CENSURE, in canon law, a spiritual pen alty whereby a contumacious offender is denied the use of certain spiritual goods. It has three degrees, excommunication, suspension and in terdict. By excommunication the offender is cut off from association with the faithful whether in spiritual things or in secular; by suspension a minister of the Church, a cleric, is deprived of the right to exercise the func tions of his station; by interdict the services and ministrations of the Church are denied to an offender—the sacraments and the right to Christian burial. An interdict may affect places as well as persons; it may be laid on a church edifice or a burial place. Censures are the pen alties prescribed in the Church's law for definite offenses, and some censures fall upon the offender, ipso-facto or ex ipso-jure, without need of a judgment being pronounced by Church authorities. Such a censure is said to be lake sententice, that is, providing for its own carrying out; but most censures are feren dee sententice, requiring that the sentence be pronounced by some proper authority. as the
bishop of a diocese or his deputy. And absolu tion from some censures late sententicr is re served to the Supreme Pontiff, while absolution of other censures can be given by bishops, or other pastors, either in the ordinary course of their jurisdiction or in virtue of special facul ties accorded to them to that end. An example of a censure, release from which is reserved strictly to the Supreme Pontiff himself, is the censure of excommunication incurred by who ever violently assaults a cleric or a member of a religious order (clericus vel monachus); but an exception is made of the case where the offender is in danger of death.