PERSONAL INJURY. — In Italian criminal law, personal injury (*lesione personale*) occurs when, without intent to kill, harm is caused to another in body, health, or mental state. If intent to kill is present, the act constitutes attempted murder.
According to the *Codex Iuris Canonici* (CIC) and moral theologians, personal injury is not treated as a distinct sin or offense in itself. Instead, it falls under the broader category of offenses against another person (*in bona corporis*). This is because the CIC, which primarily addresses specific ecclesiastical crimes, generally defers to the laws of individual states—at least regarding the application of penalties—for offenses also recognized by civil penal codes (cf. cann. 2198; 2223 § 3, n. 2). Moral theologians, for their part, focus more on the moral than the juridical aspect, confining their treatment to the common elements shared by all injustices, of which personal injury is one. However, moral theologians do provide some particular considerations when discussing mutilation, attempted murder, and similar acts, while the CIC offers scattered references in Book V, for example at cann. 2333; 2337 § 2; 2341; 2343 § 1–4; 2350 § 1; 2351 § 1; 2353; 2354 § 1–2. In neither case, however, is there a technical treatment of personal injury as such, unlike the Italian Penal Code, which in Book II, Title XII, addresses crimes against the person. Even the Penal Code does not provide an explicit definition, though one can be inferred from the entire title and especially from Article 582, paragraph 1, which states: “Whoever causes another a personal injury resulting in illness of the body or mind shall be subject to the penalties specified therein and in Article 583.” Two reservations must be noted regarding this norm: first, personal injury cannot be legally recognized unless the act producing it terminates in a subject other than the agent (thus, attempted suicide, self-mutilation, self-poisoning, etc., do not constitute personal injury); second, whenever bodily or mental illness results from any of the actions listed in Title XII as distinct from personal injury (battery, brawling, abandonment of minors or incapacitated persons or infants, failure to render aid, reduction to slavery, kidnapping, illegal arrest, unlawful deprivation of personal liberty, arbitrary searches and inspections, private violence, threats, or producing a state of necessity through violence), such actions constitute personal injury in addition to their specific offense. In this sense, see Articles 549, 550, 554, 558, and 559. It is essential, moreover, that the action producing the illness—whether physical or mental—stand in a causal relationship to the harm. It is clear that every personal injury as described is, morally speaking, a violation of commutative justice and is normally grave.
Regarding moral responsibility for actions that injure another—whether done knowingly or through negligence—and the circumstances that may aggravate or mitigate such responsibility (cf. also Articles 582–83, 586–88, 590), it must be recalled that for conscience, the subjective element is of greater importance than what appears in the external forum.
The CIC also treats as personal injury the violation of a cleric’s or religious’s canonical privilege—that is, an attack on life, dignity, or freedom (can. 2343; cf. also PRIVILEGI DEI CHIERICI)—and punishes it with various penalties. In this context, it groups together personal injury with abortion, self-inflicted injury with suicidal intent, personal injury in dueling, violent abduction, and so forth. The penalty is proportionate to the degree of culpability, including in cases of unintended or negligent injury.