APOSTOLICAE SEDIS. - These are the opening words of the famous constitution promulgated by Pio IX on 12 October 1869 for the purpose of reorganizing, adapting it to the times, the delicate matter of latae sententiae censures (v. CENSURA).
In view of the great number of sanctions of this kind accumulated through the successive enactments of his predecessors, and given the doubts that might arise concerning some of them, the Pontiff wisely desired that a single law of a universal and exclusive character should determine for the future which offences were to be understood as punished by ipso facto incurrendae censures. The result was a small penal code, which provided for 38 cases of excommunication (twelve of them reserved speciali modo to the Roman Pontiff, eighteen reserved simpliciter to him, three reserved to the ordinary, and five reserved to no one), 7 cases of suspension, and 2 of interdict.
The constitution A. S., upon which the ingenuity of numerous commentators was exercised, remained in force until the promulgation of the CIC, which, in the fifth book, De delictis et poenis, absorbed most of its contents.