A penalty in Catholic canon law that is incurred automatically ('by the sentence already passed') at the moment the offense is committed, without a judgment being pronounced — as opposed to a ferendae sententiae penalty, which binds only after being imposed by a superior or court (can. 1314). The 1988 and 2026 excommunications in the SSPX story were declared as latae sententiae: the declarations state that the penalty had already been incurred by the act.[1]