CONDONAZIONE. — It is the indulgence or act of grace by which the supreme pontiff, exercising his supreme power of jurisdiction, legitimizes and canonizes, for both the internal and external forum, the title of ownership held by possessors of Church property unjustly usurped by the State under laws that subverted ecclesiastical property. It entails the total remission of the debt of restitution and, subject to the particular provisions of the individual indulgence, the automatic remission of any canonical penalties incurred.
Strictly speaking, it differs from composition, since the latter, unlike the former, is generally a partial remission of the debt contracted, is exercised in the internal forum, and implies in a certain sense a transaction between the two holders of the legal relationship.
Considering that the subject of the right of ownership in ecclesiastical goods is the juridical person that has lawfully acquired those goods (can. 1499 § 2), the measure legally assumes the form of a genuine expropriation of the entity that was originally the owner, and finds its canonical juridical basis in the supreme primacy of jurisdiction, by virtue of which the supreme pontiff is the supreme administrator and dispenser of all ecclesiastical goods (can. 1518).
The purpose of c. is to provide peace of conscience, remedying painful situations that arose as a result of the most severe penalties imposed by the Church on usurpers and unwary holders of usurped property.
Full c. was granted in due course by Pius VII to France in art. 13 of the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801. A clause of full c. was also contained in art. 16 of the Concordat with the Italian Republic of 1803, which nevertheless had no effect because Pius VII denounced the Concordat even before its ratification. Special indulgences of c. were also granted to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1819, the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1828, Belgium in 1833, the Kingdom of Prussia in 1894, and Spain in the Concordat of 1851 and in the additional Convention of 25 Aug. 1859.
In unified Italy, the measures of legalization following the suppressions of 1865–66 went through various phases and had varying scope. At first, by the instruction of 1 June 1896 of the S. Penitenzieria Apostolica, possessors of ecclesiastical property were authorized to continue in possession and enjoyment of it, while nevertheless holding it at the disposal of the Holy See (ad nutum ecclesiae) if it was immovable property, or of the local Ordinary if it was movable property, with the obligation of transferring it to their heirs under the same clause.
Subsequently, from Jan. 1890, the practice was adopted of allowing those concerned, in individual cases, to benefit from an indulgence of composizione, a practice later made general by the instruction of 15 Apr. 1892 of the S. Penitenzieria. Payment of a fair sum was required as partial compensation, to be determined with account taken of the persons and the facts; after this, following absolution from the censures, the title of ownership was definitively regularized. The local Ordinaries were also competent to grant this composition when those concerned in the acquisition of ecclesiastical property had paid no more than 50,000 lire.
With the Lateran Concordat of 1929, a third phase began. Art. 28 agreed that the Holy See would grant full c. to all those who, as a result of the Italian laws subverting ecclesiastical property, found themselves in possession of ecclesiastical goods. The legalization, therefore, was neither automatic nor conferred upon the entire body of those concerned, as it had been in earlier concordats with other nations, but had to be effected through a subsequent act of the Holy See. That act is the instruction of 12 May 1929 of the S. Penitenzieria, on the basis of which the remission is made possible for individuals who, having properly prepared themselves, submit to sacramental absolution for their offenses and censures and, in agreement with their confessor, add an offering to be given to the local Ordinary, though not as compensatory composition, as had been provided for in earlier practice. Possessors of sacred buildings are expressly excluded from the remission. The remission is granted for the internal forum, but may also take effect in the external forum through a document that confessors are authorized to issue.