CENSORSHIP. - The word censorship, from censor, the Roman magistrate charged with keeping the censuses of citizens up to date, and later also with overseeing morals, correcting and punishing, in its many meanings always implies a judgment of blame and repression with respect to some error or disorder. Today three kinds of censorship are clearly distinguished: preventive censorship of books, doctrinal or theological censorship, and medicinal penal censorship.
I. PREVENTIVE CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS
1. Concept
Among its duties, the Catholic Church has that of preserving the Catholic faith from the contamination of error and of safeguarding the holiness of morals from corruption. And since bad printing can cause very grave harm to faith and morals, the ecclesiastical authority must exercise a control over the press, from the religious and moral point of view. And this control is exercised in two ways: the one preventive, the other repressive. By preventive censorship the competent ecclesiastical authority seeks to prevent publications that are spiritually and morally dangerous; by the condemnation and prohibition of bad books already published it seeks to remove from the hands of the faithful that pernicious press whose publication it was unable to prevent by preventive censorship. Therefore the CIC divides this matter into two parts: de praevia librorum censura and de prohibitione librorum (cann. 1384-1405). Following this division, only preventive censorship will be treated here (v. INDICE DEI LIBRI PROIBITI, as regards repressive censorship).
Ecclesiastical preventive censorship, or censorship in the strict sense, is the judgment of the competent ecclesiastical authority declaring that a given publication may, or may not, be made without danger to faith or good morals. This judgment, even when favorable, does not imply a positive approval of the doctrine contained in a book, but affirms only that that book, at least in the present circumstances, is harmless; hence it may happen that a book permitted in one place or at a given time is later prohibited elsewhere or at other times, and vice versa. From censorship must be distinguished the faculty or permission to publish, which generally follows censorship, but can be separated from it and concerns directly, not the book, but the person of its author or publisher, and is necessary even in cases in which censorship is not required.
2. Historical outline
Ecclesiastical legislation on preventive censorship begins with the invention of printing (for manuscripts repressive censorship sufficed), first with measures limited to certain dioceses or territories, then with general provisions for the whole Catholic world. Alexander VI, having learned that especially in the dioceses of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, and Magdeburg many books contrary to Catholic doctrine were being published, prohibited, by the constitution Inter multiplices (June 1, 1501), all the printers of those regions from printing books, treatises, writings on any subject without the special and explicit permission of the local Ordinaries, under penalty of excommunication latae sententiae and of a fine. A few years later, Leo X at the Fifth Lateran Council, by the constitution Inter sollicitudines (May 4, 1515), issued the first general law of preventive censorship, prescribing that no one should dare to print books or writings of any kind unless first examined and approved, for Rome, by the vicar general of His Holiness and by the master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, and for the other dioceses by the respective bishops. The sanctions were: excommunication latae sententiae, a fine of 100 ducats, the suspension for one year of the printing business, and the seizure of the printed work, which was to be publicly burned. The prescriptions of Leo X were confirmed, with the same penalties, by the rules of the Index of the Council of Trent (rule X) promulgated by Pius IV with the constitution Dominici gregis (March 24, 1564). To the aforementioned rule X of the Council of Trent were then added: the Instructio of Clement VIII, prefixed to the edition of his Index of prohibited books (1596), and the Observaciones of Alexander VII, promulgated with his Index (1663). Wise directive norms for ecclesiastical censors were issued by Benedict XIV with the constitution Sollicita ac provida (July 9, 1753). Pius IX, considering that with the multiplication of printed works it was no longer possible for ecclesiastical censors to follow and examine everything that was being published, and taking into account the changed conditions of the times with regard to ecclesiastical discipline, brought many mitigations to the aforementioned rule X of the Council of Trent: by an encyclical of June 2, 1848 to the episcopate of the Papal States he restricted, for the subjects of those States, the obligation of preventive censorship to books and periodicals of religious and moral subject matter; and by the constitution Apostolicae Sedis (Oct. 12, 1869) he mitigated for the whole Church the spiritual penalties against transgressors of the law. The temporal penalties remained practically abrogated with the disappearance of the support of the secular arm. Leo XIII with the constitution Officiorum ac munerum (Jan. 25, 1897) entirely reformed for the whole Church the previous legislation on preventive and repressive censorship, keeping in force only the aforementioned constitution Sollicita ac provida of Benedict XIV. And the constitution of Leo XIII was substantially reproduced by the new CIC.
3. Object of preventive censorship
According to the Code currently in force (cann. 1385, 1387-92) the following publications are subject to ecclesiastical preventive censorship: 1. the books of Sacred Scripture or the notes and commentaries on them; 2. a) the books that treat of Sacred Scripture, of sacred theology, of ecclesiastical history, of canon law, of natural theology, of ethics and of other similar religious and moral disciplines; b) the books and pamphlets of prayers, of devotion or of religious, moral, ascetic, mystical doctrine and teaching and other similar ones, even if they appear directed to fostering piety; c) in general the writings containing anything that particularly concerns religion and the honesty of morals; 3. sacred images, however they are to be printed, whether they have prayers added, or are printed without them; 4. everything that in any way belongs to the processes of beatification and canonization of the servants of God, when these processes are pending before the Sacred Congregation of Rites; 5. all books, summaries, pamphlets, leaflets etc. of indulgences, containing the grants of the same; 6. the collections of the decrees of the Roman Sacred Congregations; 7. the liturgical books and their parts and the litanies approved by the Holy See; 8. the translations and new editions of a work already approved. However, extracts from periodicals, published separately, are not considered new editions and therefore do not need a new approval.
Before the new CIC, some canonists excluded reviews and newspapers from preventive censorship, because the law seemed to them limited to books alone. But now can. 1384 § 2 explicitly provides that what is prescribed for books is to be extended also to newspapers, periodicals and any other publication, when it does not appear otherwise from the very nature of the matter or from the context of the law. Naturally the daily and periodical press is subject to preventive censorship only when it has as its principal object religious and moral matters, theoretical or practical, or if it contains something that particularly concerns religion and the honesty of morals, either in itself or by particular contingent circumstances; for example, if it reports new private revelations, if it recounts prodigious facts or heavenly graces received (cf. decr. S. C. Conc. June 7, 1932), if it proposes a new form of worship (cf. decr. S. Uff. May 26, 1937 and Apr. 17, 1942) etc.
The Code does not deal with manuscripts, inasmuch as the reason for the existence of preventive censorship is publication, that is, the diffusion among the public of a book, whereas a manuscript is not usually in fact much circulated. However, the term "scriptis" of can. 1384 § 2 can be applied to manuscript works as to printed works. In any case, considering the purpose of the law, one must deduce that even a manuscript falls under censorship when, in any way reproduced, it is destined for the public, offered for sale to all, because in that case it too becomes published.
What the competent authority for preventive censorship is, in what way it is exercised, and in what way the granting of the licentia edendi is regulated, v. IMPRIMATUR.
4. Gravity of the law and sanctions in force
The law of preventive ecclesiastical censorship binds all the faithful, and therefore also the laity, and extends to the publisher of a publication who, after the author, bears the greatest responsibility for it. It does not, however, concern the printer, who is charged neither with the sale nor with the dissemination of the book. Naturally he too has a moral responsibility in the publication of a bad book, but the positive ecclesiastical law contemplates the edition, that is, the dissemination, not the material printing of the book. The moral obligation to obey this law is in itself grave, and in the past it carried the sanction of very grave penalties, as has already been said. According to the discipline in force, authors and publishers who without the due permission have books of Sacred Scripture or notes or commentaries on it printed incur ipso facto non-reserved excommunication. For the excommunication incurred by publishers of books of apostates, heretics, and schismatics, v. INDICE DEI LIBRI PROIBITI. Whoever violates other prescriptions of preventive ecclesiastical censorship falls under the general provisions against transgressors of the canonical laws, which authorize the diocesan bishop to take the measures required by the case, up to inflicting ecclesiastical penalties (cann. 2221, 2222). Giuseppe Monti
II. DOCTRINAL OR THEOLOGICAL CENSORSHIP
It serves to qualify a doctrine as erroneous, determining its nature and the degree of its opposition to faith and morals. Such opposition can be more or less grave and profound; therefore the judgment can be expressed by the competent authority in various ways, whence the distinction of the various censures, of which only the principal ones are indicated.
A doctrine is censured as "heretical" if it certainly and directly opposes a truth revealed and as such defined by the Church and proposed to the faith of her children; it is censured as "proximate to heresy" if it opposes a truth unanimously held in the Church as revealed, but not yet defined as such; it is censured as "erroneous in faith" if it opposes a theological conclusion, that is, a truth known by inference from two premises, of which one contains a revealed truth and the other a truth known naturally by human reason. "Erroneous in faith" is also said of a doctrine that opposes a truth commonly admitted by the Church, but not defined, nor proximately definable as a truth of faith.
Sometimes the censure does not concern the substance of the doctrine, but rather the unfortunate form of the propositions that express it, insofar as they can be interpreted in a sense more or less contrary to faith and morals. In that case the propositions are qualified as "equivocal, ambiguous, captious, suspect, offensive to pious ears," etc.
At other times, instead, the propositions are subject to censure because of the harmful effects that their publicity could produce among the faithful. Such propositions are qualified as "scandalous," "schismatic," "seditious," according to whether they can induce to sin, oppose the unity of the Church by tending to turn the faithful themselves away from the legitimate authority, or are such as to provoke disorders and seditions among the people. Theological censures can be inflicted on each individual proposition or in globo, when several censures are inflicted on several propositions together, without specifying to which of these they refer. In that case each of the censures issued applies to some one of the propositions imputed, and each of these falls under some one of those.
Furthermore, propositions can be censured absolutely or in the sense intended by their author, understanding by sense intended by the author not that which he might have in his mind, but that which appears objectively from the obvious and literal meaning of the propositions confirmed by the context.
The authority competent to issue censures is the Church, by virtue of the mission received from Christ to guard and defend the revealed truths, that is, the pope and with him the ecumenical councils, as well as, in a derived manner, particular councils, bishops and in general all those who have jurisdiction in the external forum and within the limits of their jurisdiction. The censures issued by them are called "judicial" or "authentic." The Church is infallible when, with the fullness of her authority, she issues the censure of heresy upon a doctrine; and, according to the most reliable theologians and canonists, also when she issues the censure of erroneousness. In other cases it is held that she intends to perform an act of her authentic magisterium for the defense of the truth. Private theologians too can judge the orthodoxy or otherwise of a doctrine: the censures issued at one time by the theological faculties of the Universities of Louvain, Paris and Cologne against the errors of Luther and other innovators are well known. These, however, have a value corresponding to the competence of their authors, and to distinguish them from those issued by the infallible or authentic magisterium of the Church they are called "doctrinal" or "scientific." Innocent XI, in 1679, limited this power, establishing that no one should censure propositions or doctrines freely discussed among theologians.
Bibliography4 works
1904, p. 338 ff.; Chr. Pesch, Praelectiones dogmaticae, I, ibid. 1924, p. 392 ff.; H. Dieckmann, De Ecclesia, II, ibid. 1925, p. 201 ff.; H. Quilliet, s. v. in DThC, II, col. 2101 ff.
Egidio Caggiano
III. MEDICINAL PENAL CENSORSHIP
In the penal system of the Church, censures, or medicinal penalties, occupy a place of particular importance because they present certain entirely special characteristics of ecclesiastical penalty, and because, in comparison with vindictive penalties (v.), they are of far more frequent application.
1. History
The notion of medicinal penalty, although adumbrated in the Gospels (Mt. 18:17) and in St. Paul (I Cor. 5:2; II Cor. 2:7-8; 5:6; II Thess. 2:14), did not establish itself in the practice of the first centuries of Christianity. Conscious of its original coercive power, the Church indeed from the beginning (the apostle Paul himself delivered to Satan the incestuous man of Corinth [I Cor. 5:2]: cf. St. Ambrose, De poenit., I, ch. 13) made use of the right to punish disturbers of the social order (especially for crimes relating to the faith and to ecclesiastical persons), not inflicting vindictive penalties alone.
In the 4th century there are already hints of certain penalties imposed first of all on clerics and then also on laymen usque ad emendationem, and it is such an element that comes to constitute the true medicinal penalty, although at that time there still reigned much uncertainty in distinguishing whether a penalty was medicinal or vindictive. One must reach the 15th century to find the complete formulation of the doctrine on the nature of the two qualities of penalty.
The first general censure for the whole Church was imposed with can. 24, Third Lateran Council (a.d. 1179), which many others followed. From the 14th century a list began to be formed of general excommunications reserved to the Roman Pontiff, which, every year, on Holy Thursday, was solemnly promulgated with the bull In coena Domini and was then to be published in all cathedral churches; but for reasons of political order this did not everywhere take place, and in Rome itself from a.d. 1779 such publication was omitted.
With the passage of time many censures fell into disuse, and many were doubted as to their existence and value, until Pius IX, with the constitution Apostolicae Sedis (v.) of 12 Oct. 1869, determined the censures in force, and that arrangement remained in application until the Code. The Code in force, ordering the whole penal law of the Church in Book V, in accordance with can. 6 n. 5 abrogates every different provision and admits no other source of penal law except in accordance with Book V.
2. Object and subject
The CIC in can. 2241 § 1 gives the essential notions of censure, indicating together its passive subject: Censura est poena qua homo baptizatus, delinquens et contumax, quibusdam bonis spiritualibus vel spiritualibus adnexis privatur, donec a contumacia recedens, absolvatur. Censure is therefore first of all a penalty (v.), and consequently in censure there must be verified that concept of penalty laid down by the legislator (privatio alicuius boni ad delinquentis correctionem et delicti punitionem: can. 2215), according to which the penalty does not consist in inflicting a positive evil, but in depriving of a good possessed by the subject, for the twofold end of re-establishing the juridical order violated by the crime and of emending the delinquent.
Doctrine is not agreed in determining which of the two elements of the definition (restorative and emendative) is prevalent and essential; nevertheless it must be observed that for every penalty, and therefore also for medicinal penalties, the rule nulla poena sine delicto holds, and since the formal reason for which the legislator determines to constitute specific forms of violation of law as a crime is not the evil that the delinquent does to himself by committing the crime, but rather the harm that comes from it to society, so the intrinsic foundation of every penalty cannot be other than the re-establishment of the juridical order injured by the violation of the law. Although therefore censure answers to peculiar emendative ends, nevertheless, since it is a penalty, the aforesaid intrinsic foundation of penalty cannot be lacking for it.
The object of the deprivation inflicted on the delinquent, according to the cited canon, is bonum spirituale vel spiritualibus adnexum. It is obvious that by spiritual good here nothing else can be understood than a good dependent on the administration of the Church, and which the faithful enjoys as a member of the Church, for example, the administration and reception of the Sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass, ecclesiastical offices, benefices and their income, the officia divina (can. 2256 § 1), ecclesiastical burial (can. 1203 ff.), the exercise of sacred Orders, etc.; it cannot instead be understood as an intrinsic spiritual good, that is, one inherent in the soul and not dependent on the will of the Church, such as, for example, the sacramental character, the power of Order, sanctifying Grace, the infused virtues, the goods that come from individual faithful (such as private prayers), inasmuch as, by the very fact that such goods are not directly subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and concern direct relations between the soul and God, it is not in the Church's power to deprive subjects of them; whereas censures may be inflicted that have as their object goods annexed to spiritual things.
As regards the active subject of medicinal penalties, v. PENA: here it will be sufficient to observe that, besides the supreme legislator who establishes the universal law in force everywhere (but can also issue particular laws for determined territories) and besides particular legislators (whether singular or collegial: can. 2221), there are also certain ecclesiastical authorities furnished with power of the external forum by virtue of which, given the most special character of the canonical penal system (especially of censures), in order to move subjects away from violation of the law or to induce them to desist from crime, they can impose specific precepts with an annexed sanction (can. 2220 § 1), the violation of which entails the imposition of the penalty either by sentence (ferendae sententiae) or ipso facto (latae sententiae); this notion will need to be kept in mind when later the legal element of the crime must be presupposed (which can be the law or a precept with canonical sanction) and particularly when the question relating to reserved and non-reserved penalties must be taken into consideration, as well as the canonical admonition necessary for the imposition of censures.
As for the passive subject of censure, just as every act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction can be exercised only over the subjects of the Church, so censure can strike only the baptized. With Baptism indeed, while man becomes a person in the Church (can. 87), he acquires the fundamental capacity for those spiritual goods (which he must possess at the moment of the censure) the deprivation of which is realized by the censure. Nor do apostates, heretics, and schismatics cease to be subjects of the Church; indeed their defection is contemplated by canon law as a crime struck by the gravest penalties.
An ecclesiastical penalty, censure is nevertheless a penalty sui generis, that is, it is a medicinal penalty, by which one is wont particularly to emphasize its peculiar extrinsic end, namely the correction of the delinquent. For this reason the cited canon adds donec a contumacia recedens absolvatur; expressly indicating that the presupposition for the subject to be able to be struck by censure is contumacy, on receding from which he has the right to be absolved. Precisely because of the emendative end and because of the necessity of contumacy, censure cannot be applied to a crime that is already completely exhausted even in its effects, since for punishability it is instead necessary that the crime have a successive trait (that is, a permanent crime: v. DELITTO), or that the effects to be repaired perdure at the moment when the censure is inflicted; nor can it be inflicted for an indeterminate time or for the life of the delinquent, since this would render desistance from contumacy irrelevant; whereas the censure latae sententiae which can be inflicted on the unknown delinquent, that is, one not known, cannot instead be inflicted on the uncertain delinquent.
From these notions it emerges clearly that the essential elements for incurring a medicinal penalty are two: 1) the offense; 2) contumacy.
Censorship, like every other penalty, presupposes the offense: indeed, being a most grave penalty (particularly if one incurs the form of a latae sententiae penalty), it demands a particularly grave imputability and the consummation of the offense (cann. 2242 § 1, 2229 § 2, 2228); the Code further admonishes that it be applied with moderation and circumspection (can. 2241 § 2). This norm was already laid down by the Council of Trent in order to remove the abuse that had been introduced through the very frequent inflation of excommunication; for since censorship consists in the privation of spiritual goods, it constitutes a powerful means of inducing the censured person to repentance, but when abused it can only bring about social disintegration and therefore the ruin of souls si temere, aut levibus ex rebus incutatur magis contemni, quam formidari et perniciem potius parere quam salutem (sess. XXIII, cap. 3, de Ref.).
It is further necessary that the offense have been committed with specific contumacy, which, from the verb contemnere, consists in the contemptus censurae, that is, in the criminal will that refuses to withdraw from the offense and to submit to the reparation of the effects produced by it.
A fundamental principle of criminal law is that no penalty may be inflicted when the offense committed is not established with certainty (can. 2233 § 1); but when it is a question of censorship, this presupposition is not sufficient, since the law peremptorily prescribes reus reprehendatur ac moneatur ut a contumacia recedat... dato, si prudenti eiusdem iudicis vel superioris arbitrio casus id ferat, congruo ad resipiscentiam tempore (can. 2233 § 2). This form of admonition is essentially prescribed when it is a question of inflicting ferendae sententiae censorship; but to incur latae sententiae censorship such an express admonition is not required, and the transgression of the law or precept attaching a latae sententiae penalty is sufficient. In other words: since censorship is a medicinal penalty given ad frangendam contumaciam, this contumacy must be established after the admonition, which may occur in two distinct forms: admonition on the part of the judge or the superior, if it is a question of ferendae sententiae censures, and in that case the contumacy will be formal; admonition contained in the law or precept, if it is a question of latae sententiae censures, and in that case the contumacy may be called interpretative, because the law itself or the precept attaching the penalty contains the admonitions (lex interpellat pro homine).
Nor would the monitio be required when, a medicinal latae sententiae penalty having been incurred, in order to obtain all its effects in the external forum (can. 2232 § 1) it were a question of proceeding to a declaratory sentence (v. SENTENZA), saving, it is well understood, the citation of the accused so that he may defend himself, unless the offense is notorious (v. DELITTO; can. 1747 n. 1).
Censorship becomes executory and produces its penal effects from the moment it is incurred or inflicted. Therefore the CIC, in the case of a censorship already imposed, can grant no other remedy than appeal or recourse without suspensive effect (can. 2243 § 1), leaving open the possibility of recourse even with suspensive effect (but limited to matters in which such recourse is permitted by law) when the censorship has only been attached and not yet imposed (can. 2243 § 2).
It is further to be considered that censorship, like every penalty, entails a juridical bond between the subject and society, and therefore this bond may be multiplied as many times as the violation of the law occurs (tot poenae quot delicta: can. 2224), bearing in mind also that the subject may be deprived even of the same good under different titles, and consequently not only may the case arise that the same subject is struck by censures of a different kind, but also that the same subject is struck by several censures of the same kind (can. 2244). Granted that the censures are: excommunication (v.), interdict (v.) and suspension (v. can. 2255 § 1), and that the first is always a censorship while the other two may be either censures or vindictive penalties (can. 2255 § 2), it must be observed that the common distinctions of penalty (v.) in general also hold for censures.
Proper to censures, however, is the distinction between reserved and non-reserved censures (v. ASSOLUZIONE; RISERVA).
3. Absolution
Regarding the cessation of censures, the fundamental principle is that, once the original relationship between the authority of the Church and the censured person has been constituted by the censorship, it cannot be modified except by absolution (cann. 2241 § 1 and 2248 § 1). A single exception is made in this regard, which occurs if the censorship was inflicted under a resolutory condition, in which case the absolution would be implicit. Since, however, the penalty is a bond of the external forum, absolution from a censorship differs essentially from the absolution of sin (v. ASSOLUZIONE): the latter reconciles man before God and cannot be efficacious unless all the dispositions of the subject concur, relating to the animi dolor de peccato commisso, to the accusation and to the formation of the sacrament of Penance; the former, on the other hand, removes the juridical bond between the offender and society brought about by the application of the penalty, and can have its full efficacy even if the dispositions of the subject were lacking, or against his will. And since, as has been seen, several penal bonds may be accumulated in the same subject, and each bond remains separate and independent, so he may be absolved from one or more censures while the others remain (can. 2249 § 1); on the contrary, the absolution of sins (in the case of mortal sins), since it cannot take place except with the infusion of sanctifying Grace, either has universal effect for all sins, or has no effect even for particular sins confessed and of which the subject had repented. Furthermore, the potestas absolvendi a censuris is one thing, and the potestas absolvendi a peccatis is another: the former is jurisdiction of the external forum, the latter is jurisdiction of the internal sacramental forum. In the absolution of censures, therefore, the extent of the remission depends on the will of the absolver: one who, entangled by several censures, seeks absolution, must indicate and specify their quality and number, since the absolution is valid only for the cases expressed. By disposition of the law, however, if the absolution were general, even though the petition had been particular, it would be equally efficacious for all censures concealed in good faith, with the exception of censures reserved specialissimo modo to the Holy See (can. 2249 § 2).
Since censorship is a bond of the external forum, the absolution necessary for its cessation is that given in the external forum; which, however, exercises its efficacy also in the internal forum (can. 2251). When, on the other hand, absolution is given in the internal forum, various cases must then be distinguished: a) if the censorship incurred had been absolutely occult, the person absolved in the internal forum may be regarded as released from the penalty also in the external forum; b) if the censorship incurred had been notorious and public, the offender, absolved in the internal forum, must conduct himself as a censured person in external acts so as not to cause scandal; c) in both cases the authority of the external forum may require the exterior observance of the censure; except in the case that the absolution in the internal forum is proved or legitimately presumed (ibid.).
A condition ordinarily required for absolution, in accordance with can. 2242 ff., is withdrawal from contumacy (delicti poenitentia, scandali reparatio, partis laesae satisfactio). Consistently with the notions of penalty mentioned above, it must be said that one who withdraws from contumacy certainly has the right to be absolved (can. 2284 § 2) after the favorable judgment of the absolver (can. 2242 § 3); but even in the absence of such withdrawal, the absolution, though generally lacking a just cause, would nevertheless be equally ly productive of juridical effects, inasmuch as the censure is a juridical bond totally dependent on ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Now, in order to outline summarily the faculties of the active subject of absolution, it is necessary to examine the three factual situations in which the censured person may find himself, namely: a) the ordinary case; b) danger of death; c) the urgent case.
a) In the ordinary case (can. 2253): from a latae sententiae censure that is not reserved, any confessor can absolve in the internal sacramental forum; in the non-sacramental forum, anyone who has jurisdiction of the external forum; from a censure ab homine, only the one who inflicted the censure, his superior and successor (can. 2245 § 2) can absolve, and they (they alone) can absolve the guilty party even outside his domicile or quasi-domicile; if the latae sententiae censure is reserved iure, only the one who established the censure or the one to whom it is reserved, their successors, superiors and delegates can absolve (cf. also cann. 239 § 1 n. 1, 401, and v. RISERVA).
b) In danger of death (v.). - According to can. 882, any priest, even one who does not have the faculty to hear confessions, can absolve from any censure in whatever way or form it may have been reserved. The censured person, however, who in danger of death has been absolved from a censure ab homine or one reserved a iure specialissimo modo Sedi Apostolicae by a priest not provided with the relevant regular faculties, but with only the jurisdiction ex iure by virtue of the cited canon, is bound to have recourse, if he regains his health, within the term of one month, to the one who had inflicted the censure (if it was ab homine), to the Sacred Penitentiary, or to the bishop or to the one who was provided with the faculty (if it was reserved specialissimo modo), and to abide by their dispositions. Such an obligation of recourse, if through grave negligence it were not fulfilled (but physical or moral impossibility is an excusing cause), implies relapse into the same censure already absolved, in the sense that the negligence would give rise to a new delict struck by the same penalty (can. 2252). As is clear, the censured person in that case would remain absolved from every other censure that was not ab homine or reserved a iure specialissimo modo Sanctae Sedi. Giacomo Violardo c) In the urgent case (v.). - Can. 2254 specifies that the urgent case exists, and consequently gives all confessors the faculty to absolve from reserved censures, when the limitations imposed by the censures cannot be maintained without danger of grave scandal or infamy, or when it is hard for the penitent to remain in a state of grave sin for the time necessary for the competent Superior to provide (can. 2254 § 1). This can occur even if it is a case reserved absque censura.
The clause (si durum sit) must be understood, as is evident, in a subjective sense, because objectively it is always burdensome, even for a minimal space of time, to remain in a state of grave sin. From this it follows that the confessor not only can, but must believe the penitent who affirms that it is hard for him to remain long in his sin; that if the penitent says nothing or shows no great desire to be absolved, the confessor can stir up this desire in him and thus absolve him (cf. A. Arregui, Sum. theol. mor., 14th ed., Bilbao 1927, n. 614).
Although the absolution imparted by the confessor is exercised in the internal sacramental forum, it is valid also for the external forum, saving the rights of the Superior to require in the external forum the observance of the penalty, if his absolution can be neither proved nor presumed (can. 2251).
Moreover, certain conditions are prescribed according to which absolution must be given. That is, the penitent must be enjoined with the obligation of having recourse within one month (under penalty of falling back into the censure), at least by letter or through the confessor, if this can be done without grave inconvenience, and without mentioning his name, to the Sacred Penitentiary or to the bishop or to another Superior provided with the faculty, and of abiding by their injunctions (can. 2254 § 1).
The obligation of recourse is sub poena reincidentiae. However, according to can. 2218 § 2, all those circumstances that excuse from grave imputability likewise excuse from the poena reincidentiae, even in the external forum, provided they can be proved. Nothing prevents the censured person who, having received absolution and while the recourse is pending, accuses his delict with censure to another confessor provided with the faculty of absolving from reserved cases, from receiving from him absolution and the injunctions of the case, without then being any longer bound to the prescriptions that might come from the Superior to whom the recourse was made (can. 2254 § 2).
It can happen, and not infrequently, that recourse is impossible. The impossibility (it is always a question of moral impossibility) can be either on the part of the confessor or on the part of the penitent. In these cases the same confessor can grant absolution, without the burden of recourse, only by imposing a congruous satisfaction, which must be fulfilled within the time determined by the confessor, here too sub poena reincidentiae. The only exception is the case of can. 2367, that is, of a priest struck by excommunication reserved specialissimo modo S. Sedi for abusive absolution of an accomplice. In this case in fact, since it is a question of a priest who knows how and is able to write for himself, there is no moral impossibility of a recourse, at least by letter, to the Sacred Penitentiary (can. 2254 § 3).
If, however, this impossibility really existed, the moralists say that not even this case can be excluded from the general benefit.