Sacrilege

SACRILEGE. - It is the irreverent treatment or the profanation of a sacred thing.

I. NOTIONS

Already among the pagans and primitive peoples there existed a sufficiently precise notion of sacrilege; they recognized, for example, a true sacrilege at least in the theft of sacred things. In a broad sense today any sin against religion is called sacrilege; in a strict sense it means exclusively every irreverence against the particular holiness of a thing destined for divine worship or consecrated to God.

In the definition given, by "sacred thing" is meant not only what is material and placed in relation to God, such as objects and places, but also persons themselves consecrated to God. The consecration to divine worship, indispensable for one to be able to speak of sacrilege, must be public, that is, coming from public authority, legitimately exercised by the competent ministers according to the norms issued by the Church, or coming directly from God. It is well known in fact that Jesus Christ himself made certain things sacred, such as, for example, the Sacraments and the ministers of the altar; others, on the other hand, were made sacred by the Church. 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; since a person or a thing or a place are not called sacred merely because one or more of the faithful on their own initiative, without observance of the relevant norms, have reserved them to the Lord or to his worship: the typical example of an absence of holiness capable of giving rise to sacrilege is the making of private vows that a person makes in honor of God, or even the private designation of a particular place as an oratory. Accordingly the sacred things, the material object of sacrilege, are those consecrated to divine worship either by divine law itself or by the will of the Church, through consecration or a constitutive blessing properly so called, as, for example, happens in the consecration or blessing of churches, public and semi-public oratories, cemeteries, chalices and vessels destined for worship, or they are those legitimately destined for worship by the binding determination of the Church herself, even without any rite, as, for example, happens for ecclesiastical movable and immovable property strictly so called and for the relics of saints. For sacrilege to occur, finally, profanation is required, understood not only according to what the objective nature of the act carries with it of irreverence in itself, 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 understands it.

Sacrilege is a sin grave in its kind (ex genere suo). It has its own intrinsic malice distinct from the malice of every other sin, and therefore whoever, for example, steals sacred objects commits a double sin, that is, of theft and of sacrilege; likewise whoever kills a consecrated person commits a homicide and a sacrilege. Sacrilege itself, however, admits three specifically distinct forms according to the different object toward which the profanation is directed: personal sacrilege, local sacrilege and real sacrilege.

II. PERSONAL SACRILEGE

It consists in the profanation or unworthy treatment of a sacred person. This can occur: a) through a violation of chastity on the part of persons bound by an ecclesiastical obligation, that is, of clerics ordained in sacris in the Latin Church (subdeacons, deacons, priests, bishops) in accordance with what canon 132 § 1 of the CIC expressly states; and in religious of both sexes after they have made their profession, even if simple and temporary (cann. 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 only a minorista (cann. 119 and 108 § 1); or against a religious man or woman even if a lay brother or novice (cann. 614 and 119); or against members, even lay, of societies legitimately erected by the Church, not however religious, but with common life (cann. 673 § 1; 680 and 119). By real injury is to be understood exclusively that which has direct effects on the body of the sacred person, or in fact limits his liberty, or debases his dignity (maltreatment, spitting, tearing of garments, imprisonment and the like); c) through violation of ecclesiastical immunity (some isolated writer does not regard this violation as a true and proper sacrilege), that is: a) by bringing a cleric as a defendant before a non-ecclesiastical tribunal even if for exclusively contentious causes without the required license (can. 120); b) by obliging clerics to military service or forcing them to accept public duties or offices incompatible with the clerical state (can. 121).

III. LOCAL SACRILEGE

This occurs through the profanation of sacred places in the strict sense, that is, of churches, public oratories, semi-public oratories that have been solemnly blessed, and cemeteries. There is no sacrilege if the profanation takes place in rooms adjoining, even if directly connected to, the aforementioned places (such as sacristies, porticoes, narthexes). Local sacrilege also occurs in various ways: a) through the violation of sacred places in the forms exhaustively set out in the CIC at can. 1172 § 1. The acts that bring about such violation (provided they are certain, notorious and perpetrated in the sacred place, with semi-public oratories excluded from the number of these) are the following: a) homicide, that is, deliberate and unjust killing, and suicide; b) unjust and grave shedding of blood produced by a wound; c) assignment to impious or filthy uses, such as, for example, a theatre hall, a dance hall, a cinema, a meeting of sects condemned by the Church; d) the burial of an infidel, or of a person excommunicated by a condemnatory or declaratory sentence; e) acts by which the safety or dignity of a sacred building is violently impaired, for example, the burning of an altar, the violent breaking down of the church door, the destruction, even partial, of a sacred place; f) any act by which the immunity of a church or of another sacred place is violated; g) the violation of the right of asylum, that is, the forcible removal of one who has taken refuge there after having committed a particular crime, except in urgent cases or where there is the legitimate permission of the Ordinary or of the rector of the church.

IV. REAL SACRILEGE

This consists in the profanation of sacred things other than persons and places. The gravity of the various real sacrileges has many gradations: it is one thing to commit a grave profanation of the Eucharist, another to reduce to profane use for a brief time a blessed vestment, for example, a maniple. The principal ways in which real sacrilege is committed are the unworthy administration of the Sacraments, the unworthy approach to them, the profanation of relics or images of saints, the unworthy treatment of sacred vessels or instruments, the theft or damaging of things destined for worship or belonging to the Church, the profanation of the texts of Sacred Scripture, and negligence in the preservation and decorum of sacred furnishings.

V. PENALTIES AGAINST SACRILEGIOUS PERSONS

The penalties laid down in the CIC against those who commit sacrilege are extremely severe. The excommunication reserved in a most special manner to the Holy See is incurred by one who profanes the sacred Species (can. 2320); by one who strikes the supreme pontiff (can. 2343 § 1, no. 1); by one who absolves, or pretends to absolve, even in danger of death, unlawfully an accomplice in a sin of impurity (can. 2367 § 1-2); by one who directly violates the sacramental seal (can. 2369 § 1). Excommunication reserved in a special manner is established in cann. 2322 no. 1, 2341, 2343 § 2 no. 1 and § 3, 2345; that which is simply reserved, in cann. 2341, 2346, 2388 § 2; while that which is not reserved is laid down in cann. 2339, 2347 no. 3. The penalty of degradation is established in the cases referred to in cann. 2343 § 1 no. 3, 2368 § 1, 2388 § 1. That of deposition in cann. 2320, 2322 no. 1. Furthermore, penalties of various suspensions are inflicted in cann. 2366, 2368, 2341, 2347 no. 2; infamy of law is established in cann. 2343 § 1 no. 2, and § 2 no. 2; the interdict in can. 2329. Finally the CIC recalls that it is the right and duty of the Ordinary to punish sacrilegious persons proportionately beyond what the same Code determines (can. 2325).

Lorenzo Simeone