Excommunication in the Catholic Church

Excommunication is either a jure (by law) or ab homine (by judicial act of man, i.e. by a judge). The first is provided by the law itself, which declares that whosoever shall have been guilty of a definite crime will incur the penalty of excommunication. The second is inflicted by an ecclesiastical prelate, either when he issues a serious order under pain of excommunication or imposes this penalty by judicial sentence and after a criminal trial.[7]

Excommunication is either latæ sententiæ or ferendæ sententiæ.[7]

Latae sententiae excommunication is incurred as soon as the offence is committed and by reason of the offence itself (eo ipso) without intervention of any ecclesiastical judge; it is recognized in the terms used by the legislator, for instance: "the culprit will be excommunicated at once, by the fact itself [statim, ipso facto]".[7]

Ferendae sententiae excommunication is considered by the law as a penalty and is inflicted on the culprit only by a judicial sentence; in other words, the delinquent is rather threatened than visited with the penalty, and incurs it only when the judge has summoned him before his tribunal, declared him guilty, and punished him according to the terms of the law. It is recognized when the law contains these or similar words: "under pain of excommunication"; "the culprit will be excommunicated".[7]

Excommunication ferendæ sententiæ can be public only, as it must be the object of a declaratory sentence pronounced by a judge; but excommunication latæ sententiæ may be either public or occult.[7]

• An excommunication is public through the publicity of the law when it is imposed and published by ecclesiastical authority; it is public through notoriety of fact when the offence that has incurred it is known to the majority in the locality, as in the case of those who have publicly done violence to clerics, or of the purchasers of church property. This excommunication is valid in the forum externum and consequently in the forum internum.[7]
• Excommunication is occult when the offence entailing it is known to no one or almost no one. This excommunication is valid in the forum internum only.[7]

The practical difference of validities in the forums is very important:[7]

• He who has incurred occult excommunication should treat himself as excommunicated and be absolved as soon as possible, submitting to whatever conditions will be imposed upon him, but this only in the tribunal of conscience; he is not obliged to denounce himself to a judge nor to abstain from external acts connected with the exercise of jurisdiction, and he may ask absolution without making himself known either in confession or to the Sacred Penitentiaria. According to the teaching of Benedict XIV, "a sentence declaratory of the offence is always necessary in the forum externum, since in this tribunal no one is presumed to be excommunicated unless convicted of a crime that entails such a penalty".
• Public excommunication, on the other hand, is removed only by a public absolution; when it is question of simple publicity of fact (see above), the absolution, while not judicial, is nevertheless public, inasmuch as it is given to a known person and appears as an act of the forum externum.

Salaverri and Nicolau note:[9]

An excommunication [...] can be total or partial according as the excommunicated person is excluded from communion with the faithful in all or only in some of the good which fall under the jurisdiction of the Church.

Excommunication is either reserved or non-reserved. This division affects the absolution from censure. In the forum internum any confessor can absolve from non-reserved excommunications; but excommunications that are reserved can only be remitted, except through indult or delegation, by those to whom the law reserves the absolution.[7]

There is a distinction between excommunications reserved to the pope (these being divided into two classes, according to which they are either specially or simply reserved to him), and those reserved to bishops or ordinaries. As to excommunications ab homine, absolution from them is reserved by law to the judge who has inflicted them. In a certain sense, excommunications may also be reserved in view of the persons who incur them; thus, absolution from excommunications in foro externo incurred by bishops is reserved to the pope; again, custom reserves to him the excommunication of sovereigns.[7]

There is a difference between formal and material excommunication:[9]

An excommunication is a censure or penalty whereby a delinquent or obstinate person is excluded from the communion of the faithful, until after abandoning his contumacy he is absolved. That can be called formal which affects a man who is really delinquent and obstinate. But that can be said to be merely material, which concerns a subject who through invincible error is thought to be delinquent and obstinate when in reality he is not such.

An excommunication perfect or a perfect excommunication, is defined as follow:[10]

We call that excommunication perfect whereby the Apostolic See properly intends to separate a delinquent and obstinate person from the body of the Church. Therefore, besides the privation of spiritual goods which fall under the jurisdiction of the Church, a perfect excommunication implies, as its own special nature, this manifest intention of separating someone from the body of the Church. But because the dominant intention of the Church is "to impose an excommunication for healing and not for ruin," therefore, if by his contrition the excommunicated person recovers grace and charity, by that fact his excommunication ceases to be perfect, even though juridically he really remains an excommunicated person to be avoided, and he cannot licitly participate in the communion of the faithful until he is absolved.

Salaverri and Nicolau give the following summary of theological opinions on excommunication and membership:[11]

That those who have been excommunicated from the Church by a perfect excommunication are not members of the body of the Church is an opinion common among Catholics.

a) That the Church wishes indeed to punish by excommunication delinquent members, but de facto does not intend to separate the excommunicated from the body of the Church, although she says that they are to be avoided, is held by D'Herbigny, Dieckmann, Spacil, Sauras, with Báñez, Valentia, Suarez and Guamieri [sic, Guarnieri].

b) That those excommunicated with a partial excommunication are members of the Church is a common opinion among Theologians

Salaverri and Nicolau's opinion is that only those which have been excommunicated by a "total, formal and perfect excommunication" can be said to be outside of the Catholic Church.[12]

Catholic priest Joseph Krupp states that the person excommunicated is still considered Catholic and still has all the duties of that relationship, including going to Mass and the like. These persons are, however, to refrain from receiving Communion.[3]

Edward N. Peters states:[13]

Because excommunication can be imposed only on a Catholic (that is, one who is in full communion with the Church according to canon 205 [of the 1983 Code of Canon Law]), excommunication deprives one of the fullness of the communion that he or she previously enjoyed. [...] Excommunication does not mean that one is no longer a Christian (because Christian baptism imprints an indelible character on the soul) or no longer a Catholic (for although there are ways to renounce one's Catholic identity, excommunication is not one of them). It does mean, though, that one is deprived of the benefits of full communion with the Catholic Church.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki holds a similar view as that of Krupp and Peters.[14]

In Coena Domini was a recurrent papal bull between 1363 and 1770, formerly issued annually in Rome on Holy Thursday (in Holy Week), or later on Easter Monday. It included proscriptions against apostasy, heresy and schism, the falsification of apostolic briefs and papal bulls, violence done to cardinals, papal legates, nuncios; against piracy, against appropriating shipwrecked goods, and against supplying Saracens and Turks with war material. The custom of periodical publication of censures was an old one. The tenth canon of the Council of York (1195) ordered all priests to publish censures of excommunication against perjurers with bell and lighted candle thrice in the year. The Council of London in 1200 commanded the yearly publication of excommunication against sorcerers, perjurers, incendiaries, thieves and those guilty of rape.[20]

From the middle of the fifteenth century, dueling over questions of honor increased so greatly, that in 1551 the Council of Trent was obliged to enact the severest penalties against it. The malice of the duel lies in the fact that it makes right depend upon the fate of arms. Dueling was forbidden; and the prohibition extended to not only the principals, but their seconds, physicians expressly brought to attend upon the scene, and all spectators not accidentally present. The excommunication was incurred, not only when the parties actually fought, but as soon as they proposed or accepted a challenge. According to the council, those who took part in a duel were ipso facto excommunicated, and if they were killed in the duel they were to be deprived of Christian burial. These ecclesiastical penalties were at a later date repeatedly renewed and even in parts made more severe. Benedict XIV decreed that duelists should be denied burial by the Church even if they did not die on the dueling ground and had received absolution before death. It pronounced the severest ecclesiastical penalties against those princes who should permit dueling between Christians in their territories.[21]

When King John of England refused to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, he seized the lands of the archbishopric and other papal possessions. Pope Innocent III first sent a commission to negotiate with the king, and when that failed, place the kingdom under interdict. This prohibited the clergy from conducting religious services, with the exception of baptisms for the young, and last rites for the dying. King John responded by taking more church lands and their revenues. Innocent threatened the king with excommunication and in 1209 proceeded to excommunicate the King.[22]

The extension of the use of excommunication led to abuses. The penalty is designed to bring the sinner back to repentance. However, it could be abused, used as a political tool and even employed for the purposes of revenge—abuses of canon law. In 1304, John Dalderby, Bishop of Lincoln, excommunicated all those persons of Newport Pagnell who knew the whereabouts of Sir Gerald Salvayn's wayward falcon and failed to return it.[23]

Until the second half of the 19th century, excommunication was of two kinds, major and minor:[7]

• Minor excommunication does not exist anymore. A minor excommunication is uniformly defined by canonists and by Gregory IX as prohibition from receiving the sacraments, what theologians call the passive use of the sacraments. In order to receive the Eucharist and the other sacraments, those who had incurred this penalty had to be absolved therefrom; as it was not reserved, this could be done by any confessor. Indirectly, however, it entailed other consequences. The canon law taught that the priest who celebrates Mass while under the ban of minor excommunication sins grievously; also that he sins similarly in administering the sacraments; and finally, that while he can vote for others, he himself is ineligible to a canonical office. This is readily understood when we remember that the cleric thus excommunicated was presumed to be in the state of grievous sin, and that such a state is an obstacle to the lawful celebration of Mass and the administration of the sacraments.

• Major excommunication, which remains now the only kind in force.

Minor excommunication was really identical with the state of the penitent of olden times who, prior to his reconciliation, was admitted to public penance. Minor excommunication was incurred by unlawful intercourse with the excommunicated, and in the beginning no exception was made of any class of excommunicated persons. Owing, however, to many inconveniences arising from this condition of things, especially after excommunications had become so numerous, Martin V, by the constitution Ad evitanda (1418), restricted the aforesaid unlawful intercourse to that held with those who were formally named as persons to be shunned and who were therefore known as vitandi (Latin vitare, to avoid), also with those who were notoriously guilty of striking a cleric.[7]

But as the twofold category of minor and major excommunication was in modern times greatly reduced, little attention was paid to minor excommunication, and eventually it ceased to exist after the publication of the constitution Apostolicæ Sedis. The latter was silent concerning minor excommunication (by its nature an excommunication latæ sententiæ of a special kind); therefore, canonists concluded that minor excommunication no longer existed. This conclusion was formally ratified by the Holy Office (6 Jan., 1884, ad 4).[7]

Over time, the number of hypothetical situations envisioned by the moralists and canonists as ipso facto bringing about excommunication latae sententiae, had increased by a lot; Lucius Ferraris (18th century) numbers almost 200 of those possible situations. The principal ones were destined to protect the Catholic faith, the ecclesiastical hierarchy and its jurisdiction, and figured in the bull In Coena Domini read publicly each year in Rome, on Holy Thursday.[7]

In the preamble of the 1869 apostolic constitution Apostolicae Sedis, Pius IX stated that during the course of centuries, the number of censures latae sententiae had increased inordinately, that some of them were no longer expedient, that many were doubtful, that they occasioned frequent difficulties of conscience, and finally, that a reform was necessary. Apostolicae Sedis was a issued by Pope Pius IX on 12 October 1869. It revised the list of censures that in canon law were imposed automatically (latae sententiae) on offenders. It also reduced their number and clarified those preserved: all excommunications latæ sententiæ that Apostolicae Sedis did not mention were abolished.[7] The document also detailed which excommunications where reserved and to whom.[24]

In the 19th century, there are four more excommunications latæ sententiæ which were declared after the publication of Apostolicae Sedis moderationi:[7]

1. In 1872, a latae sententiae excommunication, non-reserved, was declared against missionaries, both regulars and seculars, of the East Indies (Farther Orient) or the West Indies (America) who devote themselves to commerce or who participate in it, and their immediate superiors, provincial or general, who fail to punish the culprits, at least by removal, and even after a single offense. This excommunication comes down from the Constitutions of Urban VIII, "Ex delicto" (February 22, 1633), and Clement IX, "Sollicitudo" (July 17, 1669), but was suppressed by reason of non-mention in the apostolic constitution Apostolicae Sedis; it was reestablished, however, at the request of the S. Cong. of the Inquisition, on December 4, 1872. This excommunication is non-reserved, but the culprit cannot be absolved prior to making restitution, unless he be at the point of death.[7]
2. The Constitution "Romanus Pontifex" (August 28, 1873), besides other penalties, declares excommunication latae senentiae reserved to the pope: 1) first, against the dignitaries and canons of cathedral churches (or those having the administration of vacant cathedrals) who would dare to concede and transfer the administration of their church with the title of vicar to the person elected by the chapter, or named or presented to said church by lay power; 2) second, against those so elected or presented; 3) and third, against all who aid, advise, or countenance the aforesaid offenders.[7]
3. Excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the pope against the members of the "Catholic Italian Society for the restoration of the rights of the Christian and especially of the Roman people", and against its promoters, supporters, and adherents (S. Peniten., August 4, 1876; Acta S. Sed., IX, 352). Amongst other rights this society proposed to restore popular participation in the election of the sovereign pontiff.[7]
4. In 1893, a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the ordinary was pronounced: it was against laymen (for ecclesiastics the penalty is suspension) who traffic in Mass-stipends and trade them with priests for books and other merchandise (S. Cong. of the Council, decree "Vigilanti studio", May 25, 1893).[7]

The early 20th century Catholic Encyclopedia notes that "[i]n recent times" the number of excommunications in force was greatly diminished, that a new method of absolving from them has been inaugurated, and that that thus, without change of nature, excommunication has become an exceptional penalty, reserved for very grievous offenses detrimental to Christian society.[7]

The 1917 Code of Canon Law entered into force in 1918.

In 1975 , Louis de Naurois referred to that excommunication as "the gravest penalty of all and the most frequent", and added that excommunication "is always medicinal".[2]

Since 1418, the Catholic Church formally differentiated between excommunicated persons tolerati ("tolerated") and those vitandi ("to be avoided"), when Pope Martin V clearly drew this distinction in his apostolic constitution Ad evitanda scandala.[7][16]

This distinction "was still found in canon law as late as the early 20th century, but it has been dropped from current law as being unworkable given the way modern societies are set up".[25]

The 1983 Code of Canon Law entered into force in 1983. The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches entered into force in 1991.

A person may be ferendae sententiae (i.e., upon judicial review) excommunicated if the person

1. tries to celebrate the Mass without being a priest (incurs, for Latin Catholics, also a latae sententiae interdict for laymen and suspension for clerics, can. 1378 § 2 no. 1, 1983 CIC; can. 1443 CCEO);
2. hears a Confession or tries to absolve without being able to absolve (for Latin Catholics; this does not, of course, include hindrances on the penitent's side for the mere hearing of the Confessions, and hidden hindrances on the penitent's side for absolutions; can. 1378 § 2 no. 1, 1983 CIC; incurs also a latae sententiae interdict for laymen and suspension for clerics);
3. breaks the Seal of the Confessional indirectly or as someone not the Confessor, e.g. an interpreter or one who overheard something that was said (for Latin Catholics, can. 1388 § 2 1983 CIC);
4. who breaks a penal law allowing excommunication that was enacted on local level, which the local authority, however, may only do with great caution and for grave offences (for Latin Catholics, can. 1318, 1983 CIC);
5. omits stubbornly, as an Eastern Catholic priest, the commemoration of the hierarch in the Divine Liturgy and Divine Praises (not mandatorily, can. 1438 CCEO);
6. commits physical violence against a patriarch or a metropolitan, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1445 § 1 CCEO);
7. incites sedition against any hierarch, especially a patriarch or the Pope, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1447 § 1, 1983 CIC, not mandatorily);
8. commits murder, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1450 § 1 CCEO);
9. kidnaps, wounds seriously, mutilates or tortures (physically or mentally) a person, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1451 CCEO, not mandatorily);
10. falsely accuses someone of a [canonical] offense, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1454 CCEO, not mandatorily);
11. tries to use the influence of secular authority to gain admission to Holy Orders or any function in the Church, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1460 CCEO, not mandatorily);
12. administers or receives a Sacrament, excluding Holy Orders, or any function in the Church through simony, as an Eastern Catholic (can. 1461 CCEO, not mandatorily).

The 1983 Code of Canon Law attaches the penalty of latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication to the following actions:

1. Apostates, heretics, and schismatics (can. 1364)
2. Desecration of the Eucharist (can. 1367)
3. A person who physically attacks the pope (can. 1370)
4. A priest who in confession absolves a partner with whom they have violated the sixth commandment [offenses against chastity] (can. 977, can. 1378)
5. A person who attempts to confer a holy order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive it (can. 1379)[lower-alpha 1][26][27]
6. A bishop who consecrates another bishop without papal mandate (can. 1382)
7. A priest who violates the seal of the confessional (can. 1388)
8. A person who procures an abortion (can. 1398)
9. Accomplices who were needed to commit an action that has an automatic excommunication penalty (can. 1329)

The answer is given in the customary rules of jurisdiction. The right to absolve belongs to him who can excommunicate and who has imposed the law, moreover to any person delegated by him to this effect, since this power, being jurisdictional, can be delegated. First, we must distinguish between excommunication ab homine, which is judicial, and excommunication a jure, i.e. latae sententiae. For the former, absolution is given by the judge who inflicted the penalty (or by his successor), in other words by the pope, or the bishop (ordinary), also by the superior of said judge when acting as judge of appeal.[7]

As to excommunication latae sententiae, the power to absolve is either ordinary or delegated. Ordinary power is determined by the law itself, which indicates to what authority the censure is reserved in each case. Delegated power is of two kinds: that granted in permanency and set down in the law and that granted or communicated by personal act, e.g. by authority (faculties) of the Roman Penitentiaria, by episcopal delegation for special cases, or bestowed upon certain priests.[7]

Unless the canon reserves removal of the penalty to the Holy See, the local ordinary can remit the excommunication, or he can delegate that authority to the priests of his diocese (which most bishops do in the case of abortion).[29]

An excommunicated person is forbidden to engage in certain activities enumerated in canon 1331 §1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. These precluded activities include any ministerial participation in celebrating the sacrifice of the Eucharist or any other ceremonies of worship whatsoever; the celebration and reception of the sacraments; and the exercise of any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions. The individual, furthermore, cannot validly acquire a dignity, office, or other function in the Church; may not appropriate the benefits of a dignity, office, any function, or pension, which the offender has in the Church; and is forbidden to benefit from privileges previously granted.[41]

Salaverri and Nicolau state that "the internal supernatural goods, such as sanctifying grace and the infused virtues, are not taken away by the censure [excommunication] itself".[9]

Luther was critical because he thought the existing practice commingled secular and ecclesiastical punishments. To Luther, civil penalties were outside the domain of the church and were instead the responsibility of civil authorities. Non-spiritual expiatory penalties may be applied in some other cases, especially for clergy. These have been criticized for being overly punitive and inadequately pastoral.[42] For example, a member of the clergy might be ordered to live in a particular monastery for a period of time, or even the rest of his life, a punishment comparable to house arrest.[43] Access to electronic devices may also be restricted for persons sentenced to a life of prayer and penance.[44]

One reform in the 1983 code was that non-Catholic Christians are not assumed to be culpable for not being Roman Catholic, and are not discussed or treated as excommunicated Catholics guilty of heresy or schism.[45] Another reform in 1983 was a list of extenuating circumstances in canon 1324 which could prevent excommunication or lessen other punishments.