RETRIBUTIVE PENALTIES. - These are the canonical penalties (v. PENALTY) that tend directly toward the punishment of the guilty party and the restoration of the order that has been violated.
They are distinguished into common ones (applicable to all the faithful) and those proper to clerics. The common ones are: 1) local interdict, general personal interdict, and interdict from entry into the Church (ab ingressu Ecclesiae) if imposed in perpetuity, at the good pleasure (nod) of the Superior or for a time strictly fixed in the law, in the sentence, or in the decree of condemnation; 2) the penal transfer or suppression of an episcopal or parochial see; 3) infamy by law; 4) deprivation of ecclesiastical burial, in accordance with can. 1240 § 1; 5) deprivation of the sacramentals; 6) the deprivation or temporary suspension of a pension that is paid by the Church or that is charged upon its goods, of another ecclesiastical right or privilege; 7) the interdiction from public offices (remotio ab actibus legitimis ecclesiasticis), listed in can. 2256, 2°; 8) the deprivation of the capacity (inhabilitas) to obtain ecclesiastical graces or offices in the Church not reserved to clerics, and to obtain academic degrees that are conferred by ecclesiastical authorities; 9) the deprivation or temporary suspension of an office, faculty, or grace already obtained; 10) the deprivation of the right of precedence, of the right to vote (vocis activae), of eligibility (vocis passivae), and of making use of titles, uniforms, or insignia granted by the Church; 11) the fine.
Some of these penalties reflect completely outdated conceptions, such as the transfer and suppression of an episcopal or parochial see, the lack of which is ordinarily felt by the innocent and not by the guilty; for others, such as the deprivation of ecclesiastical burial, it is difficult to indicate the passive subject. Infamy by law, moreover, does not produce legal effects of its own and is likewise a residue of the past. On the other hand, the interdict, removal from legitimate ecclesiastical acts or interdiction from public offices, suspension, and disqualification have a counterpart in certain secular penalties (in Italy, accessory ones); whereas the principal state penalties—death, life imprisonment, and imprisonment—are not sanctioned in current canon law. Only the fine is common, but in general canon law it has scant application: in only one case is it expressly imposed in the CIC (can. 2347, 2°).
The vindictive penalties proper to clerics are: 1) the prohibition of exercising the sacred ministry outside a determined church; 2) perpetual suspension, at the good pleasure of the Superior or for a determined time; 3) penal transfer from a higher office or benefice to a lower one; 4) deprivation of a right inherent in an office or benefice; 5) incapacity to assume or acquire dignities, offices, benefices, and other offices or services reserved to clerics; 6) penal deprivation of an office or benefice with or without a pension; 7) prohibition of residence in a determined place or territory; 8) order to reside in a determined place or territory; 9) prohibition, for a certain time, of wearing the ecclesiastical habit; 10) deposition; 11) deprivation of the right to wear the ecclesiastical habit; 12) degradation.
For the differences between vindictive and medicinal penalties, v. PENALTY; cf., moreover, the entries on the individual vindictive penalties.
Arturo De Jorio