CONDONATION. - It is the indult 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 of Church property unjustly usurped by the State through laws abolishing ecclesiastical patrimony. It entails the total remission of the debt of restitution and, except for modalities proper to the individual indult, the automatic remission of any canonical penalties incurred.
Strictly speaking, it differs from composition, since the latter, unlike the former, is mostly a partial remission of the debt contracted, is exercised in the internal forum, and in a certain way implies a transaction between the two parties in the relationship.
Given that the subject of the right of ownership of ecclesiastical goods is the juridical person who has lawfully acquired such goods (can. 1499 § 2), the measure assumes the juridical form of a true expropriation of the original entity, while the owner, and finds its canonical juridical foundation 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 condonation is to provide tranquility of conscience, avoiding painful situations that arose following the most severe penalties imposed by the Church against usurpers and imprudent holders of usurped goods.
Full condonation was granted at the time by Pius VII to France in Article 13 of the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801. A clause of full condonation was also contained in Article 16 of the Concordat with the Italian Republic of 1803, which, however, never took effect due to Pius VII’s denunciation of the Concordat even before its ratification. Special indults of condonation 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 the Additional Convention of 25 August 1859.
In unified Italy, the measures of legalization, following the suppressions of 1865–66, underwent different phases and had varying scope. At first, with the instruction of 19 June 1866 from the Apostolic Penitentiary, holders of ecclesiastical goods were authorized to continue in possession and enjoyment of them, subject, however, to the disposition of the Holy See (ad nutum ecclesiae) if they were immovable property, or of the local Ordinary if they were movable property, with the obligation to transmit them to heirs under the same clause.
Later, from January 1890, the norm was adopted of admitting interested parties to benefit, in individual cases, from an indult of composition, a norm then made general by the instruction of 15 April 1892 from the Apostolic Penitentiary. An equitable sum was imposed as partial compensation, to be determined in light of persons and circumstances; after which, following absolution from censures, the title of ownership was definitively legalized. For such composition, local Ordinaries were also competent when those acquiring ecclesiastical goods had not paid more than 30,000 lire.
With the Lateran Concordat of 1929, a third phase began. Article 28 provided that the Holy See would grant full condonation to all who, as a result of Italian laws abolishing ecclesiastical patrimony, found themselves in possession of ecclesiastical goods. The legalization was therefore neither automatic nor granted to the mass of interested parties, as had been the case in previous concordats with other nations, but had to be effected through a subsequent act of the Holy See. This act is the instruction of 12 May 1929 from the Apostolic Penitentiary, by which condonation is made possible for individuals who, duly disposed, submit to sacramental absolution of sins and censures and, in agreement with the confessor, add an alms to be passed to the local Ordinary, though not as a compensatory composition as had been envisaged in previous practice. Holders of sacred buildings are expressly excepted from condonation. The condonation is granted for the internal forum, but may also have effect for the external forum by means of a document that confessors are authorized to issue.