In Catholic canon law, an interdict (/ˈɪntərdɪkt/) is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits certain persons or groups from participating in particular rites, or that the rites and services of the church are prohibited in certain territories for a limited or extended time.

Definition

An interdict is a censure, or prohibition, excluding the faithful from participation in certain holy things, such as the Liturgy, the sacraments (excepting private administrations of those that are of necessity), and ecclesiastical burial, including all funeral services.[1]

The prohibition varies in degree, according to the different kinds of interdicts. Interdicts are either local or personal. The former affect territories or sacred buildings; the latter directly affect persons. A general local interdict is one affecting a whole territory, district, town, etc., and this was the ordinary interdict of the Middle Ages; a particular local interdict is one affecting, for example, a particular church. A general personal interdict is one falling on a given body or group of people as a class, e.g. on a chapter, the clergy or people of a town, or a community; a particular personal interdict is one affecting certain individuals as such, for instance, a given bishop, a given cleric.[1]

Interdict differs from excommunication, in that it does not cut one off from the communion of the faithful. It differs from suspension also in that the latter affects the faculties of clerics, while the interdict affects the access of the faithful to religious rites. While the clergy cannot exercise their functions towards those under interdict, or in interdicted places or buildings, their powers are not directly affected, as happens in case of suspension.[1]

1917 Code of Canon Law

Distinctions

Only the Holy See was empowered to impose a general interdict on a diocese or State or a personal interdict on the people of a diocese or country, but bishops too could impose a general interdict on a parish or on the people of a parish or a particular interdict on a place (such as a church or oratory, an altar or a cemetery) or a person.[2]

Effects

A local interdict forbade in general the public celebration of sacred rites. Exceptions were made for the dying, and local interdicts were almost entirely suspended on five feasts of the year: Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and the feast of the Assumption of Mary.[1]

Those who were under personal interdict were forbidden to be present at any religious rite except the preaching of the word of God; while mere attendance by them did not require that they be expelled, if they were well known to be under interdict they were to be prevented from taking an active part.[3]

1983 Code of Canon Law

An interdict today has the effect of forbidding the person concerned to celebrate or receive any of the sacraments, including the Eucharist, or to celebrate the sacramentals. One who is under interdict is also forbidden to take any ministerial part (e.g., as a reader if a layperson or as a deacon or priest if a clergyman) in the celebration of the Eucharist or of any other ceremony of public worship.[4]

These are the only effects for those who have incurred a latae sententiae interdict, namely, one incurred automatically at the moment of committing the offence for which canon law imposes that penalty. For instance, a priest may not refuse Communion publicly to those who are under merely automatic interdict, even if he knows that they have incurred this kind of interdict[5] – unless the cause for the interdict is known to the priest not only privately but publicly, and is persistent, in which case (though not technically by reason of the interdict) people are to be withheld Communion by force of can. 915.

However, in the case of a ferendae sententiae interdict, one incurred only when imposed by a legitimate superior or declared as the sentence of an ecclesiastical court,[6] those affected are not to be admitted to Holy Communion[7] (see canon 915), and if they violate the prohibition against taking a ministerial part in celebrating the Eucharist or some other ceremony of public worship, they are to be expelled or the sacred rite suspended, unless there is a grave reason to the contrary.[4] In the same circumstances, local ordinaries and parish priests lose their right to assist validly at marriages.[8]

Automatic (latae sententiae) interdict is incurred by anyone using physical violence against a bishop,[9] as also by a person who, not being an ordained priest, attempts to celebrate Mass, or who, though unable to give valid sacramental absolution, attempts to do so, or hears a sacramental confession.[10] Automatic interdict is also incurred by anyone falsely accusing a priest of soliciting sexual favours in connection with confession[11] or attempting to marry while having a perpetual vow of chastity.[12]

An interdict is also the censure that canon law says should be imposed on someone who, because of some act of ecclesiastical authority or ministry publicly incites to hatred against the Holy See or the Ordinary, or who promotes or takes up office in an association that plots against the Church,[13] or who commits the crime of simony.[14]

Notable local canonical interdicts

Norway

  • Pope Innocent III placed the Kingdom of Norway under interdict in October 1198. Although King Sverre forged letters to show that the interdict had been lifted, he and his subjects remained under interdict until Sverre's death in 1202.

England

Scotland

Hungary

Italy

Malta

Interdiction featured in 20th-century Maltese politics.

Between 1930 and 1933, those who voted for the progressive Compact parties (Constitutional Party, Labour Party) were interdicted and refused burial in sacred grounds.[22] Once again, between 8 April 1961 and 4 April 1969,[23] the National Executive of the Malta Labour Party was interdicted and voting Labour became a mortal sin;[24][25] the leadership of the Malta Labour Party, readers, advertisers and distributors of Party papers as well as its voters were interdicted by the local bishop.[23] In both cases, the Nationalist Party won elections while its opponents were interdicted.[26]

France

United States

  • In 1955, after white parishioners had refused to let a black priest enter a chapel situated about 20 miles from New Orleans, Archbishop Joseph Rummel placed the chapel under interdict.[27]

Notable personal canonical interdicts

Bishop René Henry Gracida of Corpus Christi, Texas interdicted a Roman Catholic politician in the late 20th century for supporting legal abortion; the unnamed individual died while under interdict.[28]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Boudinhon, Auguste. "Interdict." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 26 January 2023 Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. ↑ 1917 Code of Canon Law, canons 2269 §1 and 2272
  3. ↑ 1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 2275
  4. 1 2 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1332
  5. ↑ Edward McNamara, "Denying Communion to Someone"
  6. ↑ "Code of Canon Law, canon 1314". Vatican.va. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
  7. ↑ 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 915
  8. ↑ Code of Canon Law, canon 1109
  9. ↑ 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1370 §2
  10. ↑ 1083 Code of Canon Law. canon 1378 §2
  11. ↑ 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1390 §1
  12. ↑ 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1394 §2
  13. ↑ Code of Canon Law, canons 1373-1374
  14. ↑ 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 1380
  15. ↑ Bartlett, Robert England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075–1225 Oxford:Clarendon Press 2000 ISBN 0-19-822741-8 p. 404-405
  16. ↑ The Encyclopædia Britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, and ..., Volume 5 By Thomas Spencer Baynes, p. 729
  17. ↑ Scotland in the Hundred Years' War
  18. ↑ The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle (ch. 190.134), p. 143.
  19. ↑ David Chambers, Brian Pullan, Jennifer Fletcher (editors), Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630 (University of Toronto Press 2001 ISBN 978-0-8020-8424-8), pp. 219-220
  20. ↑ Rao, John C. Rao (21 September 2004). "The Venetian Interdict of 1606-1607". Seattle Catholic. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  21. ↑ CNS STORY: Holding public figures accountable to church: centuries of precedent
  22. ↑ Sciberras, S. (2010). "Maltese History : Church - State Relations" (PDF). stbenedictcollege.org. Retrieved 13 March 2013.
  23. 1 2 "The Unholy War" (PDF). Malta Today. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 7, 2006. Retrieved March 13, 2005.
  24. ↑ Grech, Herman; Sansone, Kurt (10 April 2011). "Bricked by interdiction". Times of Malta. Retrieved 13 March 2013.
  25. ↑ "Interdict for Church Critics". Catholic Herald. 1961. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
  26. ↑ Mitchell, Jon P. (2006), Behr, Hartmut (ed.), "Church and State in Malta", Politik und Religion in der Europäischen Union: Zwischen nationalen Traditionen und Europäisierung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 341–358, doi:10.1007/978-3-531-90517-4_16, ISBN 978-3-531-90517-4, retrieved 2021-01-16
  27. ↑ R. Bentley Anderson, Black, White, and Catholic (Vanderbilt University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-8265-1483-7), p. 146
  28. ↑ Catholic World News: US bishop imposed interdict on pro-abortion politician

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Interdict". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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