Excommunication in the Catholic Church: the complete guide

For many people, the word excommunication evokes images of the Spanish Inquisition, complete with rack and rope and perhaps even burning at the stake. While excommunication is a serious matter, the Catholic Church does not consider excommunication as a punishment, strictly speaking, but as a corrective measure. Just as a parent could grant a child a "time out" or "root" him to help him think about what he has done, the point of excommunication is to call the person excommunicated to repentance and return him to full communion with the Catholic Church through the sacrament of confession.

But what exactly is excommunication?

Excommunicate in one sentence
Excommunicates, writes Fr. John Hardon, SJ, in his modern Catholic dictionary, is "An ecclesiastical censure with which one is more or less excluded from communion with the faithful".

In other words, excommunication is the way in which the Catholic Church expresses serious disapproval for an action taken by a baptized Catholic who is gravely immoral or in some way publicly questions or undermines the truth of the Catholic faith. Excommunication is the most serious penalty that the Church can impose on a baptized Catholic, but it is imposed out of love for both the person and the Church. The point of excommunication is to convince the person that his action was wrong, so that he could feel sorry for the action and reconcile with the Church and, in the case of actions that cause a public scandal, do others are aware that the action of the person is not considered acceptable by the Catholic Church.

What does it mean to be excommunicated?
The effects of the excommunication are established in the Code of Canon Law, the rules on which the Catholic Church is governed. Canon 1331 states that "A person excommunicated is prohibited"

Have a ministerial participation in the celebration of the sacrifice of the Eucharist or other religious ceremonies of any kind;
Celebrate the sacraments or sacramentals and receive the sacraments;
To exercise offices, ministries or ecclesiastical functions of any kind or to place acts of government.
The effects of the excommunication
The first effect applies to the clergy: bishops, priests and deacons. For example, a bishop who has been excommunicated cannot confer the sacrament of Confirmation or participate in the ordination of another bishop, priest or deacon; an excommunicated priest cannot celebrate mass; and an excommunicated deacon cannot preside over the sacrament of marriage or take part in a public celebration of the sacrament of Baptism. (There is an important exception to this effect, noted in Canon 1335: "the ban is suspended whenever it is necessary to take care of the faithful in danger of death." So, for example, an excommunicated priest can offer Last Rites and listen to the final confession of a dying Catholic.)

The second effect applies to both clergy and lay people, who cannot receive any of the sacraments while they are excommunicated (except for the Sacrament of Confession, in cases where Confession is sufficient to remove the penalty of excommunication).

The third effect applies mainly to the clergy (for example, an excommunicated bishop cannot exercise his normal authority in his diocese), but also to lay people who perform public functions on behalf of the Catholic Church (say, a teacher in a Catholic school). ).

What is not the excommunication
The point of excommunication is often misunderstood. Many people think that when a person is excommunicated, "he is no longer Catholic." But just as the Church can only excommunicate someone if it is a baptized Catholic, the excommunicated person remains Catholic after his excommunication - unless, of course, he specifically excuses himself (i.e. completely renounces the Catholic Faith). In the case of apostasy, however, it is not the excommunication that does not make him more Catholic; it was his conscious choice to leave the Catholic Church.

The goal of the Church in any excommunication is to convince the excommunicated person to return to full communion with the Catholic Church before he dies.

The two types of excommunication
There are types of excommunication known by their Latin names. A ferendae sententiae excommunication is that which is imposed on a person by a Church authority (usually his bishop). This type of excommunication tends to be quite rare.

The most common type of excommunication is called latae sententiae. This type is also known in English as "automatic" excommunication. An automatic excommunication occurs when a Catholic takes part in certain actions considered so seriously immoral or contrary to the truth of the Catholic faith that the same action shows that he has cut himself out of full communion with the Catholic Church.

How do you incur automatic excommunication?
Canon law lists some of these actions which result in automatic excommunication. For example, apostatizing oneself from the Catholic faith, publicly promoting heresy or engaging in schism, that is, rejecting the authority proper to the Catholic Church (Canon 1364); throw away the consecrated species of the Eucharist (the guest or the wine after they have become the Body and Blood of Christ) or "keep them for sacrilegious purposes" (Canon 1367); physically attack the pope (Canon 1370); and undergoing an abortion (in the case of the mother) or paying for an abortion (Canon 1398).

Furthermore, the clergy can receive an automatic excommunication, for example, by revealing the sins that were confessed to them in the Sacrament of Confession (Canon 1388) or by participating in the consecration of a bishop without the pope's approval (Canon 1382).

Is it possible to lift an excommunication?
Since the central point of the excommunication is to try to convince the excommunicated person to repent of his action (so that his soul is no longer in danger), the hope of the Catholic Church is that any excommunication will eventually be lifted, and sooner rather than after. In some cases, such as automatic excommunication to procure an abortion or apostasy, heresy or schism, the excommunication can be raised through a sincere, complete and contrite confession. In others, such as those advocated for sacrilege against the Eucharist or violation of the seal of the confessional, the excommunication can only be lifted by the pope (or his delegate).

A person who is aware that he has been subjected to an excommunication and wants the excommunication to be lifted should first contact his parish priest and discuss particular circumstances. The priest will advise him on what steps would be needed to lift the excommunication.

Am I in danger of being excommunicated?
The average Catholic is unlikely to be in danger of excommunication. For example, private doubts about the doctrines of the Catholic Church, if not publicly expressed or taught as true, are not the same as those of heresy, let alone apostasy.

However, the growing practice of abortion among Catholics and the conversion of Catholics into non-Christian religions entail automatic excommunication. To be returned to full communion with the Catholic Church so that one can receive the sacraments, such excommunication should be revoked.

Famous bets
Many of the famous excommunications in history, of course, are those associated with various Protestant leaders, such as Martin Luther in 1521, Henry VIII in 1533 and Elizabeth I in 1570. Perhaps the most compelling story of the excommunication is that of the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV , excommunicated three times by Pope Gregory VII. Repenting his excommunication, Henry made a pilgrimage to the Pope in January 1077 and remained in the snow outside the Canossa Castle for three days, barefoot, fasting and wearing a shirt, until Gregory agreed to lift the excommunication.

The most famous excommunications of recent years occurred when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a supporter of the traditional Latin Mass and the founder of the Society of Saint Pius X, consecrated four bishops without the approval of Pope John Paul II in 1988. The Archbishop Lefebvre and the four all newly consecrated bishops suffered automatic excommunications, which were revoked by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

In December 2016, pop singer Madonna, in a segment of "Carpool Karaoke" on The Late Late Show With James Corden, claimed to have been excommunicated three times by the Catholic Church. While Madonna, who was baptized and raised Catholic, was often criticized by Catholic priests and bishops for sacrilegious songs and performances in her concerts, she was never officially excommunicated. It is possible that Madonna underwent an automatic excommunication for certain actions, but in this case this excommunication was never publicly declared by the Catholic Church.