CAUSA GIUSTA. – This is the reasonable and proportionate motive that leads ecclesiastical authority to take some measure and, in particular, to grant some dispensation or derogation from the canon laws. It is also called a canonical cause.
The CIC requires, in particular, the existence of a canonical cause: 1) for the Ordinary to proceed with the excardination or incardination in a diocese of a cleric (cann. 116–17); in this case the cause is “the necessity or usefulness of the diocese”; 2) for transferring, transforming, or erecting new parishes: the cause required is “the necessity or evident usefulness of the Church” (can. 1423, § 1). In the case, however, of the division or dismemberment of a parish, the sole canonical cause for which the Ordinary may undertake this is “if there is great difficulty in reaching the parish church or if the multitude of parishioners is so excessive that their spiritual welfare cannot be provided for by assigning to the parish priest the assistance of parochial vicars” (can. 1427, § 2); 3) for alienating movable or immovable ecclesiastical property, the j. c. is “urgent necessity or evident usefulness of the Church, or piety” (can. 1530, § 1, n. 2); 4) for removing by summary process a parish priest whose ministry, even through no fault of his own, has become harmful or useless: can. 2147, § 2 describes in detail what these causes may be; 5) for transferring a parish priest from one parish to another: the j. c. in this case is “the demands of the good of souls” (can. 2162); 6) for imposing suspension “ex informata conscientia” (can. 2191).
If any of the measures listed above were adopted without a j. c., they would thereby become not invalid, but, depending on the case, either unlawful or open to challenge by appeal to the Holy See.
For the cause in rescripts and dispensations, V. RESCRITTO; DISPENSA. For the j. c. required for a dispensation from a ratified and non-consummated marriage, V. MATRIMONIO. Vittorio Bartoccetti