Folia Canonica 10. (2007)
STUDIES - Péter Artner: The Canonical Protection of the Dignity of the Sacrament of Penance in the Penal Law
92 PÉTER ARTNER law, declaring the priest to be incapax, in this situation, with this sin, over this penitent and with respect to this sin.2 13 As stated, this is not a penalty, but a penalty is given if the priest tries to absolve the accomplice against the prohibition. The common sin appears as a reserved sin; the priest has faculty but not for this sin.14 This disqualification lasts only until the common sin has been lawfully absolved. It is to be interpreted strictly according to c. 18, that what comes or what does not come under cc. 977 or 1378. We were speaking about the correct interpretation of the sixth Commandment, and these establishments are not valid only in the cases mentioned in the penal law, but for all sins against chastity, this means touch, kiss, embrace, seeing or talk, as the Sacrum Officium foretold on May 28,1873.15 The priest can commit this offence with a man or a woman, with young or old. The sin has to be mortal on the part of both persons, so if one of them does not commit a mortal sin, it is not forbidden for the priest to absolve the person and the absolution will be valid.16 According to other wording a grave sin can cause this prohibition, but it has to be by all means an external sin.17 However, if the sin is perpetrated in talk or in seeing the probability is very small, that they committed a known and wanted grave sin on both part, and it could cause such a situation, in which the absolution is invalid and punishable.18 Calabrese writes that since the sin has to be objectively and subjectively grave, so the prohibition of the absolution will not set in if the offence is committed with a child, because a child cannot perpetrate a subjectively grave sin.19 For the coming into force of the prohibition, it is necessary that the accomplice has to want the act, and not only cooperates.20 That is beside the point, that when the offence took place, the confessor was already a priest or not, and that is unimportant, too, how much time has passed since the offence. This prohibition exists in relation of all accomplices, whether he/she is catholic or not. i2Aa.Vv., Códigó De Derecho Canónico. Edición bilingüe comentada, por los profesores de la Facultad de Derecho Canónico da la Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, dirección: L. Echeverria, (BAC 442), Madrid 1983, 478 l3F. Loza, in Exegetical Commentary, Vol III/1, 798 14 WOESTMAN, Sacraments, 269 '’A De Smet, De Absolutione Complicis et Sollicitatio, Brugis, 1921, 4. I6Woestman, Sacraments , 269 17Exegetical Commentary, Vol III/1, p. 498; De Smet, 5. 18 P. Erdő, Egyházjog, Budapest, 2003, 651 19 A. Calabrese, Diritto penale canonico, 1990, 232-233 20 S. Sipos, Enchiridion Iuris Canonici, Roma, 1960, 862.
