§ 148. a) Church Offences

Under the name of a church offence is understood, in church law, the violation by some external act of an existing church law—namely, when someone does something that he was not permitted to do, or fails to carry out something that, by his duty, he was not permitted to leave undone.

According to the differing duties that members of the church have within the church, the offences committed by clergy are distinguished from offences that laypeople can commit. The offences of clergy may concern either their particular office in the church, or the general duties that bind every Christian. Over both the one and the other the competent church authority has jurisdiction to judge; and insofar as some of these offences may encroach upon the sphere of general social life, the secular authority is also competent to judge those offences. As for the church offences of lay believers, the church regards them as sins in the spiritual sense, which as such fall under her internal court and so stand outside the circle of church law. But there are certain church offences which laypeople cannot commit without also falling under the external court of the church—namely, the offences that touch the foundation and the constitution of the church itself. For such offences the church subjects the offending laypeople to her external court, and her judgment on such offences has, and must have, legal significance; the secular authority, in such cases, merely establishes the offence committed and subjects it to penalties under the law.