The recent reform of the Normae or motu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela has required (in art. 20 §7) an obligatory and professional defense, even with the presence of advocates ex officio, in trials concerning delicta graviora that are undertaken under the competency of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith as a fitting manifestation of the right of defense in inflicting or declaring a penalty by means of an extrajudicial decree. This legislative choice, taken within the context of a progressive “judicialization” of the administrative penal procedure, involves an implicit confusion of the right to defense with procedural professional assistance, a confusion that not only makes the right to self-defense almost impossible (a right that is implicitly permitted in the CIC and is fully consolidated in the jurisprudence of the various international courts that are comparable to the DDF) but also raises many perplexities and problems that are contrary to the presumed interests of justice that support such a decision.