catechism also?

CCC 1621 – 1624 give a good idea of where we are obliged  to get married and why.

We, ordinary lay people, do not have access to the Cannon Law nor do we always understand it.

Why didn’t you include the CCC in your answer?

Well, the truth is that I was writing late at night and didn’t think to look in the Catechism, but there’s a deeper reason than that.

Part of my philosophy is going straight to the source documents
whenever possible. That’s why I quote from these documents regularly
when I’m writing and thus "show my work" (as my math teacher used to
insist), rather than simply giving the answer and expecting the reader
to just trust me. I’ve seen a lot of people–particularly clerics and professors–just say "This is the way it is" without giving the questioner a way to follow-up on the answer and verify that it’s correct.

I don’t have a clerical collar–or even a degree in the relevant fields–and so I have no institution endorsing my answers (particularly when I’m writing here on my blog). They have to stand or fall on their own merits, and it’s a lot easier on me–and builds confidence on the part of the reader–if I simply quote the relevant documents up front so that the reader can see for himself what they say. He is then in a position, or a better position, to evaluate whether the answer I am drawing from them is correct. It’s part of how I try to build and maintain a reputation for accuracy and reliability.

This approach means that I need to cite the most relevant, most authoritative documents I can, and in the case of the legal obligation of Catholics to celebrate sacramental marriages in Catholic churches, the most relevant and authoritative document is the Code of Canon Law. It is this document that creates the obligation in the first place.

It’s true that the Catechism is more familiar to most readers, but it is not a legal document and does not create legal obligations for the faithful. Instead, it is a teaching document that is meant to impart doctrine.

I thus cite the Catechism when I’m handling doctrinal questions, and I cite the Code when I’m handling legal questions.

Sometimes I provide links to the source documents on the Vatican’s website, though these two documents are so well-known and so often-quoted on my blog that I often assume that readers will know how to get to them if they want to look up the context of the parts I’ve quoted. That may be a bad assumption on my part–particularly in regard to new visitors to the blog–but I already spend more time than I should on the blog, and not adding a link to these two documents every time I quote them is an extra time-saving step for me.

This is probably a good place to link to them, though, so new readers will have a jumping-on point, so:

HERE’S THE CATECHISM

and

HERE’S THE CODE.

And as an added bonus,

HERE’S THE COMPENDIUM.

So–in keeping with my time limits–once I’ve identified the most relevant and authoritative documents to quote, I just use them and don’t generally have the luxury of quoting other documents in addition (something that would only cause my blog posts to expand beyond their current lengthy lengthiness anyway).

Thus I didn’t bother looking in the Catechism.

Had I done so, I might not have quoted CCC 1621-1624 in my answer, anyway. Of these paragraphs, the most relevant one is 1621, but it has some limitations in addressing the question. First, it only addresses the custom in the Latin Rite. That’s not too much of a limitation, though, since the person asking why marriages are celebrated in churches likely had the Latin Rite’s practice in mind. Second, and more significantly, the paragraph doesn’t really talk about why Latin Rite marriages are celebrated in churches. It talks about why they are celebrated (normally) in Masses.

If I used this as the basis of my answer, I wouldn’t have dealt with the situations of marriages which aren’t celebrated during Mass but nevertheless are celebrated in Catholic churches, and I wouldn’t have been able to appeal to the fact that the relevant canon in the Code of Canon Law draws a distinction between sacramental and non-sacramental marriages (which is highly important to answering the original question) since the Catechism doesn’t go into that.

I also would have had to extend the discussion by sketching the chain between normally having weddings during Mass and normally having Masses in churches. It was just a lot simpler to go straight for the spot in the Code where it says you’ve normally got to have sacramental marriages celebrated in churches.

That being said, CCC 1621 can shed extra light on the reasoning behind the law, and it’s worth looking at in that regard–as additional insight on the law, but not as law itself or as an exhaustive answer on the reasoning behind the law.

Hope this helps!

A reader writes:

I’ve been looking for a really solid explanation of why Catholic weddings are ordinarily required to be in a Church. I have many friends that often ask me this question, but sadly I think my answers are not as good as they could be. Obviously, having a wedding in a Church emphasizes the sacramentality thereof, and it is a testimony to the faith community’s part in the couple’s life.

Thank you for your assistance.

There are two ways to approach the answer to this question. The first is the canonical approach. Catholic weddings are ordinarily celebrated in a church because the Code of Canon Law provides the following:

Can.  1118 §1. A marriage between Catholics or between a Catholic party and a non-Catholic baptized party is to be celebrated in a parish church. It can be celebrated in another church or oratory with the permission of the local ordinary or pastor.

§2. The local ordinary can permit a marriage to be celebrated in another suitable place.

§3. A marriage between a Catholic party and a non-baptized party can be celebrated in a church or in another suitable place.

Since most Catholics are either marrying other Catholics or baptized non-Catholics, section 1 applies, which indicates that the marriage is to be celebrated in a parish church unless the local ordinary (typically the bishop) or the pastor gives permission for it to be celebrated in another church or oratory (meaning, due to another canon we won’t go into, another Catholic church or oratory).

At first glance, the canonical answer may not seem that enlightening: "Catholic weddings are normally held in Catholic churches because that’s what the law says." Big deal. We probably could have guessed that, and the reader is likely wanting an answer from the other perspective, which is why does the law say this? What’s the reason for the law?

Here is where a close reading of the canon is helpful. It’s always at least a little risky to speculate on the motives behind the law, but the structure of this canon gives us a pretty clear indication of the reason for the law, and it indicates that the reader is on the right track.

If one party is Catholic and the other is either Catholic or another Christian then section 1 wants to locate the ceremony in a Catholic church or oratory, though with permission of the local ordinary it can be celebrated in another suitable place (such as a Protestant’s home church if the Catholic is marrying a Protestant), according to section 2.

The permission of the local ordinary goes out the window, though, if the Catholic is marrying a non-baptized (i.e., non-Christian) person. In that case it can happen in a Catholic church or in any suitable place, no permissions needed.

This suggests that there is a difference between the marriages of Catholics to other baptized people (Catholic or not) and the marriages of Catholics to non-baptized people. In the former case, sections 1 and 2 apply. In the latter case, section 3 applies.

Since all Catholics are baptized, that means that this canon draws a distinction between marriages that occur between two baptized people (sections 1 and 2) and marriages that don’t occur between two baptized people (section 3).

Now: What’s the big difference between marriages between two baptized people and marriages that aren’t between two baptized people?

That’s right: The former are sacramental and the latter are not.

So the reader is on the right track in identifying the sacramentality of the marriage as the key issue.

I’d be inclined to put it like this: Marriage between baptized persons is a sacrament, and sacraments are normally performed in church. To a significant extent, that’s what churches are for. They’re the places we (ordinarily) perform our sacraments.The reasons for this seem to be twofold:

1) Churches are places specially consecrated to God, making them sacred, and sacraments are sacred actions, making it natural to perform them in churches.

2) Sacraments are also ecclesial (church-related) acts, and it is thus natural to perform them in the presence of the church when possible. Churches (considered as buildings) are places where the church (considred as people) meets, and so it is natural to perform ecclesial acts in the presence of the members of the church in the house in which they meet.

There are exceptions to this. In some cases there is a good reason to vary from the practice. For example, sick people often can’t get to church, so the anointing of the sick is often administered to them where they are. But in the main, the two above reasons are good reasons why sacraments–including marriage–are normally performed in churches.

It doesn’t have to be that way, which is why canon law allows exceptions, but it is fitting that it be this way, which is why canon law establishes this preference.

As the green CLSA commentary on the Code of Canon Law puts it:

Since the marriages of two baptized persons are sacraments, they are not merely private or familial celebrations, they are ecclesial events. The spouses declare their consent "before God and the Church" and live out that commitment in and with the support of the local ecclesial community. It is, therefore, fitting that this celebration should take place in the parish church. It is here that the local community is "gathered together by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, and the mystery of the Lord’s supper is celebrated, ‘so that the whole fellowship is joined together by the flesh and blood of the Lord’s body’"[p. 1337].

A reader writes:

First, I very much enjoy your blog.  I hope you can keep at it for long time.
Now, my question concerns what is the proper way to dispose of religious
objects such worn out bibles, tarnished or worn crucifixes, old prayer
cards, broken rosaries, religious pamphlets, etc.?  Some of my coworkers
and I had a discussion today about what to do with them.  One person
couldn’t bring himself to dispose of them in the trash out of respect.
Another felt that broken or worn items could be thrown out without any
guilt.  Can you help us out?  We all want to do the right thing.

The disposition of this type of religious object is not something that is regulated by canon law. Consequently, there is not a canonical "right answer" here.

Catholic doctrine also does not treat the subject in any detail, and thus there is no doctrinal "right answer" beyond the general axiom that a religious object should be treated with the reverence that is due it. The question is: How much reverence is that?

It is difficult to give a definite answer, but there are certain levels of reverence that would clearly be wrong. For example:

1) So little reverence that we commit actual sacrilege with the items (e.g., using them as part of a Black Mass)

2) So much reverence that we can never get rid of them and have to squirrel them away when they can no longer be used.

The correct answer falls somewhere between these two extremes, and it is likely to vary from one object to another. Indeed, a pious custom of many Catholics is to distinguish between those objects that have been blessed and those that have not. This appears to be a useful division in that in the case of blessed objects, the Church has in at least a minor way consecrated the item to sacred use, while in the latter case it has not. It thus would make sense to show more reverence in the disposition of a blessed object than an unblessed one.

Correspondingly, a common pious custom is to dispose of blessed objects by either burning them (if they are flammable) or burying them (if they are not). In the former case, the object is destroyed, thus removing its blessing, and the ashes (or other remains) can simply be thrown away.

In the case of objects that were never blessed (or that have been destroyed, removing their blessing), this custom holds that they can simply be thrown away like any other non-blessed object.

As indicated, this is a pious custom and not a matter of law or doctrine, so individual consciences may vary without there being sin. If one person feels comfortable disposing of a religious object in a way that happens to be different than my preferred way of doing it, I would not on that account tell him he’s doing anything wrong. If the Church wanted to mandate ways of doing this, it would.

The key thing is not the physical manner of disposing of these objects but the fact that one is doing so with a right heart. If one "reverently throws away" something then his heart is displaying reverence, which is the important thing. What physical act is used to express this reverence is not what is at issue–be it burning or burial or even if there is no outward act but simply a grateful recognition of the role God has allowed the object to play in one’s religious life.

It is being reported that a Nigerian bishop is encouraging his flock to vote, informing them that it is their sacred duty to do so, and even going to the extent of saying that they will not be allowed to receive Communion if they do not register to vote.

It’s not clear if these reports are accurate, but some of the handling of them in the press is demonstrably *in*accurate.

In particular, the statement that non-registering Catholics will be excommunicated is flatly wrong. Refusing someone Communion is not the same as excommunicating them.

ED PETERS HAS THE STORY.

A reader writes:

Just a quick question.  December 25, 2006 falls on a Monday and
it’s a holy day of obligation.  If a person normally goes to Sunday
mass at 5 pm, will he fulfill his Sunday obligation on Dec 24, 2006 and
at the same time fulfill the Christmas Day obligation (being that it
will be the Christmas vigil mass at 5 pm Sunday)?  Or does he have to
go to an early Sunday mass (before the Christmas vigil) to fulfill his
Sunday obligation (and of course go to another mass for Christmas)?

 

On a related note, if a person goes to a funeral or wedding mass on a Sunday, does this fulfill his Sunday obligation?

According to the Code of Canon Law,

Can.  1248 §1. A person who assists at a Mass celebrated
anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of
the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.

I’ve put two phrases in this in color. Given the way the red one is phrased, the law would appear to allow one to go to one Mass on Sunday evening (and after 5 p.m. would certainly count as evening, though some earlier masses might count as well) and simultaneously fulfill one’s Sunday obligation and the obligation of a holy day that falls on Monday.

But the law doesn’t mean that.

This isn’t clear from the text of the law itself, unfortunately. This is one of the areas where we bump up against the fact that Italy is a high-context culture that doesn’t write the law in the level of detail that would be expected in English- or German-speaking cultures, because it is assumed that you already know the answer to certain questions and thus they don’t need to be written down.

This is one of those questions: It is expected that everybody knows that if Christmas falls on a Monday then you have to go to Mass twice. You can’t just go to one. This is the common and constant opinion of learned persons, and so it’s what the law means even though it’s not what the law says. The Code provides:

Can. 19 If a custom or an express prescript of universal or particular law is lacking in a certain matter, a case, unless it is penal, must be resolved in light of laws issued in similar matters, general principles of law applied with canonical equity, the jurisprudence and practice of the Roman Curia, and the common and constant opinion of learned persons.

This canon applies to the situation of how to apply canon 1248 when it comes to the question of fulfilling two Mass obligations by attending a single Mass. We don’t have anything from Rome saying that you can do this, and "the common and constant opinion of learned persons" is that you can’t, so you can’t.

I find it frustrating that the law isn’t written with the level of specificity that makes this clear, but then I don’t get to write the law.

You’ve therefore got several options for how to fulfill your Sunday and Christmas obligations this year:

1) Go to a Saturday evening Mass (Sunday obligation) and a Sunday evening Mass (Christmas obligation)
2) Go to a Saturday evening Mass (Sunday obligation) and a Monday Mass (Christmas obligation)
3) Go to a Sunday Mass (Sunday obligation) and a Sunday evening Mass (Christmas obligation)
4) Go to a Sunday Mass (Sunday obligation) and a Monday Mass (Christmas obligation)
5) Go to one Sunday evening Mass (Sunday obligation) and a second Sunday evening Mass (Christmas obligation)

Now, beyond that, it doesn’t matter what kind of Mass it is you are attending. It can be a wedding Mass or a funeral Mass. It also doesn’t have to be a specifically Christmas vigil Mass to fulfill one’s Christmas obligation. It just has to be a Mass occurring on Sunday evening or Monday.

This is often surprising to people because there is an assumption out there that you need to hear a particular set of readings (i.e., the readings for that Sunday or readings for Christmas) in order to fulfill a Mass obligation, but this is not true, and this time the law makes it clear. That’s why I put the phrase "anywhere in a Catholic rite" in blue in canon 1248. This makes it clear that you don’t have to attend a Latin rite Mass to fulfill a Mass obligation, and this means that you don’t have to hear any particular set of readings to fulfill your obligation. Different rites use different readings, and in many cases, the different rites will not even be celebrating the same holy day and won’t have any special readings.

The issue of what readings you hear is thus irrelevant to your fulfillment of your obligation to participate in Mass.

But you do gotta go to Mass twice this weekend, once to celebrate Our Lord’s Resurrection and one to celebrate his Birth.

Canonist Edward Peters has a new book out on excommunication.

I’d say that this is a much-misunderstood topic except that this would not remotely convey just how misunderstood the topic is. It would be like saying that the ocean is a little wet. In fact, excommunication is so vastly, hugely, wave-crashingly, tsunami-style misunderstood that one almost never encounters a press story about excommunication that gets it right.

It’s such a relief, therefore, to have a sound canonist like Peters explain–in simple, layman’s terms–exactly what excommunication is and is not, why it gets imposed, what its effects are, and a host of other questions on this horrendously-gotten-wrong topic.

The book is short, easy-to-read, and written in an accessible question-and-answer style.

And with Peters writing, you know you’ll be getting a rock-solid, straight-shooting orthodox explanation.

GET YOURS TODAY!

BTW, Peters has promised JA.O an exclusive interview on the subject. Look for it soon!