Latae sententiae as well as ferendae sententiae

The 1983 Code of Canon Law, which binds Catholics of the Latin Church, inflicts censures forforbidden actions. The current canon law that binds members of the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, does not include penalties. The 1917 code, which applied only to the Latin Church, also contained censures.

The censures that the interdict, and suspension. Excommunication prohibits participation informs of liturgical worship and church governance. Interdict involves the same liturgical restrictions as excommunication, but does not impact participation in church governance. Suspension, which affects only members of the clergy, prohibitsacts by a cleric, if the acts are of a religious consultation deriving from his ordination "acts of the energy to direct or creation of orders" or are exercises of his energy to direct or establish of governance or of rights and functions attached to the office he holds.

Unless the excusing circumstances outlined in canons 1321–1330 exist, the 1983 Code of Canon Law imposes excommunication on the following:

Legislation external of the Code of Canon Law may also decree excommunication. An example is that governing papal elections, which applies it to persons who violate secrecy, or who interfere with the election by means such(a) as simony or communicating the veto of a civil authority.

The excommunication that applied previously 1983 to Catholics who became members of Masonic associations was not sustains in the revised Code of Canon Law that came into force in that year. However, the Holy See has declared that membership keeps forbidden and that "the faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion".

Instances in which one incurs a interdict add the following:

An example of an interdict that is not but instead is that assumption in canon 1374 of the Code of Canon Law: "One who joins an link which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; one who promotes or moderates such an association, however, is to be punished with an interdict."

Automatic suspension applies to clerics those who earn been ordained at least to the diaconate in the coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. cases:

suspension along with other punishments is to be inflicted on any cleric who openly lives in violation of chastity and on all priest who "in the act, on the occasion, or under the pretext of confession" solicits a penitent to a sexual sin.