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Q: What does it mean to be excommunicated? Please explain the circumstances concerning this. How can one be excommunicated when our Lord is willing to forgive all of our sins? – J.
Dear J.,
Perhaps an example from fairly recent history might give you some idea of how the Church has used excommunication to correct offences and injustices. For a period of about fifteen years, beginning in the late 1940's, Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans worked diligently for the racial integration of the parochial schools in his archdiocese, often encountering fierce opposition from local press and politicians, including many prominent Catholics. For most of those fifteen years, the Archbishop tried to enlighten his flock through Catholic moral teaching, issuing a series of pastoral letters denouncing racism as a great sin against humanity, and speaking in opposition to it at every opportunity. In 1962, however, when he finally announced his intention to integrate the parochial schools, and was met with organized disobedience from prominent Catholics, he issued a warning that he would excommunicate those Catholic leaders who continued to oppose him.
Three Catholic leaders remained undeterred, and when Catholics were encouraged to pressure the archbishop by withdrawing their financial support from both the schools and the parishes, Archbishop Rummel imposed an excommunication on all three for "provoking the devoted people of this venerable diocese to disobedience or rebellion in the matter of opening our schools to all Catholic children." Shortly after, the schools of the archdiocese were successfully integrated, and New Orleans became one of the few areas of the country where racial integration was achieved without protests, violence, or destruction. Two of those excommunicated eventually made public retractions and were reinstated into the Church.
As you can see, when dealing with the possibility of excommunication of any kind, Church authorities, in this case Archbishop Rummel, made considerable efforts over many years to educate the transgressors and bring about understanding and reconciliation without resorting to disciplinary action. This was done because the main purpose of excommunication is not to punish the offender, but to correct him, in the hope of bringing him back to the fullness of the Church, and to righteousness.
A second purpose of excommunication is to limit the damage which the offender might be doing to himself, or to others, by his actions. It is true, as you say, that Christ forgives all of our sins, but he first requires that we recognize our sinfulness, repent, and firmly promise to amend our ways. The excommunicated person is one who refuses to acknowledge his sin, feels no need for repentance, and plans to continue behaving exactly as before. In the New Orleans case, the transgressors were undeterred, and planned to continue to discriminate against African American children in Archbishop Rummel's diocese, despite all the efforts he had made over many years to persuade them otherwise. When he finally made his decision to excommunicate, the archbishop clearly felt that those segregated children in his diocese had waited long enough for justice.
Excommunication is the most serious of a number of prescribed punishments, known as censures, which the Church can impose on adult Catholics for grave and obstinate disobedience. The excommunicated person is excluded from the Church, which means he (or she) is barred from public worship and from the sacraments until he formally repents and stops committing the particular offence.
Certain excommunications are ipso facto ; that is, they are automatic on the commission of the offence, and have fixed penalties laid down in Church law , known as latae sententiae . When we say such excommunications are automatic, we are referring to situations where the offender is not only aware of the nature of his error, but is stubbornly, and usually openly, defiant of Church teaching or authority. Automatic excommunications can be incurred for direct participation in an abortion; for apostasy, which entails formally renouncing the Christian faith; for heresy, the direct (and usually public) denial of, and resistance to, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church; and schism, the formal refusal to be in communion with the Pope and the Church.
In certain circumstances, such as abortion, the offence could be committed privately, and so the automatic excommunication would be known to God alone. We can never assume that such an excommunication has taken place, because only God knows the extent to which the participants are culpable. Certain other automatic excommunications, however, do become public knowledge, usually because the particular offence has been committed quite openly and sometimes defiantly, resulting in the need for intervention by Church authorities. Sometimes the Church will monitor and review these cases, often for many years, before formally declaring that an automatic excommunication has taken place.
There is another type of excommunication, known as ferendae sententiae , which is not automatic, but takes effect only when declared by a Church court or by a superior, such as a bishop. This type of action, also known as an 'imposed' excommunication, is usually preceded by several warnings to the offending party, such as happened in the New Orleans case.
Excommunication is used only rarely, which is as it should be. The Canon Law governing excommunication insists it must be employed "with the greatest moderation" (Canon 1318) and only after "rebuke and other ways of pastoral care have been tried...and the accused cannot be reformed by fraternal correction." (Canon 1341)
God bless,
Father Norbert