Excommunication in the Catholic Church

This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. The reason given is: Information needs to be included relating to the state of canon law since the introduction of revised codes of canon law in 1918, 1983 and 1991. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2017)

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In the canon law of the Catholic Church, excommunication (Lat. ex, "out of", and communio or communicatio, "communion"; literally meaning "exclusion from communion") is a form of censure. In the formal sense of the term, excommunication includes being barred not only from the sacraments but also from the fellowship of Christian baptism.^[1] The principal and severest censure, excommunication presupposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Catholic Church can inflict, it supposes a grave offense. The excommunicated person is considered by Catholic ecclesiastical authority as an exile from the Church, for a time at least.

Excommunication is intended to invite the person to change behaviour or attitude, repent, and return to full communion.^[1] It is not an "expiatory penalty" designed to make satisfaction for the wrong done, much less a "vindictive penalty" designed solely to punish. Excommunication, which is the gravest penalty of all, is always "medicinal".^[2]

Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Catholic society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society. There can and do exist other penal measures which entail the loss of certain fixed rights; among them are other censures, e.g. suspension for clerics, and interdict. Excommunication, however, is distinguished from these penalties in that it is the privation of all rights resulting from the social status of the Catholic as such. A person who has been excommunicated — unless excommunicated for apostasy, heresy or schism — is still considered a Catholic and still has all the duties of that relationship, including attending Mass. They are, however, to refrain from receiving the Eucharist.^[3]

General concepts

In

The Catholic Church cannot, nor does it wish to, pose any obstacle to the internal relations of the soul with God; it even implores God to give the grace of repentance to the excommunicated. The rites of the church, nevertheless, are the providential and regular channel through which divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclusion from such rites, especially from the sacraments, entails the privation of this grace, to whose sources the excommunicated person no longer has access.[7]

Anathema is a sort of aggravated excommunication, from which, however, it does not differ essentially, but simply in the matter of special solemnities and outward display.^[7]

The terminology used to qualify the modalities of excommunication may vary depending on the author.^[8]

A jure and ab homine

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]

Latæ sententiæ and ferendæ sententiæ

Excommunication is either

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]

Public and occult

Excommunication

• 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
  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.

Total or partial

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.

Reserved and non-reserved

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]

Formal and material

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

An excommunication is a

invincible error

is thought to be delinquent and obstinate when in reality he is not such.

Perfect excommunication

An excommunication perfect or a perfect excommunication, is defined as follows:^[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.

Membership of the Church

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]

History

The Catholic Church claims that the penalty of excommunication is

During the Middle Ages, excommunication was analogous to the secular imperial ban or "outlawry" under common law. The individual was separated to some degree from the communion of the faithful.^[15] Formal acts of public excommunication were sometimes accompanied by a ceremony wherein a bell was tolled (as for the dead), the Book of the Gospels was closed, and a candle snuffed out—hence the idiom "to condemn with bell, book, and candle."

Those under excommunication were to be shunned. Pope Gregory VII was the first to mitigate the proscription against communicating with an excommunicated person. At a council in Rome in 1079, he made exceptions for members of the immediate family, servants, and occasions of necessity or utility.^[16] In the mid-12th century, Pope Eugene III held a synod in order to deal with the large number of heretical groups. Mass excommunication was used as a convenient tool to squelch heretics who belonged to groups which professed beliefs radically different than those taught by the Catholic Church.^[17]

William the Conqueror separated ecclesiastical cases from the Hundred courts, but allowed the bishops to seek assistance from the secular authorities. Excommunications were intended to be remedial and compel the offender to return to the fold. The practice in Normandy provided that if an obdurate excommunicate remained so for a year and a day, his goods were subject to confiscation at the duke's pleasure. Later, bishops were authorized to submit a writ to have the individual imprisoned. On the other hand, the bishops held temporalities which the king could seize if the bishop refused to absolve an imprisoned excommunicate. The authority of a bishop to excommunicate someone was restricted to those persons who resided in his see. This often gave rise to jurisdictional disputes on the part of abbeys which claimed to be exempt.^[15][18]

In 1215, the

The Council of Trent held that "excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent".^[7]

In Coena Domini

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
   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 (
   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
   S. Cong. of the Council, decree "Vigilanti studio", May 25, 1893).^[7]

20th century

This section needs expansion with: Details on the 1917, 1983 and 1991 codes should be added. You can help by adding to it. (January 2023)

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

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)^[a][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
   can. 1398
   )
9. Accomplices who were needed to commit an action that has an automatic excommunication penalty (can. 1329)

Those who can excommunicate

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 trial.^[7]

Excommunication is an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the rules of which it follows. Hence the general principle: whoever has proper jurisdiction can excommunicate, but only his own subjects. Therefore, whether excommunications be a jure (by the law) or ab homine (under form of sentence or precept), they may come from the pope, from the bishop for his diocese; and from regular prelates for religious orders. But a parish priest cannot inflict this penalty. The subjects of these various authorities are those who come under their jurisdiction chiefly on account of domicile or quasi-domicile in their territory; then by reason of the offense committed while on such territory; and finally by reason of personal right, as in the case of regulars. As to excommunications ab homine, absolution from them is reserved by law to the ordinary who has imposed them.^[7]

Those who can be excommunicated

No one can be subject to ecclesiastical censure unless they be baptized, delinquent, and contumacious. Baptism confers initial jurisdiction, delinquency refers to having committed a wrong, and contumacious indicates the person's willfull persistence in such conduct.^[28] Since excommunication is the forfeiture of the spiritual privileges of ecclesiastical society, all those, but those only, can be excommunicated who, by any right whatsoever, belong to this society. Consequently, excommunication can be inflicted only on baptized and living Catholics. It does not pertain to pagans, Muslims, Jews, and other non-Catholics.^[7]

No one is automatically excommunicated for any offense if, without any fault of his own, he was unaware that he was violating a law (1983 CIC 1323 n. 2) or that a penalty was attached to the law (1983 CIC 1324 §1 n. 9). The same applies if one was a minor, had the imperfect use of reason, was forced through grave or relatively grave fear, was forced through serious inconvenience, or in certain other circumstances (1983 CIC 1324).^[4]

Absolution from excommunication

Apart from the rare cases in which excommunication is imposed for a fixed period and then ceases of itself, it is always removed by absolution. It is to be noted at once that, though the same word is used to designate the sacramental sentence by which sins are remitted and that by which excommunication is removed; there is a vast difference between the two acts. The absolution which revokes excommunication is purely jurisdictional and has nothing sacramental about it. It reinstates the repentant sinner in the Church; restores the rights of which he had been deprived, beginning with participation in the sacraments; and for this very reason, it should precede sacramental absolution, which it thenceforth renders possible and efficacious. After absolution from excommunication has been given, the judge sends the person absolved to a confessor, that his sin may be remitted; when absolution from censure is given in the confessional, it should always precede sacramental absolution, conformably to the instruction in the Ritual and the very tenor of the formula for sacramental absolution.^[7]

It may be noted at once that the principal effect of absolution from excommunication may be acquired without the excommunicated person's being wholly reinstated in his former position. Thus, an

The formula of absolution from excommunication is not strictly determined, and, since it is an act of jurisdiction, it suffices if the formula employed express clearly the effect which it is desired to attain.[7]

Those who can absolve from excommunication

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.

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]

Absolution reserved to the Apostolic See today

The 1983 Code of Canon Law states:

1. "A person who throws away the consecrated species or takes or retains them for a sacrilegious purpose incurs a
   latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See." (can.
   1367)
2. "A person who uses physical force against the
   Roman Pontiff
   incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See." (can. 1370)
3. "A priest who acts against the prescript of can. 977 incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See (can. 1378)". Canon 977 states that the absolution of an accomplice in a sin against
   sexual sin
   with someone, he cannot then absolve that person of the sin.
4. "A bishop who consecrates some one a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See." (can. 1382)
5. "A confessor who directly violates the confessional sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See." (can. 1388)^[29]
6. "Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state." (can. 1379 § 3)

During the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis gave to special qualified and experienced priests, called "Missionaries of Mercy", the faculty to forgive even special-case sins normally reserved to the Holy See's Apostolic Penitentiary.^[30] Originally, their mandate was to expire at the close of the Holy Year, but the Pope has extended it, permitting them to continue hearing confessions freely in every diocese throughout the world and lifting censures that normally require the permission of the pope.^[31]

Latin Church

Excommunication in the Latin Church is governed by the 1983 Code of Canon Law (1983 CIC). The 1983 code specifies various sins which carry the penalty of automatic excommunication: apostasy, heresy, schism (1983 CIC 1364:1), violating the sacred species (can. 1367), physically attacking the pope (can. 1370:1), sacramentally absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin (CIC 1378:1), consecrating a bishop without authorization (can. 1382), directly violating the seal of confession (can. 1388:1), and someone who actually procures an abortion.^[4]

Excommunication can be either

A priest who grants absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.^[33]

The severance from the Church as an effect of excommunication is a matter of controversy in modern times, though this was not always so; excommunication vitandi was clearly supposed to have the effect of removal of the Christian from the body of the Church. Moreover, the very word "excommunication" by its etymological meaning seems to indicate that it does indeed remove the Christian from the Church. But, others, such as Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, suppose it does not: "excommunication does not expel the person from the Catholic Church, but simply forbids the excommunicated person from engaging in certain activities".^[6] These activities are listed in canon 1331 §1, and prohibit the individual from any ministerial participation in celebrating the sacrifice of the Eucharist or any other ceremonies of worship; celebrating or receiving the sacraments; or exercising any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions.^[34][35] At any rate, it is clear that the excommunicated remains a Christian in the sense that he retains his baptism, but at the same time is estranged from the Church, and in this sense "is cast outside of it". If the excommunication is, in the formal legal sense, publicly known—that is, in case of both a "declared" latae sententia excommunication (judged upon by the responsible Church court) and in any ferendae sententia excommunication (always imposed by the Church court), any acts of ecclesiastical governance by the excommunicated person are not only illicit but also invalid.^[36]

Under current Catholic canon law, excommunicates remain bound by ecclesiastical obligations such as attending Mass, even though they are barred from receiving the Eucharist and from taking an active part in the liturgy (reading, bringing the offerings, etc.). "Excommunicates lose rights, such as the right to the sacraments, but they are still bound to the obligations of the law; their rights are restored when they are reconciled through the remission of the penalty."^[37]

These are the only effects for those who have incurred a latae sententiae excommunication. For instance, a priest may not refuse Communion publicly to those who are under an automatic excommunication, as long as it has not been officially declared to have been incurred by them, even if the priest knows that they have incurred it.^[38] On the other hand, if the priest knows that excommunication has been imposed on someone or that an automatic excommunication has been declared (and is no longer merely an undeclared automatic excommunication), he is forbidden to administer Holy Communion to that person^[39] (see canon 915).

In the

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

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.

Eastern Catholic Churches

Those on whom minor excommunication has been imposed are excluded from receiving the

Those under major excommunication are in addition forbidden to receive not only the Eucharist but also the other sacraments, to administer sacraments or sacramentals, to exercise any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions whatsoever, and any such exercise by them is null and void. They are to be removed from participation in the Divine Liturgy and any public celebrations of divine worship. They are forbidden to make use of any privileges granted to them and cannot be given any dignity, office, ministry, or function in the Church, they cannot receive any pension or emoluments associated with these dignities etc., and they are deprived of the right to vote or to be elected.[47]

See also

• Interdict
• List of excommunicable offences in the Catholic Church
• List of people excommunicated by the Catholic Church
• List of cardinals excommunicated by the Catholic Church
• Closed communion
• Shunning#In religion

Notes

References