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(Latin in, not, and regula, rule, i. e. not according to rule)
A canonical impediment directly impeding the reception of tonsure and Holy orders or preventing the exercise of orders already received. It is called a canonical impediment because introduced by ecclesiastical law, for the canons prescribe certain requisites for the licit reception of orders, e.g. moral probity, proper age, legitimate birth, knowledge proportionate to each order, integrity of body, mind, will, and faith. A defect in these qualities prescribed by church regulations is rightly called an irregularity. The direct effect of an irregularity is twofold: first, it prohibits the reception of orders and, second, prevents an order received from being licitly used. Indirectly it impedes one who has become irregular from obtaining an ecclesiastical benefice.
Irregularity is total when it prohibits the reception of any order and the exercise of every order already received. Such, for example, is the irregularity arising from voluntary homicide. If partial, it interferes with some exercise of an order or prevents only the ascent to a higher order. Thus, the absence of the left eye would not prevent one from ministering as a deacon, but he could not receive the priesthood, and a priest who lost his thumb would become irregular for sacrificing at the altar, but not for hearing confessions.
The former irregularity is of its nature enduring; the latter, existent only for a certain period, as a defect of age.
The main division of irregularities is into those which are the consequence of crime (ex delicto) and those which arise from defect (ex defectu), according as they have been imposed by law on account of crimes by reason of which a person becomes unworthy of the reception of orders or their exercise or have been imposed on account of certain defects which would be indecorous in a sacred minister. It is not to be supposed however that irregularity ex delicto has been directly and proximately imposed as a punishment; for when the Church declares one irregular on account of crime, she does not primarily intend the punishment of the guilty one, but rather desires to shield the sanctuary from profanation. As a consequence, irregularity ex delicto resolves itself logically into irrregularity ex defectu. The distinction, however, must be retained in practice, both on account of the laws of dispensation and because irregularity ex delicto is a result of wrongdoing. This distinction has been taken by canonists from a decree of Pope Innocent III (cap. "Accedens", xiv, X, "De purg. canon.").
In the primitive Church those who had performed public penance for a crime, whether notorious or secret, were not allowed to receive orders; and if already ordained were not admitted to higher orders. This was the first form of irregularity in the legislation of the Church, if we except certain prescriptions which appear in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:2; 5:22; Titus 1:6). After public penance had fallen into desuetude all faults were atoned for by private penance, and then began the distinction found in the "Corpus Juris Canonici" (c. xxxii, § 3, d. l) between public and private crimes, to the effect that the former produced irregularity, while the latter did not. This was the second form that irregularity assumed. At present, however, a different rule obtains, namely, that only those crimes which are expressly mentioned in law, whether they be public or private, can produce irregularity ex delicto; though it must be noted that crimes to which irregularity is attached on account of infamy do not make a person irregular if they remain secret, while the other crimes mentioned in law do produce irregularity, whether they be public or occult. For the incurring of irregularity ex delicto the act must be external, consummated, and of mortal gravity. Hence, if, on account of circumstances, the act be not a mortal sin, no irregularity is incurred; for while it is true that irregularity is not constituted precisely on account of crime, yet, as a matter of fact, it is never imputed unless there be a crime of mortal gravity. The exception to this rule is homicide, which may sometimes make a person irregular when the fault is only venial. It is to be noted that penance cannot prevent the incurring of an irregularity. Suppose there be question of a doubtful crime. If the doubt be one concerning the <a href=