The following was written by Fr. Paul Kramer.
CIC 1917, Book V Part I defines “the nature of a crime”:
LIBER QUINTUS.
DE DELICTIS ET POENIS.
PARS PRIMA.
DE DELICTIS.
TITULUS I.
De natura delicti eiusque divisione.
Can. 2195. §1. Nomine delicti, iure ecclesiastico, intelligitur externa et moraliter
imputabilis legis violatio cui addita sit sanctio canonica saltem indeterminata.
Likewise, in the 1983 Code, Canon 1321 § 1: “externa legis vel praecepti violatio”, which is “graviter imputabilis ex dolo vel ex culpa”.
Salza & Siscoe now claim: “The external act of heresy is, by its nature, a crime.” This is patently false: The nature of a crime in ecclesiastical law is of an external and morally imputable violation of a law or precept. It does not pertain to the nature of heresy that it is “an external and morally imputable violation of a law or precept”; and therefore, the proposition is false. The external act of heresy is a sin, and not a crime. The infallible de fide teaching of the Church is that the external public sin of formal heresy, suapte natura, separates the heretic from the body of the Church, and not by the authority of the Church because it is a crime, i.e. a violation of ecclesiastical law; because the nature of a crime does not pertain to the nature of the external act of heresy. Thus, Salza’s and Siscoe’s proposition that, «the sin of heresy disposes a person to be separated from the visible Church, but the actual separation does not take place until the Church itself renders a judgment […] and needless to say the judgment of the public sin must proceed from the proper authorities » — is a sententia hæretica.
Tony’s comment:
Unfortunately, there are many in the so-called Resistance that hold to John Salza and Robert Siscoe’s heretical proposition. This is a cancer in the so-called Resistance. It prevents them from recognizing the evident fact that Jorge Bergoglio is a public manifest formal heretic and therefore not a member of Catholic Church, let alone its head.
A sin is a crime against divine law, or am I mistaken here?
In a loose sense, you can say that a sin is a crime against Divine Law. However, in the strict sense, crime is a term used for human law.
Or is more accurate to say that crimes against divine law is a sin?
I would just leave the term “crime” out when referring to offences against Divine Law. Sin is the proper term for offences against Divine and Natural Law. As the Baltimore Catechism teaches, “Actual sin is any willful thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the law of God.”
http://www.intratext.com/ixt/ENG0104/_PE.HTM
Crime is the proper term for serious offences against human law.
That was one on my first tip-offs that Salza and Siscoe are not properly trained in Philosophy to be discussing these matters as if they are some types of authority figure. It is a shame there are Priests that put a blind trust in the research and theological interpretations of these two untrained…..men.