INSORDESCENCE. – In ecclesiastical legal language, it is the fully deliberate and persistent continuation in excommunication for a year, without any manifestation indicating a willingness to seek absolution.
Already from the earliest Christian centuries, those who stubbornly and for a long time remained in incurred excommunication without seeking absolution were considered as having renounced all their rights before the Church and were excluded, sometimes permanently, from appearing in their own defense. In the Middle Ages, those who remained in excommunication for a year were considered suspect of heresy.
Canon 2340 §1 of the CIC (Codex Iuris Canonici) derives directly from a provision of the Council of Trent (Session XXV, *de ref.*, cap. III), according to which those who persevered for a year in censures were to be considered suspect of heresy. The CIC mitigates the Tridentine discipline, limiting the concept of insordescence to the case of excommunication alone.
On the one hand, the effect of insordescence—which will be examined shortly—aims to deter the offender from evil and bring him to repentance (a purpose that may be termed one of private interest: the personal sanctification of the excommunicated); on the other, it aims to vigorously uphold the penalty of excommunication by attaching to it a most serious consequence against those who pretend or believe they can disregard it (a purpose of public interest: the defense of public authority).
The excommunication referred to in canon 2340 is not necessarily that of the so-called *vitandi* excommunicates; however, for the expiration of the year of insordescence to be legally determined, it is necessary either that there has previously been a declaratory or condemnatory sentence, or that the excommunication has at some point (easily ascertainable later) become notorious *de facto*. This is necessary also because for the effect of insordescence to apply, the person must know with certainty that he is excommunicated. It must further be held that one cannot be accused of insordescence if, during the year of excommunication, the person has shown objective signs of good will—such as legitimately appealing to the competent authorities or expressing willingness to regularize his status or making serious approaches—even if nothing was ultimately concluded (provided that negotiations were not entirely and authoritatively broken off); in other words, one is liable to insordescence only if he has done nothing at all during a full year of opportunity, during which the excommunicated person has had the moral possibility to act regarding absolution from excommunication.
Setting aside the debated question whether insordescence constitutes a true crime in the juridical sense, one must not overlook that its effect is, at least in practice, equivalent to a truly grave penalty. For canon 2340 §1 states that whoever remains in excommunication for a year is suspect of heresy; and although even this suspicion does not seem to be a penalty in the strict sense, it is nonetheless, by virtue of canon 2315, its cause. Indeed, this canon establishes that a person suspected of heresy, if duly warned and does not remove the cause of the suspicion (in the case under consideration, insordescence, i.e., remaining in excommunication for a year), is to be suspended *a divinis* if a cleric, and if not a cleric, loses the right to legitimate acts; moreover—and this is manifestly more serious—if, after six months from being burdened with these penalties, the person has not amended, he will be regarded and treated as a heretic and subject to the penalties pertaining thereto. Nevertheless, one must not think that the suspicion of heresy constitutes a true and proper or intrinsic effect of excommunication, not only because it is not by its nature that it produces this (inasmuch as the new element of insordescence is required in it), but also because such suspicion can easily be removed by proving the absence of insordescence, even while the excommunication itself remains.