Dispensation, the remission of a law in a particular case by competent authority. It is generally admitted, even by the most extreme of the Roman Catholic canonists, that no dispensation from the natural and moral law can be granted by any human power (Liguori, Theol. Moral. vi. 1119). On the other hand, it is generally held that the pope can dispense from oaths and vows, because in this case the obligation is founded upon an act of free human will, which the pope may annul. Further, with regard to positive divine laws—i.e. with regard to things which are not essentially good or evil, but which God has been pleased to command or prohibit by special revelation, it is held that the pope may declare that a particular case does not really fall under the law. For the rest, the pope may dispense from the general laws of the church. He may, e.g., allow a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, for the prohibition is derived solely from the church law, the Mosaic code, as such, having no authority among Christians; and, therefore, the supreme authority in the church may dispense from it. Of such dispensations the most noteworthy was that allowing Henry VIII. to marry Catharine of Aragon. In the earlier periods of church history, bishops and provincial councils also dispensed from the general law of the church, but since the time of Innocent III. the pope alone can do so as a general rule, and bishops only in certain cases mentioned by the canon law, unless, indeed, they act as papal delegates. Papal dispensations, if they are of a public nature, are granted through the Apostolic Dataria; if they concern the secret tribunal of conscience, through the Penitentiary. Bishops, in the exercise of their ordinary power, dispense from the proclamation of bans, from certain 'irregularities' which impede ordination, from clerical residence, &c. Many canonists add that bishops may dispense in pressing cases, where recourse to the pope is impossible, and the approval of the pope may be certainly presumed. Besides this, in virtue of faculties which may be obtained from the pope for five years at a time, a bishop can dispense from the law of abstinence from flesh-meat, from all the ecclesiastical impediments which make marriage unlawful, and from some of those which nullify it, from most 'simple' vows, &c. The vicar-general can dispense in very few cases, except by commission of the bishop. During the vacancy of a see, the bishop's ordinary power of dispensation passes first to the chapter and then to the vicar-capitular. Parish priests, &c. have no power of dispensation. The Council of Trent (Sess. xxv. c. 18) requires that dispensations be given only for a 'just and urgent' cause, after full consideration, and gratis. The last word, however, does not exclude the payment of the statutory fees.
In the English Church, papal dispensations were swept away by 25 Henry VIII. chap. 21. The Archbishop of Canterbury grants special licenses for marriage, and the bishop of the diocese may dispense a clergyman from residence, or grant him leave to hold more than one living.
In civil matters, the dispensing power of the crown, grossly abused by James II., was abolished by the Bill of Rights, and the sovereign's power of pardoning criminals is the sole form of it which is left.
The term dispensation is also used in Mosaic or Jewish dispensation, Christian or gospel dispensation, for the systems of rights and duties imposed by Providence under the Old Testament economy and that of the New respectively.