In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a distinction is made between the internal forum,
where an act of governance is made without publicity, and the external forum, where the
act is public and verifiable.
In canon law, internal forum, the realm of conscience, is contrasted with the external
or outward forum; thus, a marriage might be null and void in the internal forum, but binding
outwardly, i.e.,in the external forum, for want of judicial proof to the contrary.
== Etymology == That the Church of Christ has judicial and
coercive power is plain from the constitution given to it by its Divine Founder (see ecclesiastical
courts).
This judicial jurisdiction is expressed by the word Forum, the Latin designation for
a place containing a tribunal of justice.
== Theoretical basis ==
As the Church is a perfect society, she possesses within herself all the powers necessary to
direct her members to the end for which she was instituted and she has a correlative right
to be obeyed by those subject to her.
This right is called jurisdiction, and it is the source of all the Church's action that
is not derived from the power of Sacred orders.
It is this jurisdiction which is the foundation of ecclesiastical law, both externally and
internally binding, and from Apostolic times it has been put into practice by the Church's
rulers.
The public judicial power of the Church is explicitly mentioned in Holy Scripture (Matt.
28:17), and the exercise of it is also recorded (Acts 15:29).
In other words, just as the civil state has the legitimate jurisdiction over its subjects
to guide them to the end for which it is instituted, because it is a perfect society, so likewise
the Church, being constituted by Christ as a perfect society, possesses within itself
all the powers necessary for lawfully and effectively attaining the end for which it
was established.
== Internal forum vs. external forum == As the power of the Church extends not only
to its individual members but also to the whole corporate body, not only to questions
concerning the conscience but also to the public actions of its subjects, ecclesiastical
jurisdiction is distinguished into that of the internal and external forum.
It may so chance that circumstances may bring about a conflict between the internal and
external forum.
Thus, for example, a marriage may be null and void in the forum of conscience, but binding
in the external forum for want of judicial proofs to the contrary, and vice versa.
== Internal forum == The jurisdiction of the internal forum deals
with questions concerning the welfare of individual Christians and with their relation to God.
Hence it is called the forum of conscience (Forum conscientiae).
It is also denominated the forum of Heaven (forum poli) because it guides the soul on
the path to God.
The internal forum is subdivided into the sacramental or penitential, which is exercised
in the tribunal of penance or at least is connected with it, and the extra penitential
forum.
Causes concerning the private and secret needs of the faithful can often be expedited outside
the sacramental confession.
Thus, vows may be dispensed, secret censures may be absolved, occult impediments of matrimony
may be dispensed outside of the tribunal of penance.
The internal forum deals therefore directly with the spiritual welfare of the individual
faithful.
It has reference to the corporate body only secondarily, in as much as the good of the
whole organization is promoted by that of the individual members.
Owing to the nature of the civil state and the end for which it was instituted, it has
no jurisdiction corresponding to the ecclesiastical forum of conscience.
=== Sacramental and non-sacramental internal forum ===
Within the internal forum a distinction is made between the sacramental internal forum
and the non-sacramental internal forum, according as matters are decided in the sacrament of
Penance, and thus additionally protected by the Seal of the Confessional, or outside of
the sacrament.
Thus the name of the parties in a marriage contracted in the external forum are noted
in a public register, but a marriage celebrated secretly is to be noted instead in a special
register kept in the secret archive of the diocesan curia.Sometimes power of governance
is given for the sacramental forum only: in each diocese a priest is to be appointed who
has the faculty, which he cannot delegate to others, of "absolving in the sacramental
forum outsiders within the diocese and members of the diocese even outside the territory
of the diocese from undeclared latae sententiae censures not reserved to the Apostolic See".In
the Roman Curia, the Apostolic Penitentiary has jurisdiction for matters of the internal
forum, both sacramental and non-sacramental, but in some instances its decisions hold also
in the external forum, as when, unless it states otherwise, a dispensation that it grants
in the non-sacramental internal forum from an occult impediment to marriage, is sufficient
even if the occult impediment later becomes public.
== External forum == The Church's jurisdiction in the external
forum has reference to matters touching the public and social good of the corporate body.
It corresponds, consequently, very closely to the powers exercised by civil magistrates
in affairs belonglng to their competence.
While the external forum may busy itself with the concerns of individuals, it does so only
in as far as these affect the public good.
Thus the absolution of sins belongs to the internal forum, but the concession of the
faculty for performing such absolution is an act of the external forum.
The jurisdiction of the external forum is subdivided into voluntary and necessary.
Voluntary, or extrajudicial, is that which a superior can exercise towards those who
invoke his power, or even against those who are unwilling, but without his using the formalities
prescribed in law.
Necessary or contentious jurisdiction is that which the judge employs in punishing crimes
or deciding disputes according to prescribed forms.
In general, the acts of jurisdiction of the external forum are the decision of disputes
concerning faith, morals or discipline, the making and enforcing of laws, the punishment
of transgressors of ecclesiastical statutes, and the like.
== Competency == The competence of the ecclesiastical forum
arises either from the persons or the cause to be judged.
As to persons, all clerics are subject to its judgments both in civil and criminal causes
(see clerical immunities).
As to causes: they may be purely civil, or ecclesiastical, or they may be mixed.
Purely civil causes would not of themselves properly belong to the Church's forum, as
she recognizes the full competence of the state in such matters.
Accidentally, however, such causes might be brought before the ecclesiastical judge.
This supposes, however, the practical recognition of the Church's forum by the civil power.
Ecclesiastical causes themselves are called civil when they concern either spiritual things,
as the sacraments, or matters connected with them, as church property, the right of patronage,
etc.
They are called criminal when they involve the dealing with delinquents guilty of simony,
apostasy, schism and the like.
They are called mixed causes when they are subjects proper for decision by either the
ecclesiastical or civil forum, as usurious contracts, concubinage, violations of the
Church's peace, etc.
Causes are likewise called mixed when they have both a spiritual and temporal end.
Thus matrimony, in its sacramental nature as to validity or nullity, belongs to the
Church; in its temporal aspect, as to the property of married persons and similar things,
it may be dealt with by the civil tribunals.
To this class of mixed causes can also be reduced the suppression of heresy, where Church
and State cooperate with each other for the maintenance of the integrity or the faith
and the preservation of the civil peace.
Finally, many causes, of their nature civil, are accounted mixed by canonists, either because
the State relinquished them to the Church's tribunals or custom gradually caused them
to be relegated to the ecclesiastical forum, such as the recognition of last wills and
testaments, the care of the poor, etc.
== Punishments == The punishments which may be inflicted by
the external ecclesiastical forum are not only spiritual as excommunication, but also
temporal or corporal.
As regards the infliction of the death penalty, canonists generally hold that ecclesiastical
law forbids inferior church tribunals to decree this punishment directly, but that the pope
or a general council has the power, at least indirectly, in as much as they can demand
that a Catholic state inflict this punishment when the good of the Church requires it.
Finally, they hold that there is no valid argument to prove that the direct exercise
of this power does not fall within the competence of the ecclesiastical forum, although it was
the custom of the latter to hand over the criminal to the secular arm for the infliction
of the death penalty.
The encroachments of the civil power on the Church's jurisdiction have in our days, practically
though unwarrantly, restricted the ecclesiastical forum to spiritual causes only.
== Oriental and Latin canon law ==
The distinction between the internal forum and the external forum is recognized in Canon
980 §1 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which states
The power of governance is exercised in the external forum or in the internal sacramental
or non-sacramental forum.
and in Canon 130 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which states
Of itself, the power of governance is exercised for the external forum; sometimes, however,
it is exercised for the internal forum alone, so that the effects which its exercise is
meant to have for the external forum are not recognized there, except insofar as the law
establishes it in determined cases.
== "Internal forum solution" == The term "internal forum" is sometimes used
in connection with the controversial so-called "internal forum solution" claimed to justify
reception of Holy Communion by someone who is convinced that a former marriage was invalid,
but who cannot prove this externally so as to obtain a declaration of nullity.
This is not a canonical solution.
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
This article incorporates text from the 1910 version of the New Catholic Dictionary article
"Forum", a publication now in the public domain.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: WILLIAM H.W.
FANNING (1913).
"Ecclesiastical Forum".
In Herbermann, Charles.
Catholic Encyclopedia.
New York: Robert Appleton.
== External links == John P. Beal, James A. Coriden, Thomas J.
Green, New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (Paulist Press 2002 ISBN 9780809140664)