ARTICLE OF DEATH. – This is the point or moment of death, understood morally, that is, considered with a certain latitude, so as to include all the time that elapses from the moment when death is held to be certain and inevitable. It is generally distinguished from the danger of death, which exists from the moment when death is considered, on the basis of the particular circumstances of the case, seriously probable. The a. of d. therefore presupposes the moral certainty of death; the danger of death, serious probability.
The decree of the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, c. VII) is famous, in which all priests were granted the power to absolve the faithful in the a. of d. from any reserved sin or censure: «...Ne aliquis pereat in Ecclesia custoditum semper fuit ut nulla sit reservatio in articulo mortis; atque ideo omnes sacerdotes quoslibet poenitentes a quibusvis peccatis et censuris absolvere possint». In interpreting this concession, authors divided into two large groups, and the cause of the division was precisely the different way of interpreting the expression a. of d. While some (Soto, Cano, Covarrubias, Ledesma, etc.) maintained that the a. of d. referred only to the moment when death is imminent and morally certain, others (among them Navarro, Suárez, Sánchez, Lugo, etc.), while admitting that a. and danger of death were two distinct concepts, nevertheless affirmed that in ecclesiastical practice they were equivalent, at least re sacramentali, and cited several ecclesiastical documents in which the equivalence of the two concepts appeared clearly. In the chapter non dubium of the Decretals of Gregory IX (l. V, tit. 39, c. 5), for example, what in the canon si quis suadente of Gratian’s Decree (c. 29, C. XVII, q. 4) is considered as the danger of death is called articulus mortis. And the citations could be multiplied. They added that this broader interpretation better corresponded to the mind of the Church, which intended to facilitate access to the source of grace; something that in the majority
of cases would have been impossible if the expression a. of d. were interpreted strictly. This second opinion finally prevailed; and in the years immediately preceding codification, authors generally expressed themselves to the effect that in the CIC, especially in sacramental matters, the two expressions a. and danger of death could be used interchangeably.
This doctrinal equivalence was accepted by the CIC, which adopted the expression periculum mortis whenever the ancient discipline dealt with articulus mortis (cf. for confession, can. 882 and Council of Trent, sess. XIV, de poenitent., c. 7; for Baptism, can. 752, § 2 and S. Congr. S. Officii 18 Sept. 1850; for Matrimony, can. 1043 and S. Congr. S. Officii 23 Apr. 1890, etc.). The expression articulus mortis is never mentioned in the CIC.
There nevertheless remain, in the current discipline, two cases in which the a. of d. is interpreted strictly: a) for the apostolic blessing with a plenary indulgence in articulo mortis; b) for the religious profession of the novice in articulo mortis. The apostolic blessing with a plenary indulgence may be imparted, according to the practice of the Church, after the administration of the sacraments of Penance, Eucharist, and Extreme Unction. Although the words of the Roman Ritual imply that, for the blessing, it is not necessary to await the moment of the a. of d., but that the danger of death is sufficient, the indulgences and graces attached to it are gained only at the true a. of d., understood in the strictest sense.
Religious profession in articulo mortis before the end of the novitiate was granted, as a particular privilege, to the nuns of s. Domenico by Pius V through the constitution Summi Sacerdotis (23 Aug. 1570). Pius X, by the decree Spirituali consolatione of 10 Sept. 1912, extended the concession to all religious, and on 23 Dec. 1922 the S. Congregation of Religious declared that the concession remained in force notwithstanding the silence of the Code. Through this profession, the novice acquires all the indulgences, graces, and suffrages to which the professed members of the respective religious institute are entitled, and at the same time obtains a plenary absolution from sins in the manner of a jubilee. No juridical consequence, however, derives from this fact. It is necessary that the profession take place precisely in articulo mortis, that is, not before the moment when the novice’s death is considered certain and inevitable. This is at least the current practice of the S. Congregation of Religious (cf. nevertheless F. M. Cappello, Summa I. C., II, 4th ed., Rome 1945, p. 68).
In the first years after the decree of 1922, a certain practical equivalence between the a. and danger of death also prevailed in this case: the «Constitutiones» of the Dominicans, Redemptorists, etc., require only that the novice be in danger of death. At the same time, however, other «Constitutiones» speak exclusively of «a. of d.», as, for example, those of the Claretians, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the Society of the Divine Word, etc.
Since the cited decree of 1922 says: «liceat exinde novitios seu probandos qui medici iudicio graviter aegrotent ut in mortis articulo constituit aestimantur»; and since this declaration is subsequent to the Code, it must be presumed that by the wording «a. of d.» it was intended to exclude the danger of death. In any event, in the most recent approvals of Constitutions, the S. Congregation of Religious no longer insists on the distinction between danger and a. of death.