INDULTO. — According to its etymological meaning (from indulgere), it designates any concession, permission, or favor. In modern civil law, an indulto is an act by which a penalty is remitted, in whole or in part, and has the same effect as a pardon, but it differs from the latter because the indulto is general and impersonal, whereas a pardon is limited to one or a few specific persons.
In canon law, the term indulto does not have a similarly precise meaning. Some, even among modern canonists, understand it as an exemption from the law, i.e., as a negative privilege that frees one from a preceptive law, while others interpret it more broadly as any favorable concession, contra or praeter ius, provided it is temporary. The Council of Trent, in reference to the law of residence, also speaks of perpetual privileges or indulti against such an obligation (sess. VI, can. 2, de ref.; likewise sess. XXIV, can. 18, de ref.). By the term indulto are generally designated the concessions that the Roman Pontiffs have granted, even without time limits, to kings, bishops, parliaments, universities, etc., in matters of benefices, holy days of obligation, abstinence, and fasting, even in derogation of ecclesiastical laws.
The Code of Canon Law (can. 4) establishes that, like acquired rights, privileges and indulti granted by the Holy See, if not revoked and still in use at the time the Code came into force, remain intact unless expressly revoked. Privileges and indulti granted by an authority inferior to the Apostolic See, if contrary to the Code, are instead abolished (can. 64 § 2), without the need for an express clause. Given the distinction sometimes made by the Code (cf. can. 964, n. 4) between privilege and indulto, some canonists maintain that the revocation of a privilege does not entail the revocation of an indulto.
In addition to the Code, indulti granted by the Holy See may, however, be revoked by the Apostolic See itself. Thus, with the decree Provida sacra of 25 April 1918 (AAS, [1918], p. 190), the Sacred Consistorial Congregation revoked indulti in conflict with the Code that were contained in faculties granted ad tempus to Ordinaries, with the exception of those granted by the Sacred Penitentiary for the internal forum, or obtained on the occasion of war or for special reasons.
For the interpretation, duration, and cessation of indulti, the norms established for rescripts, privileged persons, and dispensations apply. Special norms for indulti are found in cann. 1049 and 1057: can. 1049 states that whoever holds a general indulto that permits dispensing from a specific impediment may, unless otherwise specified in the indulto, also dispense from the same impediment even if it is multiple; and whoever holds a general indulto that allows dispensing from various impediments of different kinds, whether diriment or impedient, may dispense from the same impediments even if they are united 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 papal indulto. The omission of such mention, however, does not invalidate the dispensation (can. 11).