DEGRADATION. – Etymologically, the privation of rank or relegation to a lower rank, in canon law it is the most severe of vindictive penalties applicable only to clerics, inasmuch as it entails the deposition of the guilty party, perpetual prohibition from wearing ecclesiastical garb (v.), and reduction to the lay state: the effects of degradation are therefore simultaneously those of these three penalties (cf. CIC, can. 2305 § 1).
Under current law, only clerics guilty of one of the following crimes may be punished with degradation: a) affiliation with a non-Catholic sect and persistence therein despite warnings (can. 2314 § 1, n. 3); b) personal violence against the Supreme Pontiff (can. 2343 § 1 n. 3); c) homicide (can. 2354 § 2); d) solicitation in the gravest cases (can. 2368 § 1); e) marriage, if the cleric is a major cleric (can. 2368 § 1); and also all those who, after having already been deposed and deprived of ecclesiastical garb, continue to give grave scandal for at least one year (can. 2305 § 2).
Degradation may be imposed only after a judicial process, by a sentence pronounced by a tribunal of five judges (can. 1576 § 1 n. 2). In the *Pontificale Romanum* (part 3) a solemn ceremony is envisaged for the degradation of a cleric; he is stripped of his sacred vestments, his tonsure is shaved off, and the instruments entrusted to him at ordination are taken from his hands; degradation followed by such a ceremony is called *degradatio realis*, whereas that applied merely by the pronouncement of the sentence is called *degradatio verbalis* (can. 2305 § 5).
When a crime is punishable by degradation under the law, judicial reproof (v. can. 1948 § 1) cannot be applied, nor may a conditional suspension of the penalty of degradation be ordered (can. 2288).
Until the 12th century, it was not distinguished from the penalty of deposition (v.); but under Innocent III and Boniface VIII (cf. in the *Corpus Iuris Canonici*: c. 7, X, V, 20; c. 27, X, V, 40; c. 2, V, 9 in *Sext.*) the distinction was clearly established, and remained so in subsequent centuries. The CIC reduced the number of crimes punishable by degradation and fully equated the effects of verbal and real degradation (a distinction introduced by Boniface VIII).
DE GREGORIO, *Emanuele* – Cardinal, b. in Naples on 18 Dec. 1758, d. in Rome on 7 Nov. 1839. At the time of the Roman Republic of 1798, he was, to his great horror, designated by the French general Dallemaigne and the republican government as an antipope to oppose Pius VI, who was imprisoned in Siena. Having escaped this predicament, he took refuge with the Pope to protest his unconditional devotion. During the imprisonment of Pius VII in Savona, he exercised the functions of apostolic delegate in Rome for a time, until he was ordered to go to Paris, where on 2 Jan. 1811 he was arrested and detained until the fall of Napoleon. Upon his release, he remained in France to recover the Vatican treasures looted by the French. Pius VII created him cardinal on 8 March 1816, and in that capacity he served on numerous Congregations.
DE GROOT, *Johann Vincent* – Dominican apologist, b. in Schiedam (Holland) on 4 July 1848, d. in Amsterdam on 26 Feb. 1922. For more than 25 years he held the newly founded chair of Thomistic philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. He also distinguished himself as a lecturer and spiritual director. He wrote extensively; his *Summa apologetica de Ecclesia catholica ad mentem s. Thomae Aq.* (Regensburg 1890) is particularly well known.
DE GUIBERT, *Joseph* – Jesuit, writer on ascetics, b. in Montaigu (Haute-Garonne) on 14 Sept. 1877; d. in Rome on 23 March 1942. For several years professor of dogmatic theology, in 1922 he was called to Rome to the Gregorian University for the chair of spiritual theology, where his considerable erudition was matched by a great sense of rectitude and discretion.
In 1920 he founded in Toulouse the *Revue d’ascétique et de mystique*; he was also among the founders of the *Dictionnaire de Spiritualité* (Paris 1937 ff.). He contributed numerous highly regarded articles to both. His principal works are: *Etudes de théologie mystique* (Toulouse 1930); *Documenta ecclesiastica Christianae perfectionis studium spectantia* (Rome 1931); *Theologia spiritualis ascetica et mystica* (Rome 1937); *Leçons de théologie spirituelle* (Toulouse 1940). A fruit of his teaching in dogmatic theology remains *De Christi Ecclesia* (Rome 1928).