CAUSE, JUST. — It is that reasonable and proportionate motive which determines ecclesiastical authority to take some measure and, in particular, to grant some dispensation or derogation from canon laws. It is also called a canonical cause.
The *Codex Iuris Canonici* (CIC) specifically requires the existence of a canonical cause: 1) so that an Ordinary may proceed to excardinate or incardinate a cleric in a diocese (canons 116-117); in this case, the cause is “the necessity or utility of the diocese”; 2) to transfer, transform, or erect new parishes: the required cause is “the necessity or evident utility of the Church” (canons 1423, §1). In the case, however, of the division or dismemberment of a parish, the sole canonical cause for which the Ordinary may proceed is “if there is great difficulty in accessing the parish church or if the multitude of parishioners is so excessive that their spiritual welfare cannot be provided for by assigning the parish priest the assistance of vicars cooperator” (canons 1427, §2); 3) to alienate ecclesiastical goods, whether movable or immovable, the just cause is “urgent necessity or evident utility of the Church, or piety” (canons 1530, §1, n. 2); 4) to remove by summary process a parish priest whose ministry, even without his fault, has become harmful or useless: canon 2147, §2 describes in detail what these causes may be; 5) to transfer a parish priest from one parish to another: in this case, the just cause is “the exigency of the good of souls” (canons 2162); 6) to impose suspension “ex informata conscientia” (canons 2191).
If any of the measures listed above were adopted without a just cause, it would thereby become not invalid but, depending on the case, either illicit or subject to appeal to the Holy See.
For the cause in rescripts and dispensations, V. RESCRIPT; DISPENSATION. For the just cause necessary for the dispensation from a ratified and non-consummated marriage, V. MATRIMONY.