I. SACRILEGE is defined to be the irreverent treatment of sacred persons, places, and things. The irreverence consists in doing something which is specially repugnant to the sanctity of the object in respect of its sacred character. A person, place, or thing becomes sacred by being dedicated to the service of God by public authority, for it does not seem possible that the dedication of an object to God by private authority should be able to lay an obligation on others to treat it with the reverence due to sacred things. Such an effect requires public authority.
Objects become sacred in consequence of being dedicated to God's service by an authorized person according to the form prescribed by the Church. Not every form of blessing, however, makes the blessed object sacred. We must distinguish between blessings which invoke the divine favour on the use of certain things, but which do not make them sacred, and blessings which hallow and consecrate the object so that it can no more be lawfully used for profane purposes. Food, or candles, or holy water, which are blessed in the former way, do not thereby become sacred, and may still be used for ordinary purposes; churches, chalices, and baptismal water are consecrated by special blessings and may only be used for the purposes to which they are dedicated (Can. 1147-1150).
The sanctity which belongs to a consecrated person is different from that which belongs to holy places, and this again is different from that which belongs to sacred things. So that the sins by which sacred persons, places, and things are violated are specifically different from each other. Theologians dispute whether these three species of sacrilege contain other lower species or whether they are themselves the lowest. Many of them hold that they are the lowest, and this seems to be the opinion of St Thomas.[1]
2. Sacrilege in all its species is a grave sin of itself, inasmuch as irreverence shown to sacred things redounds to the dis-
- ↑ Summa, 2-2, q. 99, a. 3, ad 2.
