APOSTASY. - It is the total abandonment of the faith by one who has received Baptism, and is distinguished from heresy, which consists in the conscious denial of or positive doubt about one or more truths of the faith.
It is a grave sin that does not admit of slightness of matter, being a direct offense against God.
From the earliest times of the Church, this form of desertion from the ranks of the Christian militia (often provoked by fierce persecutions) likewise constituted a most grave crime. Apostates, or lapsi (v.), were punished with deposition if clerics and with excommunication if laymen; and where they manifested the intention of returning to the faith, they had to subject themselves to a severe penance, without hope, in some Churches, of being absolved even at the point of death. To these sanctions were then added those inflicted by the secular authority, ranging from confiscation of goods and incapacity to make a will, provided for in the Justinian Code (de apostatis, 1, 7), to exile and the ultimate punishment, not infrequently applied during the Middle Ages. Later, as the primitive rigor was attenuated, the civil penalties disappeared and apostasy retained exclusively the character of an ecclesiastical crime, regulated by numerous pontifical constitutions, among which are to be remembered the "Bulla in coena Domini" of Clement VII (1524) and the Apostolicae Sedis of Pius IX (1869).
The CIC currently in force defines apostasy in can. 1325, § 2, and numbers it among the crimes against the faith in can. 2314. The specific object of the penal protection is the interest of the Church, considered in itself and in each of its members, in preserving intact its spiritual patrimony and, with it, the very cause of its existence. The active subject can be any validly baptized person. The material element is represented by the total abandonment of the Christian faith, externally manifested by words or by unequivocal acts; it is not necessary, moreover, that the guilty party adhere to a religious confession other than the Catholic one, since this circumstance is considered by the law as an aggravating factor, not as an element of the offense. Therefore pantheists, materialists and self-styled free thinkers are also to be considered apostates; not so those who show themselves practically indifferent or who neglect religious duties out of habit. The crime is by its nature formal and does not admit of attempt either in the aspect of conato or in that of frustrated attempt. The psychological element consists in the perfect consciousness and will to abandon totally the Christian faith; whence the hypothesis of a culpable offense appears impossible in this case. Criminal cooperation is conceivable especially in moral concurrence (can. 2209, § 3). Grave fear, the state of necessity and grave inconvenience can have no exculpating effect, since, as is clear, it is a matter of an action intrinsically evil and aimed at despising the faith (can. 2205, § 3).
Apostates incur excommunication latae sententiae, reserved in a special manner to the Apostolic See. Those who after a canonical monition persist in the crime are deprived of any benefice, dignity, pension and ecclesiastical office, and are declared infamous; clerics, moreover, after a second monition, must be deposed. Whoever has given his name or has publicly adhered to a non-Catholic sect becomes ipso facto infamous and, if he is a cleric, incurs, after a canonical monition, the penalty of degradation. Other penal effects of the crime of public or notorious apostasy are: deprivation of ecclesiastical burial (can. 1240, § 1, n. 1); incapacity to acquire the right of personal patronage (can. 1453, § 1); the presumption of resignation from any office (can. 188, n. 4); the ipso facto dismissal of the religious (can. 646, § 1, n. 1).
Absolution from the excommunication is reserved, as we have said, to the Holy See; but it can be imparted, for the external forum, also by the local ordinary (excluding the vicar general lacking a special mandate), provided that he has been invested as judge with the cognizance of the crime, and the guilty party, sincerely repentant, has performed a regular act of abjuration before him or before a delegate of his and two witnesses (can. 2314, § 2).
APOSTASY FROM RELIGION
Apostasy from religion must not be confused with apostasy from the faith (which has been discussed up to this point), that is, the act of a professed member of perpetual vows, whether solemn or simple, who unlawfully departs from the religious house with the intention of not returning, or who, after having lawfully departed from it, does not return, intending thereby to withdraw himself from the rule of obedience (can. 644, § 1). The apostate from religion incurs excommunication latae sententiae, reserved, according to the circumstances, to the religious superior or to the local ordinary; he is excluded from legitimate ecclesiastical acts; he loses the privileges proper to his religion and, if he returns, he not only remains deprived of active and passive voice, but must also be punished by his superiors in proportion to the gravity of the fault (can. 2385).
APOSTASY FROM THE ORDER
Finally, something else is apostasy from the order, which occurs when a cleric who has received the major orders (that is, at least the subdiaconate) abandons the ecclesiastical habit and persists for a certain time in this attitude after having been admonished; the guilty party is punished with deposition (can. 2379).
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Ferruccio Liuzzi