Infamy
infamy
(Latin: in, not; fama, reputation)
A vindictive, canonical penalty by which one is deprived in whole or part of good name, on account of grave moral fault or crime, often accompanied by public disgrace. Both clerics and laics may be subject to infamy. Canonically there are two kinds, infamia juris (infamy of or by law) and infamia facti (infamy of or by fact). Infamy of law is that resulting from an explicit pronouncement of the law, as a penalty for certain crimes, such as apostasy, heresy, schism. Infamy of fact is that arising from crime committed or immoral character, followed by loss of reputation among serious, right-minded Catholics. Canon law enumerates the grave effects of infamy, such as irregularity, disqualification for ecclesiastical office, exclusion from the Holy Eucharist, etc. Infamy of law ceases only by dispensation of the Holy See; infamy of fact, by penance and amendment, causing reestablishment of lost reputation, in the judgment of the bishop.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Infamy
(Lat. in, not, and fama, fame.)
Infamy is loss of a good name. When this has been brought about by regular legal process, terminating in a conviction in a court of justice, no injury is done to the criminal by publishing the fact. The same thing can be said when the scandalous repute in which a person is held is matter of common knowledge. The canon law seems to require a pre-existing public opinion against an individual before the investigation in a judicial inquiry can be narrowed to any particular person. Infamy in the canonical sense is defined as the privation or lessening of one’s good name as the result of the bad rating which he has, even among prudent men. It constitutes an irregularity, i.e. a canonical impediment which prevents one being ordained or exercising such orders as he may have already received.
It is twofold in species, infamy of law (infamia juris) and infamy of fact (infamia facti).
Infamy of law is contracted in one of three ways. Either the law itself attaches this juridical ineligibility and incapacity to the commission of certain crimes, or makes it contingent upon the decision of a judge, or finally connects it with the penalty imposed by him. This kind of infamy is incurred chiefly by those guilty of duelling (whether as principals or seconds), rape (as likewise those who co-operate in it), attempt to marry during the lifetime of the actual consort, heresy, real simony, etc. Infamy of law may be removed either by canonical purging or by application to the Holy See.
Infamy of fact is the result of a widespread opinion, by which the community attributes some unusually serious delinquency, such as adultery or the like, to a person. This is more of an unfitness than an irregularity properly so called, unless sentence in court has been pronounced. It ceases therefore when one has shown by a change of life extending over a period of two or probably three years that his repentance is sincere.
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TAUNTON, The Law of the Church (London, 1906); SLATER, Manual of Moral Theology (New York, 1908); GASPARRI, De Sacra Ordinatione (Paris, 1893); WERNZ, Jus Decretalium (Rome, 1904).
JOSEPH F. DELANYTranscribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York