Insordescence

INSORDESCENCE. - In ecclesiastical legal language, it is the fully willed and pertinacious persistence in excommunication for one year, without any manifestation capable of signifying the good will to be absolved.

Already from the first Christian centuries, those who had obstinately 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 forever, from appearing to defend themselves. In the Middle Ages, those who had remained in excommunication for a year were considered suspect of heresy.

Canon 2340 § 1 of the CIC draws its immediate origin from a provision of the Council of Trent (sess. XXV, de ref., chap. III), according to which those who had persevered for a year in censures were to be held suspect of heresy. The CIC mitigates the Tridentine discipline, limiting the concept of i. to the sole case of excommunication.

On the one hand, the effect of i., which will be examined shortly, has the purpose of turning the delinquent away from evil and bringing him back to gentler counsel (a purpose that may be called one of private interest: the personal sanctification of the excommunicated person); on the other, that of energetically protecting the penalty of excommunication, attaching to it a most grave effect against anyone who pretends or believes he can disregard it (a purpose of public interest: defense of public authority).

The excommunication of which canon 2340 speaks is not necessarily that of the so-called vitandi excommunicated; it is to be believed necessary, however, in order that the expiration of the year of i. may be juridically determined, that there has previously been a declaratory or condemnatory sentence, or that the said excommunication has at a certain moment (easily recognizable thereafter) become notorious with notoriety of fact; this is necessary also because for the effect of i. it is required that the person know with certainty that he is excommunicated. It is further to be held that one cannot be accused of i. who during the year of excommunication has shown objective elements of good will, having recourse, for example, legitimately to the competent authorities, or declaring himself disposed to regularize his status, or making serious approaches, even if in fact nothing was concluded (provided the negotiations have not been completely and authoritatively broken off); in other words, he is accusable of i. who has done nothing at all during an entire year of useful time, during which, that is, the excommunicated person had the moral possibility of acting with regard to absolution from excommunication.

Setting aside the debated question whether i. constitutes or does not constitute a true crime in the juridical sense, one must not overlook that the effect it produces is equivalent, at least in practice, to a true and most grave penalty. It is in fact stated in canon 2340 § 1 that whoever remains for a year in excommunication is suspect of heresy; and although even this suspicion does not seem able to be considered a penalty in the strict sense, nonetheless, according to canon 2315, it is a cause of one. For in this canon it is established that a person suspect of heresy, if, duly forewarned, he does not remove the cause of the suspicion (in the case here examined, i., that is, persistence for a year in excommunication), is to be suspended a divinis, if he is a cleric; and, if he is not a cleric, he loses the right to the so-called legitimate acts; moreover, which is manifestly more grave, whoever, after six months from having incurred these penalties, has not amended himself, will be held and treated as a heretic and subject to the relative penalties. 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 it (inasmuch as the new element of i. in it is required), but also because such suspicion can very well be eliminated by proving precisely the absence of i., the excommunication nonetheless remaining.

Lorenzo Simeone