DISMISSAL. – A word used in various senses in ecclesiastical legal terminology.
The principal meanings currently in use are the following:
a) in matters concerning ecclesiastical offices, it refers to the act by which the holder of an office renounces it (cf. CIC, cann. 1484–85); such a dismissal is also called a renunciation (can. 2148, etc.);
b) it is also used to speak of dismissal in every case of expulsion from a community of one of its members: in this sense the CIC speaks of dismissal from a seminary (can. 1363 § 3; 1371), from a religious order (cann. 571, 575 § 1, 646–72, 1363 § 3), from an association of persons living in common without vows (can. 681), from a pious association (can. 696).
Some writers also call dismissal the deprivation (v.) or removal from an ecclesiastical office, especially if it is an amovible office (v. AMOVIBILITY).
It is also customary to call dismissal the illegitimate abandonment of the ecclesiastical or religious habit by a cleric or religious.