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In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a distinction is made between the internal forum, where an act of governance is made without publicity, and the external forum, where the act is public and verifiable. In canon law, internal forum, the realm of conscience, is contrasted with the external or outward forum; thus, a marriage might be null and void in the internal forum, but binding outwardly, i.e., in the external forum, for want of judicial proof to the contrary. [1]
The judicial jurisdiction of the Catholic Church is expressed by the word Forum, the Latin designation for a place containing a tribunal of justice. [2]
As the Church is a perfect society, she possesses within herself all the powers necessary to direct her members to the end for which she was instituted and she has a correlative right to be obeyed by those subject to her. This right is called jurisdiction, and it is the source of all the Church's action that is not derived from the power of Sacred orders. It is this jurisdiction which is the foundation of ecclesiastical law, both externally and internally binding, and from Apostolic times it has been put into practice by the Church's rulers. Just as the civil State has the legitimate jurisdiction over its subjects to guide them to the end for which it is instituted, because it is a perfect society, so likewise the Church, being constituted by Christ as a perfect society, possesses within itself all the powers necessary for lawfully and effectively attaining the end for which it was established. [2]
As the power of the Church extends not only to its individual members but also to the whole corporate body, not only to questions concerning the conscience but also to the public actions of its subjects, ecclesiastical jurisdiction is distinguished into that of the internal and external forum. It may so chance that circumstances may bring about a conflict between the internal and external forum. Thus, for example, a marriage may be null and void in the forum of conscience, but binding in the external forum for want of judicial proofs to the contrary, and vice versa. [2]
The jurisdiction of the internal forum deals with questions concerning the welfare of individual Christians and with their relation to God. Hence it is called the forum of conscience (Forum conscientiae). It is also denominated the forum of Heaven (forum poli) because it guides the soul on the path to God. The internal forum is subdivided into the sacramental or penitential, which is exercised in the tribunal of penance or at least is connected with it, and the extra penitential forum. Causes concerning the private and secret needs of the faithful can often be expedited outside the sacramental confession. Thus, vows may be dispensed, secret censures may be absolved, occult impediments of matrimony may be dispensed outside of the tribunal of penance. The internal forum deals therefore directly with the spiritual welfare of the individual faithful. It has reference to the corporate body only secondarily, in as much as the good of the whole organization is promoted by that of the individual members. Owing to the nature of the civil state and the end for which it was instituted, it has no jurisdiction corresponding to the ecclesiastical forum of conscience. [2]
Within the internal forum a distinction is made between the sacramental internal forum and the non-sacramental (penitential) internal forum, according as matters are decided in the sacrament of Penance, and thus additionally protected by the Seal of the Confessional, or outside of the sacrament. [2]
Thus the name of the parties in a marriage contracted in the external forum are noted in a public register, [3] but a marriage celebrated secretly is to be noted instead in a special register kept in the secret archive of the diocesan curia. [4]
Sometimes power of governance is given for the sacramental forum only: in each diocese a priest is to be appointed who has the faculty, which he cannot delegate to others, of "absolving in the sacramental forum outsiders within the diocese and members of the diocese even outside the territory of the diocese from undeclared latae sententiae censures not reserved to the Apostolic See". [5]
In the Roman Curia, the Apostolic Penitentiary has jurisdiction for matters of the internal forum, both sacramental and non-sacramental, but in some instances its decisions hold also in the external forum, as when, unless it states otherwise, a dispensation that it grants in the non-sacramental internal forum from an occult impediment to marriage, is sufficient even if the occult impediment later becomes public. [6]
The Church's jurisdiction in the external forum has reference to matters touching the public and social good of the corporate body. It corresponds, consequently, very closely to the powers exercised by civil magistrates in affairs belonging to their competence. While the external forum may busy itself with the concerns of individuals, it does so only in as far as these affect the public good. Thus the absolution of sins belongs to the internal forum, but the concession of the faculty for performing such absolution is an act of the external forum. The jurisdiction of the external forum is subdivided into voluntary and necessary. Voluntary, or extrajudicial, is that which a superior can exercise towards those who invoke his power, or even against those who are unwilling, but without his using the formalities prescribed in law. Necessary or contentious jurisdiction is that which the judge employs in punishing crimes or deciding disputes according to prescribed forms. In general, the acts of jurisdiction of the external forum are the decision of disputes concerning faith, morals or discipline, the making and enforcing of laws, the punishment of transgressors of ecclesiastical statutes, and the like. [2]
The competence of the ecclesiastical forum arises either from the persons or the cause to be judged. As to persons, all clerics are subject to its judgments both in civil and criminal causes (see clerical immunities). As to causes: they may be purely civil, or ecclesiastical, or they may be mixed. Purely civil causes would not of themselves properly belong to the Church's forum, as she recognizes the full competence of the state in such matters. Accidentally, however, such causes might be brought before the ecclesiastical judge. This supposes, however, the practical recognition of the Church's forum by the civil power. Ecclesiastical causes themselves are called civil when they concern either spiritual things, as the sacraments, or matters connected with them, as church property, the right of patronage, etc. They are called criminal when they involve the dealing with delinquents guilty of simony, apostasy, schism and the like. They are called mixed causes when they are subjects proper for decision by either the ecclesiastical or civil forum, as usurious contracts, concubinage, violations of the Church's peace, etc. Causes are likewise called mixed when they have both a spiritual and temporal end. Thus matrimony, in its sacramental nature as to validity or nullity, belongs to the Church; in its temporal aspect, as to the property of married persons and similar things, it may be dealt with by the civil tribunals. To this class of mixed causes can also be reduced the suppression of heresy, where Church and State cooperate with each other for the maintenance of the integrity or the faith and the preservation of the civil peace. Finally, many causes, of their nature civil, are accounted mixed by canonists, either because the State relinquished them to the Church's tribunals or custom gradually caused them to be relegated to the ecclesiastical forum, such as the recognition of last wills and testaments, the care of the poor, etc. [2]
The punishments which may be inflicted by the external ecclesiastical forum are not only spiritual as excommunication, but also temporal or corporal. [2]
As regards the infliction of the death penalty, canonists generally held that ecclesiastical law forbids inferior church tribunals to decree this punishment directly, but that the pope or a general council has the power, at least indirectly, in as much as they can demand that a Catholic state inflict this punishment when the good of the Church requires it. Finally, they held that there is no valid argument to prove that the direct exercise of this power does not fall within the competence of the ecclesiastical forum, although it was the custom of the latter to hand over the criminal to the secular arm for the infliction of the death penalty. [2] However, death penalty was officially repudiated as a legitimate penalty by the Catholic Church in 2018.
The encroachments of the civil power on the Church's jurisdiction have in our days, practically though unwarrantly, restricted the ecclesiastical forum to spiritual causes only. [2]
The distinction between the internal forum and the external forum is recognized in canon 980 §1 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which states
The power of governance is exercised in the external forum or in the internal sacramental or non-sacramental forum. [7]
and in canon 130 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which states
Of itself, the power of governance is exercised for the external forum; sometimes, however, it is exercised for the internal forum alone, so that the effects which its exercise is meant to have for the external forum are not recognized there, except insofar as the law establishes it in determined cases. [8]
The term "internal forum" is sometimes used in connection with the controversial [9] so-called "internal forum solution" claimed to justify reception of Holy Communion by someone who is convinced that a former marriage was invalid, but who cannot prove this externally so as to obtain a declaration of nullity. This is not a canonical solution. [10] [ self-published source ]
Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of repentance for sins committed, as well as an alternate name for the Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. It also plays a part in confession among Anglicans and Methodists, in which it is a rite, as well as among other Protestants.
An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than before the development of nation states. They were experts in interpreting canon law, a basis of which was the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian, which is considered the source of the civil law legal tradition.
Marriage in the Catholic Church, also known as holy matrimony, is the "covenant by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and which "has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized". Catholic matrimonial law, based on Roman law regarding its focus on marriage as a free mutual agreement or contract, became the basis for the marriage law of all European countries, at least up to the Reformation.
In the Catholic Church, the Seal of Confession is the absolute duty of priests or anyone who happens to hear a confession not to disclose anything that they learn from penitents during the course of the Sacrament of Penance (confession). Even where the seal of confession does not strictly apply – where there is no specific serious sin confessed for the purpose of receiving absolution – priests have a serious obligation not to cause scandal by the way they speak.
Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is jurisdiction by church leaders over other church leaders and over the laity.
The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church. In addition, it oversees the administration of justice in the church.
In the jurisprudence of the canon law of the Catholic Church, a dispensation is the exemption from the immediate obligation of law in certain cases. Its object is to modify the hardship often arising from the rigorous application of general laws to particular cases, and its essence is to preserve the law by suspending its operation in such cases.
The Sacrament of Penance is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, in which the faithful are absolved from sins committed after baptism and reconciled with the Christian community. During reconciliation mortal sins must be confessed and venial sins may be confessed for devotional reasons. According to the dogma and unchanging practice of the church, only those ordained as priests may grant absolution.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, an impediment is a legal obstacle that prevents a sacrament from being performed either validly or licitly or both. The term is used most frequently in relationship to the sacraments of Marriage and Holy Orders. Some canonical impediments can be dispensed by the competent authority as defined in Catholic canon law.
In the Catholic Church, a declaration of nullity, commonly called an annulment and less commonly a decree of nullity, and in some cases, a Catholic divorce, is an ecclesiastical tribunal determination and judgment that a marriage was invalidly contracted or, less frequently, a judgment that ordination was invalidly conferred.
"Appeal as from an abuse" is a legal term applied in the canon law of the Catholic Church, meaning originally a legal appeal as recourse to the civil forum (court) against the usurpation by the ecclesiastical forum of the rights of civil jurisdiction. It could also mean a recourse to the ecclesiastical forum against the usurpation by the civil forum of the rights of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Natural marriage is the name given in Catholic canon law to the covenant "by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and is distinguished from a sacramental or Christian marriage, in which the two parties involved are baptized.
This is a glossary of terms used within the Catholic Church. Some terms used in everyday English have a different meaning in the context of the Catholic faith, including brother, confession, confirmation, exemption, faithful, father, ordinary, religious, sister, venerable, and vow.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, excommunication is a form of censure. In the formal sense of the term, excommunication includes being barred not only from the sacraments but also from the fellowship of Christian baptism. The principal and severest censure, excommunication presupposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Catholic Church can inflict, it supposes a grave offense. The excommunicated person is considered by Catholic ecclesiastical authority as an exile from the Church, for a time at least.
There are seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, which according to Catholic theology were instituted by Jesus Christ and entrusted to the Church. Sacraments are visible rites seen as signs and efficacious channels of the grace of God to all those who receive them with the proper disposition.
The term ratum sed non consummatum or ratum et non consummatum refers to a juridical-sacramental category of marriage in Catholic matrimonial canon law. If a matrimonial celebration takes place (ratification) but the spouses have not yet engaged in intercourse (consummation), then the marriage is said to be a marriage ratum sed non consummatum. The Tribunal of the Roman Rota has exclusive competence to dispense from marriages ratum sed non consummatum, which can only be granted for a "just reason". This process should not be confused with the process for declaring the nullity of marriage, which is treated of in a separate title of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
The jurisprudence of Catholic canon law is the complex of legal theory, traditions, and interpretative principles of Catholic canon law. In the Latin Church, the jurisprudence of canon law was founded by Gratian in the 1140s with his Decretum. In the Eastern Catholic canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Photios holds a place similar to that of Gratian for the West.
A censure, in the canon law of the Catholic Church, is a medicinal and spiritual punishment imposed by the church on a baptized, delinquent, and contumacious person, by which he is deprived, either wholly or in part, of the use of certain spiritual goods until he recovers from his contumacy. These goods can encompass access to the sacraments, participation in certain liturgical activities, and involvement in ecclesiastical functions.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the canon law of the Catholic Church:
Note on the importance of the internal forum and the inviolability of the Sacramental Seal is a July 1, 2019, document of the Apostolic Penitentiary, approved for promulgation on June 21, 2019, by Pope Francis, which explains that the internal forum of the sacrament of penance is sacred and that the inviolability of the Seal of the Confessional in the Catholic Church is absolute, in spite of civil law, as a matter of de fide dogma, and as part of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. The aim of the Note is to fortify the feeling of trust on the part of people who go to confession.