Interdict

INTERDICT. - It is the canonical penalty that deprives the faithful of the sacred rites and renders them incapable of the use of certain spiritual rights, without however excluding them from communion with the Church. The interdict has a predominantly medicinal character as a penalty and in the CIC it is listed among the censures (can. 2268), but it can also be a vindictive penalty (v. CENSURA, III, penal medicinal penalty): in doubt it is presumed to be a medicinal penalty (cann. 2255 § 2, 2291, nn. 1-2). It differs from excommunication and from suspension, in that it can strike not only physical persons but also collectivities and moral bodies as such.

The interdict is distinguished into personal and local, according to whether it refers directly to persons or corporations, or to places or territories. The personal interdict partakes of the nature and effects of excommunication, has the character of a personal law and follows the person everywhere; the local interdict, on the other hand, has only territorial effect and within the limits of the territory strikes all those present, including foreigners and the exempt (can. 2269 § 2).

The local interdict is in turn subdivided into general and particular, according to whether it strikes an entire territorial circumscription (parish, diocese, nation) or only a determined place (church, oratory, altar, chapel, cemetery, etc.). The personal interdict is likewise distinguished into general and special, according to whether it is imposed against a collectivity of persons (canonical chapter, religious Order, pious association, etc.), or against a single person.

The imposition of the general local interdict against dioceses, ecclesiastical provinces, nations, and other circumscriptions that exceed the territory of the diocese, as well as of the general personal interdict against moral bodies and collectivities that fall outside the ordinary diocesan authority (monastic provinces, religious communities of pontifical right) is reserved exclusively to the Holy See. For the lesser circumscriptions existing within the boundaries of the diocese (parishes), as well as for non-exempt diocesan collectivities (chapters, religious communities of diocesan right), the bishop is also competent (can. 2269 § 1).

The local interdict, whether general or particular, forbids, in principle, every divine office and every sacred rite, including the administration and use of the Sacraments (can. 2270 § 1). The principle, however, is subject to various exceptions and mitigations; thus the local interdict, whether general or particular, does not forbid the administration of the Sacraments and Sacramentals to the dying (the Viaticum, however, may be administered only in private form) and suspends its effects on the major solemnities of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and the Assumption, with the exception of the conferral of sacred Orders and of the solemn nuptial blessing. Thus, the general local interdict permits clerics to celebrate the divine offices behind closed doors, without singing and without the ringing of bells, and, in cathedral and parish churches or in the only church of the place, does not forbid the celebration of a single daily Mass, the reception and administration of the sacraments of Baptism, the Eucharist and Matrimony (excluding the nuptial blessing), nor the celebration of the funerals of the dead, the blessing of the baptismal font and of the holy Oils and the preaching of the word of God, provided that all pomp and solemnity, sacred singing and the sound of instruments and bells be excluded (cann. 2270-71).

In the case of a particular local interdict of a church, these last two exceptions, referred to in can. 2271, apply exclusively in favor of capitular and parish churches and only in the event that, for the purposes of worship, other churches or other oratories have not been previously designated in substitution for those interdicted. With regard to the other churches and other places (altars, chapels, etc.) the principle remains that the particular local interdict entails the absolute prohibition of celebrating in them every divine office and every sacred rite. The interdict of a cemetery, however, does not forbid the burial of the dead, but prohibits only that it be carried out with the prescribed ecclesiastical rite (can. 2272).

The general personal interdict, that is, inflicted on a community or a college as such, entails the inhibition from the exercise of every spiritual right and function that belongs to them as moral bodies (for example, from the right of election, of presentation, etc.).

The special personal interdict is always a censure and induces in the one struck by it a situation analogous to that of the excommunicated: it forbids the celebration of the divine offices and assistance at them, excluding assistance at sacred preaching; it prohibits every administration, confection and reception of the Sacraments and Sacramentals; it entails suspension from the exercise of the right of election, presentation and nomination to sacred offices, ineligibility for Orders and incapacity for obtaining dignities, offices, benefices, pensions and charges of any kind, and excludes from ecclesiastical burial. When the special personal interdict is joined with the general personal one, so that the community is struck both in itself and in its individual members, the respective effects of the one and the other are cumulative (cann. 2274, 2275, 2265, 2291, nn. 1, 2).

The interdict ab ingressu ecclesiae is a special, somewhat mitigated figure of the special personal interdict, and entails in the one struck by it exclusion from the church as regards the celebration of the divine offices, assistance at them and the reception of ecclesiastical burial (can. 2277).

All those who were the cause of a local interdict or of the personal interdict of a community incur ipso iure the special personal interdict. Whoever, on the other hand, although forming part of a territory or of a community struck by interdict, was not the cause of it, is admitted to receive the Sacraments, the state of interdict remaining in force (cann. 2338 § 4, 2276).

The first traces of the local interdict go back to the 6th century. Rarely used before the 10th century, it does not acquire a proper figure and a precise denomination before the end of that century. It was much in use in the remaining Middle Ages, which constitute its classical epoch; famous are the general interdicts of Alexander III against Scotland (1180) and of Innocent III against France (1200) and against England (1208).

The personal interdict appears even earlier, in the 4th century, in the form of a mitigated excommunication. A special form, exclusively medieval, of the interdict is the so-called ambulatory or mixed interdict, by virtue of which the places in which an interdicted person was present in any way remained interdicted.

After the Middle Ages the use of the interdict gradually diminished, as likewise its application, once very rigorous, was gradually mitigated, with the introduction of various exceptions, privileges and exemptions. The constitution Apostolicae Sedis (1869) kept in force only five personal interdicts. Also in the current CIC, as penalties to be incurred ipso facto, only personal interdicts are provided: three special personal ones (cann. 2328, 2338 § 4, 2356), three ab ingressu ecclesiae (cann. 2329, 2338 § 3, 2339) and only one general personal one (can. 2332).

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