DEGRADATION. – Etymologically, deprivation of rank or relegation to a lower rank, in canon law it is the most severe of the vindicatory penalties applicable only to clerics, since it entails the deposition of the guilty party, the perpetual prohibition against wearing ecclesiastical dress (v.), and reduction to the lay state: the effects of d. are therefore simultaneously those of these three penalties (cf. CIC, can. 2305 § 1).
Under the law in force, only clerics guilty of one of the following offenses may be punished with d.: a) enrollment in a non-Catholic sect and persistence therein despite admonition (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 more serious cases (can. 2368 § 1); e) marriage, if the cleric is a major cleric (can. 2368 § 1); and, furthermore, all those who, after already having been deposed and deprived of ecclesiastical dress, continue to give grave scandal for at least one year (can. 2305 § 2).
D. may be inflicted only following a judicial process, by means of a sentence pronounced by a tribunal of five judges (can. 1576 § 1 n. 2). In the Pontificale Romanum (part 3°) a solemn ceremony is prescribed for the d. of a cleric; he is stripped of his sacred vestments, his tonsure is shaved, and the instrumenta handed to him at ordination are taken from him; d. followed by this ceremony is called real d., whereas that applied solely by the pronouncement of the sentence is called verbal d. (can. 2305 § 5).
When the penalty of d. is prescribed by law for an offense, judicial reprimand (v. can. 1948 § 1) is not applicable; nor may the conditional suspension of the penalty of d. be ordered (can. 2288).
Until the 12th century it was not 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 thereafter remained in the following centuries. The CIC has
reduced the number of offenses punishable with d., and has entirely equalized the effects of verbal d. and real d. (a distinction introduced by Boniface VIII).