TITLE III : USURPATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICES AND OFFENCES COMMITTED IN THEIR EXERCISE (Cann. 1378 - 1389)

Can. 1378 §1 A priest who acts against the prescription of Can. 977 incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

§2 The following incur a latae sententiae interdict or, if a cleric, a latae sententiae suspension:

1° a person who, not being an ordained priest, attempts to celebrate Mass

2° a person who, apart from the case mentioned in §1, thoughunable to give valid sacramental absolution, attempts to do so, or hears a sacramental confession.

§3 In the cases mentioned in §2, other penalties, not excluding excommunication, can be added, according to the gravity of the offence.

Can. 1379 A person who, apart from the cases mentioned in Can. 1378, pretends to administer a sacrament, is to be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1380 A person who through simony celebrates or receives a sacrament, is to be punished with an interdict or suspension.

Can. 1381 §1 Anyone who usurps an ecclesiastical office is to be punished with a just penalty.

§2 The unlawful retention of an ecclesiastical office after being deprived of it, or ceasing from it, is equivalent to usurpation.

Can. 1382 Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

Can. 1383 A Bishop who, contrary to the provision of Can. 1015, ordained someone else's subject without the lawful dimissorial letters, is prohibited from conferring orders for one year. The person who received the order is ipso facto suspended from the order received.

Can. 1384 A person who, apart from the cases mentioned in cann. 1378 - 1383, unlawfully exercises the office of a priest or another sacred ministry, may be punished with a just penalty.

Can. 1385 A person who unlawfully traffics in Mass offerings is to be punished with a censure or other just penalty.

Can. 1386 A person who gives or promises something so that some one who exercises an office in the Church would unlawfully act or fail to act, is to be punished with a just penalty; likewise, the person who accepts such gifts or promises.

Can. 1387 A priest who in confession, or on the occasion or under the pretext of confession, solicits a penitent to commit a sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the offence, with suspension, prohibitions and deprivations; in the more serious cases he is to be dismissed from the clerical state.

Can. 1388 §1 A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; he who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the offence.

§2 Interpreters and the others mentioned in can. 983 §2, who violate the secret, are to be punished with a just penalty, not excluding excommunication.

Can. 1389 §1 A person who abuses ecclesiastical power or an office, is to be punished according to the gravity of the act or the omission, not excluding by deprivation of the office, unless a penalty for that abuse is already established by law or precept.

§2 A person who, through culpable negligence, unlawfully and with harm to another, performs or omits an act of ecclesiastical power or ministry or office, is to be punished with a just penalty.