INDULT. - According to its etymological meaning (from indulgere) it designates any concession, permission or favor. In modern civil law the i. is an act by which a penalty is remitted, in whole or in part, and it has the same effect as a pardon, but is distinguished from the latter because the i. is general and impersonal, whereas a pardon is limited to one or to certain determined persons. In canon law the term i. does not have an equally definite sense. Some, even among the most recent, understand it as an exemption from the law, that is, as a negative privilege that frees one from a preceptive law; others, more broadly, in the sense of any favorable concession, contra or praeter ius, provided it is temporary. The Council of Trent, however, with regard to the law of residence, also speaks of perpetual privileges or i. against that obligation, which it abolishes (sess. VI, can. 2, de ref.; in the same sense also sess. XXIV, can. 18, de ref.). By the name of i. are generally designated the concessions that the Roman Pontiffs have made, even without limits of time, to kings, bishops, parliaments, universities, etc., in matters of benefices, holy days of obligation, fasting and abstinence, even in derogation of ecclesiastical laws.
The CIC (can. 4) establishes that, like acquired rights, the privileges and i. granted by the Holy See, not revoked and still in use at the time when the CIC came into force, remain intact, unless they are expressly revoked. The privileges and i. granted by a power inferior to the Apostolic See, if they are contrary to the CIC, are instead abolished (can. 64 § 2), without need of an express clause. In view of the distinction that the CIC sometimes makes (cf. can. 964, n. 4) between privilege and i., some canonists maintain that the revocation of the privilege does not entail the revocation of the i.
Besides by the CIC, the i. granted by the Holy See can however be revoked by the Apostolic See itself. Thus, with the decree Proxima sacra of 25 Apr. 1918 (AAS, [1918], p. 190), the Sacred Consistorial Congregation revoked the i. in conflict with the CIC that were contained in the faculties granted ad tempus to Ordinaries, with the exception of those given by the Sacred Penitentiary for the internal forum, or obtained on the occasion of the war or for special reasons.
For the interpretation, duration and cessation of i., the norms established for rescripts, privileges and dispensations apply. Particular norms for i. are found in cann. 1049 and 1057: in can. 1049 it is said that he who is in possession of a general i. that permits him to dispense from a determined impediment can, unless the i. provides otherwise, dispense from the same impediment even if it is multiple; whoever is in possession of a general i. that allows him to dispense from several impediments of a different kind, both diriment and impedient, can dispense from the same impediments even if they are combined in the same case and are public. Can. 1057 adds that when a dispensation from an impediment is granted by virtue of a power delegated by the Holy See, mention must be made of the pontifical i. The omission of such mention does not, however, invalidate the dispensation (can. 11).