Disreputable Arts

DISREPUTABLE ARTS. - This is the name given, in the CIC (can. 138), to those professions or trades whose exercise is expressly forbidden to clerics because it is considered unbecoming to their state.

The legislator does not determine precisely which occupations must be considered indecorous. Recourse to the sources supplies this, from which it appears that the prohibition does not concern only certain occupations properly so called, such as that of the comedian, the theater or film actor, the dancer, the juggler, the street musician, the conjurer, etc., but must also be extended to certain trades, such as that of the butcher, the tavern keeper, the public retailer, the cowherd, the professional hunter and others besides, which, although honorable for a certain class of lay persons, are not fitting for the clerical state.

Indecorous occupations must not be confused with the liberal arts and professions (such as, for example, the profession of physician-surgeon, of advocate and procurator, of notary, of public and private administrator, etc.), which are nevertheless equally forbidden to the cleric, unless the license of the competent authority intervenes (can. 139).

Zaccaria da S. Mauro