SACRILEGE. — It is the irreverent treatment or profanation of a sacred thing.
I. Concepts
Already among pagans and primitive peoples there existed a sufficiently precise notion of sacrilege; they recognized, for instance, a true sacrilege at least in the theft of sacred things. In a broad sense today one calls “any sin against religion”; in a strict sense it is understood exclusively as any irreverence against the particular holiness of a thing destined for divine worship or consecrated to God.In the definition given, by sacred thing one understands not only what is materially related to God, such as objects and places, but also the persons themselves consecrated to God. The consecration to divine worship, indispensable in order that one may speak of sacrilege, must be public, that is, proceeding from public authority, legitimately exercised by competent ministers according to the norms issued by the Church, or else proceeding directly from God. It is well known indeed that Jesus Christ Himself made certain things sacred, such as, for example, the Sacraments and the ministers of the altar; others, however, the Church made sacred. It is evident that the sacred character is more intrinsic in the former than in the latter. It is essential, however, that the consecration take place, as has been said, by public authority; for a person or a thing or a place is not said to be sacred merely because one or more faithful of their own initiative, without observing the relative norms, have reserved them to the Lord or to His worship: the typical example of an absence of holiness capable of inducing sacrilege is the emission of private vows that a person makes in honor of God, or even the private designation of a certain place as an oratory. Therefore the sacred things, material object of sacrilege, are those consecrated to divine worship either by divine right itself or by the will of the Church, through true constitutive consecration or blessing, as, for example, occurs in the consecration or blessing of churches, public and semi-public oratories, cemeteries, chalices and vessels destined for worship, or else they are those legitimately destined for worship by express determination of the Church itself, even without any rite, as, for example, occurs for ecclesiastical goods strictly so called and for the relics of saints. In order that there may be sacrilege, finally, profanation is required, understood not only according to what the objective gravity of the act itself entails in itself of irreverence, for example, the killing of a sacred person, the profanation of the sacred Eucharistic Species, but also according to what the Church determines for the cases that constitute a profanation as She intends II.
Sacrilege is a sin *ex genere suo*, grave. It has an intrinsic malice distinct from the malice of every other sin, and therefore he who, for example, steals sacred objects commits a double sin, that is, of theft and of sacrilege; likewise he who kills a consecrated person commits a murder and a sacrilege. Sacrilege itself, however, admits three specifically distinct forms according to the different object to which the profanation is directed: personal sacrilege, local sacrilege, and real sacrilege.
II. PERSONAL SACRILEGE
It consists in the profanation or ignominious treatment of a sacred person. This can occur: a) through violation of chastity by persons strictly bound—ecclesiastics, that is, clerics ordained in sacred orders in the Latin Church (subdeacons, deacons, priests, bishops) according to what is expressly stated in canon 132 § 1 of the CIC; and in religious of both sexes after simple or temporary profession (canons 592 and 132 § 1). Personal sacrilege against chastity is not committed only by those who are bound by it, but also by their accomplices; b) through real injury against a cleric even if a minor cleric (canons 119 and 108 § 1); or against a religious man or woman even if a lay brother or novice (canons 614 and 119); or against members, even lay, of societies legitimately erected by the Church, not however religious, but with a common life (canons 673 § 1; 680 and 119). By real injury one understands exclusively that which has direct effects on the body of the sacred person, or actually limits his freedom, or degrades his dignity (ill-treatment, spitting, tearing of garments, imprisonment, and the like); c) through violation of ecclesiastical immunity (some isolated writers do not consider this violation as a true and proper sacrilege), that is: a) by bringing a cleric to trial before a non-ecclesiastical tribunal even for purely contentious causes without the required license (canon 120); b) by obliging clerics to military service or forcing them to accept public offices or duties incompatible with the clerical state (canon 121).III. LOCAL SACRILEGE
It occurs through the profanation of strictly sacred places, that is, of churches, public oratories, solemnly blessed semi-public oratories, and cemeteries. It does not occur if the profanation takes place in adjacent locales even if immediately communicating with the aforementioned (such as sacristies, porticoes, narthexes). Local sacrilege also occurs in various ways: a) through violation of sacred places in the forms expressly contemplated in the CIC at canon 1172 § 1. The acts that entail said violation (provided they are certain, notorious, and perpetrated in the sacred place, excluding from their number the semi-public oratories) are the following: a) murder, that is, deliberate and unjust killing, and suicide; b) unjust and grave shedding of blood produced by a wound; c) the carrying out within sacred places of acts that are contrary to the holiness of the place, such as eating, drinking, smoking, and the like; d) the celebration of profane spectacles or the holding of dances or theatrical performances; e) the carrying out of acts of superstition or the practice of magic arts; f) the burial of non-Catholics in sacred places.IV. REAL SACRILEGE
It occurs through the profanation of sacred things other than persons and places. The gravity of the various real sacrileges has many gradations: one thing is a grave profanation of the Eucharist, another is the use for a brief profane purpose of a blessed vestment, for example, a maniple. The principal ways in which real sacrilege is committed are: unworthy administration of the Sacraments, unworthy approach to them, profanation of relics or images of saints, unworthy retention of sacred vessels or instruments, theft or damage to things destined for worship or belonging to the Church, profanation of the texts of Holy Scripture, unworthy care in the preservation and decorum of sacred furnishings.V. PENALTIES AGAINST SACRILEGES
Most grave are the penalties imposed in the CIC against those who commit sacrilege. Incurs the most special excommunication reserved to the Holy See he who profanes the sacred Species (canon 2320); he who strikes the Supreme Pontiff (canon 2343 § 1, n. 1); he who absolves or pretends to absolve, even in danger of death, his accomplice in a shameful sin (canon 2367 § 1-2); he who violates directly the sacramental seal (canons 2322 n. 1, 2341, 2343 § 2 n. 1 and § 3, 2345). The simply reserved excommunication is incurred in the cases of canons 2341, 2346, 2388 § 2; while the non-reserved excommunication is imposed in canons 2339, 2347 n. 3. The penalty of degradation is established in the cases of canons 2343 § 1 n. 3, 2368 § 1, 2388 § 1. That of deposition in canons 2322, 2322 n. 1. Moreover, various suspensions are imposed in canons 2366, 2368, 2341, 2347 n. 2; infamy of law is established in canons 2343 § 1 n. 2, and § 2 n. 2; and the penalty of the 24th [hour] in canon 2329. Finally, the CIC recalls that it is the right and duty of the Ordinary to punish sacrilegious persons proportionally beyond what the Code itself determines (canon 2325).Linaris, 4 (1931), pp. 307-10; N. Jung, Sacrilegie, in DTHC, XIV, cols. 603-703. V. also CELIBACY; CHURCH: HOLY PLACES; PRIVILEGES OF CLERGY. Lorenzo Simeone