STUPRO. — In canon law, s. means the carnal violation of a virgin woman; whereas moralists extend s. to the violation of any woman, irrespective of her virginal state; Italian criminal law broadens it still further, including persons of either sex (Art. 519, para. 1).
Under Italian law, the following are considered victims of violence, even if they consent to carnal intercourse: 1) in every case, those who have not completed fourteen years of age (Art. 519, para. 2, no. 1); 2) those who have not completed sixteen years of age, when the active subjects are ascendants or the guardian, or others to whom the minor has been entrusted for purposes of care, education, instruction, supervision, or custody (ibid., no. 2); 3) the mentally ill, or those who are in such a condition of psychological or physical inferiority as to be unable to resist, even if the impairment does not result from an act of the offender (ibid., no. 3); 4) those who have been deceived because the offender substituted himself for another person (ibid., no. 4). Under the CIC, too, persons who, at the time of the act, are incapable of consent must be considered passive subjects of s., e.g., drunk persons, those overcome by natural or artificially induced sleep, the insane, idiots, etc. S. is never possible between spouses in canon law; it is possible under Italian criminal law when the spouses are legally separated; it is also possible (but only under Italian criminal law) between persons
of the same sex: in canon law, it then remains an aggravating circumstance of homosexuality.
The penalties against those guilty of s. are, under the Italian penal code, imprisonment for from three to ten years (Art. 519, para. 1), and loss of any parental authority over the victim (Art. 541, para. 1); nevertheless, the penalty is not imposed, or is extinguished if, in the course of its execution, the offender marries the woman against whom he committed the violence (Art. 544). Under the CIC, the penalty of infamy is imposed by law upon the faithful legitimately convicted of s., while other penalties are left to the discretion of the Ordinary (can. 2357 § 1); against minor clerics, in addition to the aforementioned infamy, other penalties are to be applied, likewise at the discretion of the Ordinary, up to expulsion from the clerical state (can. 2358); against clerics in sacris various penalties are prescribed (suspension, infamy, deprivation of office or benefice, etc., up to deposition), but these are incurred only after they have actually been imposed by the Ordinary (can. 2359 § 2).