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| Duccio, "Assumption" |
1376: A person who profanes a sacred object, moveable or immovable, is to be punished with a just penalty.
1380: A person who through simony celebrates or receives a sacrament, is to be punished with an interdict or suspension.
1384: A person who, apart from the cases mentioned in cann. 1378 - 1383, unlawfully exercises the office of a priest or another sacred ministry, may be punished with a just penalty.
1385: A person who unlawfully traffics in Mass offerings is to be punished with a censure or other just penalty.
1386: A person who gives or promises something so that some one who exercises an office in the Church would unlawfully act or fail to act, is to be punished with a just penalty; likewise, the person who accepts such gifts or promises.
1398: A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.
The question arises: how does the objective gravity of the above-mentioned offenses and abuses directly affect the safeguarding of the MBS? For example, this last-mentioned Canon identifies the excommunication for someone who has actually procured an abortion. But how does this canon safeguard the MBS? One way it safeguards the MBS is that it alerts the offending, would-be communicant in no uncertain terms that he or she has been excommunicated and so must not approach to receive Holy Communion without first being absolved of the sanction.
Canon 916 is helpful here: Anyone who is conscious of grave sin may not celebrate Mass or receive the Body of the Lord without previously having been to sacramental confession, unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition, which includes the resolve to go to confession as soon as possible.
To complete the moral injunction, those who with full knowledge, deliberately consent to any of abuses in these canons must not approach the MBS without first being absolved.
Image: Duccio, "Assumption"
