Reserved Delict

Reservation determines who is competent to handle a delict and under what special procedure. It does not itself establish that an accused person committed the offense, dispense with the preliminary investigation, eliminate the right of defense, or authorize punishment without proof. A reserved delict must also be distinguished from a sin whose sacramental absolution is reserved and from a censure whose remission is reserved; those are different juridical questions.

The 2021 norms retain the historical title 'Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith'; that institution is now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The norms apply in both the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches and expressly coordinate the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.^[1]

The norms cover delicts against the faith and specified more grave delicts against the Eucharist, Penance, and sacred ordination. They also reserve certain delicts against morals: a cleric's sexual delict with a minor below eighteen or with a person who habitually has imperfect use of reason, and a cleric's acquisition, possession, exhibition, or distribution of pornographic images of minors below eighteen for sexual gratification or profit.

The categories are defined by the canons and the proper norms, not by informal use of the phrase 'grave scandal.' Heresy, apostasy, and schism follow the distinct first-instance route stated in article 2. For the other more grave delicts, the ordinary or hierarch conducts the preliminary investigation when a report has at least the semblance of truth and then communicates the matter to the dicastery.^[2]

After receiving the acts, the dicastery may call the case to itself or direct the ordinary or hierarch how to proceed. A reserved case may be tried judicially or, where law permits, decided through an extrajudicial penal process. Special rules govern personnel, prescription, transmission of acts, appeals or recourses, and recourse to the Roman Pontiff in the most grave cases, always with the accused person's opportunity for defense.