Outside the Communion

This past June Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, announced that “all women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos (catholic.org)” through embryonic stem cell research, which results in the death of the human embryo, are automatically excommunicated. Such research practices are tantamount to performing abortions, which also incurs automatic excommunication.

Many people, no doubt, see excommunication only as an extreme reaction towards someone who doesn’t agree with the Catholic Church. It is actually much more than that.

Anathema

Since the beginning of the Church, there have been circumstances that necessitated a baptized person being ejected from the community. St. Paul used his authority with the Corinthian church to demand that a man be exiled from the congregation until he repented of his incestuous activity, which was seriously disturbing the church. When the man finally did repent, St. Paul encouraged the Corinthians to once again accept him as a brother.

This has always been the purpose of excommunication: “to seriously motivate the offender to repent (wikipedia.org).”

The term for this exclusion from the community in the early church was anathema. Originally, the word in Hebrew meant a person or thing dedicated to God and unable to be redeemed. This took on the connotation of being dedicated to destruction, since the item was usually a sacrifice or something placed under a ban. The word is frequently translated as accursed, as something doomed to destruction was considered to be.

Excommunio

The Latin words for excommunication are excommunio and excommunicatio, which literally mean, out of communion or exclusion from communion. According to newadvent.org, such censure meant “the guilty Christian [was denied] all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society.” He could no longer enjoy the spiritual and material benefits of belonging to the community of believers. Although he was still a Christian—because his baptism was irrevocable—he could no longer participate in the liturgy, receive the sacraments, or even associate with other believers. (The ban on association has since been lifted.) If he died while under censure, he could not receive Christian burial or be assured of heaven. Also he could not benefit from the official prayers of the Church, indulgences, sacramentals, etc.

In the case of a cleric, he lost his office (jurisdiction), his material support from the Church, his participation in tribunals (except as a witness for another party) and his privilege of administering the sacraments. The only exception concerning administration of the sacraments was if one of the faithful were in danger of death.

Perhaps worse, but not as appreciated, were the loss of the spiritual benefits of unity with the Church. “In the first centuries excommunication is not regarded as a simple external measure; it reaches the soul and the conscience. It is not merely the severing of the outward bond which holds the individual to his place in the Church; it severs also the internal bond, and the sentence pronounced on earth is ratified in heaven.” The truth of this is so essential to understand that at least two popes condemned propositions that claimed excommunication was only external. “Undoubtedly the Church cannot (nor does it wish to) oppose any obstacle to the internal relations of the soul with God; she even implores God to give the grace of repentance to the excommunicated. The rites of the Church, nevertheless, are always the providential and regular channel through which Divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclusion from such rites, especially from the sacraments, entails therefore regularly the privation of this grace, to whose sources the excommunicated person has no longer access.”

In being cut off from Christ’s fold, the person is without spiritual nourishment. Without grace, an individual is prey to the evil one and more easily snared due to spiritual malnutrition. This is a dire situation for a soul.

Harm to the Laity

The second reason excommunication exists is to protect the Faithful. The example and/or teaching of those guilty of serious sin hurt the Church. “The right to excommunicate is an immediate and necessary consequence of the fact that the Church is a society. Every society has the right to exclude and deprive of their rights and social advantages its unworthy or grievously culpable members, either temporarily or permanently. This right is necessary to every society in order that it may be well administered and survive. The fundamental proof, therefore, of the Church's right to excommunicate is based on her status as a spiritual society, whose members, governed by legitimate authority, seek one and the same end through suitable means. Members who, by their obstinate disobedience, reject the means of attaining this common end deserve to be removed from such a society. This rational argument is confirmed by texts of the New Testament, the example of the Apostles, and the practice of the Church from the first ages down to the present.”

Separating those who teach and practice heresy against the Catholic faith is a matter of being good shepherds who keep the wolves from attacking and destroying the sheep. The purpose of the Church is to maintain and impart the truths that Jesus gave His apostles so that souls may be saved and gain heaven. Purity of doctrine is essential to that mission.

Historical Evolution

There are not many things nowadays for which people are excommunicated. Although it was the standard action taken in the early church for laypeople guilty of grave infractions of church teaching, clerics were deposed of their office and reduced in status to laity. “By the sixth century, one who sinned seriously was permanently alienated from the Eucharist and general church life unless he or she did extended public penance and was sacramentally reconciled (Ekstrom, Reynolds R., The New Concise Catholic Dictionary, 1982).”As the practice of public penance waned and ecclesiastical disciplinary methods changed, bishops grew more abusive in wielding excommunications. “From the ninth century on, excommunication became gradually an ever more powerful means of spiritual government, a sort of coercive measure ensuring the exact accomplishment of the laws of the Church and the precepts of her prelates. Excommunication was either threatened or inflicted in order to secure the observance of fasts and feasts, the payment of tithes, the obedience of inferiors, the denunciation of the guilty, also to compel the faithful to make known to ecclesiastical authority matrimonial impediments and other information.” Due to the numerous cases of excommunication, the practice was reduced to contempt.

In an effort to subdue the abuse and stop the scandal it was causing among the lay people, the Council of Trent recommended “to all bishops and prelates more moderation in the use of censures,” exhorting them to only use it in serious instances and after much diligent reflection.

With such strong encouragement to refrain from employing excommunication for reasons of coercion, the practice became increasingly rare.

Offenses against the Faith

The instances resulting in automatic excommunication (“incurred as soon as the offence is committed and by reason of the offence itself”) are as follows:

1. Apostasy,
2. Heresy,
3. Schism,
4. Desecration of the Eucharist,
5. Physical force against the Pope,
6. Attempted sacramental absolution of a partner in adultery,
7. Ordination of a bishop without a Papal mandate (e.g. all bishops in the government-run Chinese Patriotic Church),
8. Violation of the sacramental seal of confession by a priest or bishop,
9. For non-electors present in the conclave, revelation of the details of the conclave,
10. Simoniacal provision of the Papal office, and
11. Procurement of a completed abortion [and now, participating in embryonic stem cell research].

(Wikipedia.org)

Observance of automatic excommunications are incumbent upon those committing the offence, unless and until the offender is submitted for trial and declared excommunicated by an appropriate authority.

A lesser punishment for infractions of less serious matters is interdiction. In the new Code of Canon Law, it is a penalty applied to individuals that prohibits them from “taking part in services or receiving sacraments or sacramentals (Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Dictionary, Fr. Peter Stravinskas, ed., 1993). For example, a person who lies under oath to a church official would be subject to interdict.

Hope for the Repentant

As stated earlier, it is the hope and prayer of the Church that those who bring excommunication or interdiction upon themselves would repent. Infractors are warned and, if need be, given a specified period of time in which to be reconciled with the Church. If they refuse, the Church declares them excommunicated. The only prayers to be said for them are ones beseeching their return to the Catholic faith. It is sincerely hoped that being severed from the Body of Christ will result in contrition and repentance and finally restoration as loyal members of Christ’s Church.

After signs of true repentance, absolution can be received, depending on the offense, from the Pope or his representative, or, a bishop or his representative.

As Jesus prayed, so His Church continues to pray: “That they may all be one ”

Editor’s Note

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from newadvent.org.