Archbishop Burke explains the Archdiocesan Penitentiary

In the announcement of the new assignments of priests, which was published in last week’s edition of the St. Louis Review, you may have noticed that Father James Ramacciotti, member of the faculty at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary and Defender of the Bond at the Tribunal of Second Instance of the Saint Louis Province, was also appointed to the office of Archdiocesan Penitentiary. Reading Father Ramacciotti’s new title, you may have wondered whether he was going to be involved with some kind of ecclesiastical law enforcement.

The priestly office of Penitentiary is not well known and requires a bit of explanation. It does not have to do with any kind of law enforcement but involves assistance given to those who have incurred an ecclesiastical sanction, for example, excommunication, which has not been declared publicly, in order that they be absolved in the Sacrament of Penance and, thereby, restored to the full communion of the Church.

In his Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum caritatis, "On the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission," in the section on the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Pope Benedict XVI wrote: "Given the need to rediscover sacramental forgiveness, there ought to be a Penitentiary in every Diocese"(no. 21). My appointment of Father Ramacciotti as Archdiocesan Penitentiary is a response to the Holy Father’s directive. How will Father Ramacciotti help us "to rediscover sacramental forgiveness?"

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The office of Archdiocesan Penitentiary is treated in can. 508, §2, of the Code of Canon Law. The Archdiocesan Penitentiary has the faculty, connected to his office, of absolving individuals in the sacramental forum from automatic (latae sententiae) censures which have not been declared and are not reserved to the Holy See.

The faculty can be exercised on behalf of individuals residing in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis and also on behalf of individuals from outside the Archdiocese, when they are visiting in the Archdiocese. It can also be exercised on behalf of individuals from the Archdiocese when they are traveling outside of the territory of the Archdiocese (can. 508, §1; cf. can. 1314).

The faculty of the Archdiocesan Penitentiary cannot be delegated (can. 508, §1). Also, the same priest cannot be, at one and the same time, the Archdiocesan Penitentiary and Vicar General or Episcopal Vicar (can. 478, §2).
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