Terminology Tuesday: RESERVED SINS

In conformity with the early practice, which restricted the administration of penance to a bishop, bishops in the RC Church have retained the right to ‘reserve’ certain sins to their own jurisdiction. The reservation may be either as to the sin or as to the censure—excommunication etc.—imposed on the sin, a distinction corresponding to that between the internal and external *forum. In the 1983 *Codex Iuris Canonici there are no longer any sins reserved by law. A penalty, however, can still be reserved, so that its remission can be obtained only through specified ecclesiastical authorities, such as diocesan bishops. A few very grave matters are reserved to the Pope, such as the throwing away of a consecrated *Host or the direct violation of the *seal of confession. A priest can absolve from any censures a penitent who is in danger of death, and any confessor can remit certain automatic censures under specific circumstances; in both these cases there may have to be recourse to a higher authority afterwards (cf. CIC (1983), cans. 976 and 1357). In the C of E the practice of such reservation of sins does not obtain.

Cross, F. L., & Livingstone, E. A. (Eds.). (2005). In The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed. rev., p. 1396). Oxford;  New York: Oxford University Press.