The special faculties granted to the Dicastery for the Clergy

Abstract

The Code of Canon Law imposes restrictions on the imposition of the maximum expiatory penalty of dismissal from the clerical state. The biggest one: the administrative route for the application of this serious sanction is vetoed. The canonical legislation only provide for the judicial itinerary - with its long itinerary until the final decision - to dismiss a cleric "in poenam". In 2009, the Dicastery for the Clergy considered it opportune to submit to the Pontiff a quicker course, as an alternative to the canonical judicial penal process, facilitating the dismissal in poenam from the clerical state of those priests with serious, and sometimes repeated, harmful to the ecclesiastical body. The present text is a study of the Special Faculties themselves: it discusses some concepts and expressions that appear in the texts of the three Faculties, it focuses on the canons of the Code of Canon Law that were derogated in the scope of the application of the I and II Special Faculties, it exposes the two main purposes of the Special Faculties, seeks to situate the relationship between the application of the Special Faculties and the dismissal of the clerical state "in poenam" in the Code of Canon Law, but mainly deals with the Procedure for the application of the Faculties: their requirements and each of the steps, whether in the local or the apostolic phase, as well as the necessary documentation for each Procedure. Furthermore, it issues a word on the application of the Special Faculties for religious clerics, addresses the possibility of reinstating the dismissed cleric to the clerical state and, within the scope of the II Special Faculty, deals with the case of celibate priests with children.