INFAMY. - It may indicate: bad reputation, vituperation, notoriety of shame, wickedness. (V. FAMA). Here we intend to speak of a particular legal institution that was proper to Roman law and that, modified, is found again in canon law.
In Roman law it indicates a diminution of honor, which causes in the one struck by it certain incapacities, which, established first in the praetorian edict (prohibition from representing others in court, postulare pro aliis, and from having oneself represented, dare cognitorem), had ample development in the imperial period, up to the definitive Justinianic systematization.
The most ancient precedents had occurred in the censorial nota and in the consular nota (the latter of which occurred when the consuls rejected a citizen's candidacy for a magistracy).
In imperial legislation the i. could cease through the indulgence of the Senate or of the emperor and through revocation of the condemnation from which it had derived.
From the i. must be distinguished simple turpitudo (or i. facti of the interpreters), which can result from an inquiry carried out case by case into the honorability of a person.
Canon law likewise distinguishes an i. iuris and an i. facti. According to the CIC the i. iuris is a vindictive penalty (can. 2216), a common one (can. 2291, 4°), which occurs only as a consequence of facts exhaustively expressed in the law (can. 2299 § 2) and can be a penalty latae sententiae (cann. 2320; 2328; 2343 § 1, 2°, § 2, 2°; 2351 § 2; 2356 § 1) or ferendae sententiae (cann. 2314 § 1, 2°; 2359 § 2). The penal consequences are very grave: irregularity ex defectu (can. 984, 5°); inability for benefices, pensions, offices and dignities; inability for legitimate acts; for exercising an ecclesiastical right or office; exclusion from every sacred ministry (can. 2294 § 1). Particular consequences occur in procedural law. The i. iuris is by its nature perpetual and can cease only through dispensation on the part of the Apostolic See. The i. facti is contracted by the faithful who through his bad conduct («ob patratum delictum vel ob pravos mores») has lost his reputation among the community of the good faithful; the concrete evaluation of this situation is left to the discretionary power of the Ordinary (can. 2293 § 2). The juridical consequences are likewise very grave: impediment to receiving orders (can. 987, 7°); exclusion from benefices, offices, dignities, from sacred ministries, from legitimate acts.
Since the i. facti is, more than a penalty, a concrete situation, its cessation occurs with the resolution of the situation itself that gave rise to it, especially as a consequence of the amendment of the person concerned, whose discretionary judgment is left to the Ordinary (can. 2295).
Bibliography4 works
Luigi Oldani