Dispensation and Resignation: two confusing terms in the current juridical framework of the Church

In the present day, despite the rejection of the false pastoral approach, the reality of the Church’s juridical nature has become evident. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the faithful are unaware that God founded His Church as a juridical reality, among other connotations. This intrinsic reality of the Church’s nature is reflected in its juridical action carried out through its administrative function and also through the judicial function it develops.

A very current aspect in the face of the notable number of legal processes involving priests who leave the ordained ministry for various reasons leads us to consider two categories concerning these functions: administrative and judicial. In this case, we are concerned with the dispensation from the obligations of priestly ordination and the resignation from the clerical state. Two very different canonical concepts; but which are confused because they have similar effects in practice.

Both canon 85 and canons 1311 and 1312 provide the definitions of the concept of dispensation and the concept of penalty:

Canon 85:

Dispensation, or relaxation of a merely ecclesiastical law in a particular case, may be granted within the limits of their competence, by those who have executive power, as well as by those to whom the power to dispense explicitly or implicitly belongs, either by proper right or by legitimate delegation.

Can. 1311

§ 1. The Church has the original and proper right to impose penal sanctions on the faithful who have committed offenses.

§ 2. Those who preside over the Church must safeguard and promote the good of the same community and of each of the faithful with pastoral charity, the example of life, counsel and exhortation, and, if necessary, also with the imposition or declaration of penalties, in accordance with the precepts of the law, which are always to be applied with canonical equity, and bearing in mind the restoration of justice, the amendment of the offender, and the reparation of scandal.

Can. 1312

§ 1. Penal sanctions in the Church are:

Medicinal penalties or censures, which are indicated in cc. 1331-1333;
Expiatory penalties, which are dealt with in c. 1336.

§ 2. The law may establish other expiatory penalties, which deprive a faithful of some spiritual or temporal good, and are in conformity with the supernatural end of the Church.

§ 3. Penal remedies and penances are also employed, indicated in cc. 1339 and 1340: the former, especially, to prevent offenses; the latter, rather, to apply them in place of a penalty, or to increase it.

For better understanding, we offer the following comparative table:

Dispensation	Penalty
It is a relaxation of the law to help the faithful to better live their Christian life. It is a grace, that is: a magnanimous act of the authority in consideration of a very special situation. A grace, a gift or a present cannot be given for the commission of an offense. Dispensation and offense are repugnant to each other. The dispensation may be requested by the interested party or granted motu proprio by the authority. It is at the discretion of the authority to grant it or not.	It is a punishment for the commission of an offense. It is the conclusion of a legitimate process in which the fundamental rights of the parties have been observed. An offense must be typified in a penal law. A penalty or punishment cannot be imposed if there is no law that describes a conduct as a juridical offense. Obviously, the offender does not request the penalty, nor can it be imposed at the whim of the authority, but by the command of the juridical system. The judge must act in accordance with the penal law, should not act discretionally, unless authorized by the law.

Dispensation

Penalty

It is a relaxation of the law to help the faithful to better live their Christian life.
It is a grace, that is: a magnanimous act of the authority in consideration of a very special situation.
A grace, a gift or a present cannot be given for the commission of an offense. Dispensation and offense are repugnant to each other.
The dispensation may be requested by the interested party or granted motu proprio by the authority.
It is at the discretion of the authority to grant it or not.

It is a punishment for the commission of an offense.
It is the conclusion of a legitimate process in which the fundamental rights of the parties have been observed.
An offense must be typified in a penal law. A penalty or punishment cannot be imposed if there is no law that describes a conduct as a juridical offense.
Obviously, the offender does not request the penalty, nor can it be imposed at the whim of the authority, but by the command of the juridical system.
The judge must act in accordance with the penal law, should not act discretionally, unless authorized by the law.

In the case of priests who leave the ministry, both dispensation and resignation coincide in that the ministerial activity in the Church ceases and they generally remain apt to contract marriage canonically.

However, granting a dispensation, as if it were a gift or magnanimous gesture, to an offender or to someone with a pending canonical trial in the Church is:

A grave assault on the holiness of the Church.
A denaturalization of the Church’s juridical condition.
Equivalent to giving a blessing as a consequence of an offense.
A disruptive and illegal act committed by the authority, whatever it may be.
A falsification of the genuine law of the Church.
Spiritually non-binding.
Promotion of anti-juridicality with political motivations.
A form of establishing impunity.

By contrast, something similar must also be said of a resignation illegally imposed:

It has no spiritual effect.
It denotes a corrupt juridical system for the sake of spurious political advantages.
It demonstrates that a certain juridical system is not civilized, but primitive.
It implies contempt for human dignity.
Since resignation from the clerical state is one of the maximum penalties in the Church, comparable to the death penalty in secular systems, its arbitrary application would be a grave crisis of corruption.
Of course, it would not be pro-life at all.

Using dispensation to frustrate penal processes in the Church is the same as the subversion of the canonical juridical system. This would be extremely serious and would disqualify any authority, especially now that there is a canonist occupying the chair of Peter and all temporal authority in the Church is subject to him.