Article — Marc, Institutiones Morales
ARTICLE I: On Excommunication
- DEFINITION. Excommunication is a censure through which someone is deprived of communion of the Church (cf. n. 1252).
DIVISION. 1. Excommunication, by reason of effects, is twofold: a) MAJOR, which deprives one of all ecclesiastical communion, that is, of all the common spiritual goods of the Church whose distribution pertains to her.
This is almost always understood when mention is made simply of excommunication.
b) MINOR, by which someone, under grave sin, is deprived of passive communion or reception of the sacraments, and passive election or eligibility to ecclesiastical benefices (VII, 148-150; H. Ap., XIX, 15).
MINOR EXCOMMUNICATION formerly was incurred because of illicit conversation with an excommunicated person to be avoided; but, in present times, this censure has now been abrogated through the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis, as is clear from the Response of the Holy Office, issued 10 Dec. 1883, "the word having been had with the Most Holy One" (A. S. S., vol. 17, p. 555). - Nevertheless, communication with those to be avoided is still prohibited (Holy Office, 2 Aug. 1893; cf. A. S. S., vol. 31, p. 41). Likewise, the Bishop can, not indeed by statute, but by name, interdict to someone passive use, or reception of the sacraments, or at least of communion (VII, 148).
- Of the excommunicated, by major excommunication, some are called tolerated, whom the faithful are not bound to avoid; others non-tolerated, or to be avoided, whom the faithful are bound to avoid, especially in divine things (VII, 150).
Anciently, all the excommunicated, as soon as the incurred censure was established, had to be avoided; today, with attention to the Constitution of Martin V Ad vitanda scandala, by which it was permitted to the faithful to communicate, even in divine things, as is more commonly taught, with the guilty bound by any censure whatever, only those excommunicated, suspended, interdicted by name, or notorious strikers of clerics, are to be avoided (VII, 135-144). - Now:
Those excommunicated by name are: a) those against whom sentence has been issued by the office of a competent judge, and indeed with express name, surname, or such a designation as can function in place of the name; b) those whose censure furthermore has been specially denounced in a public place, namely by command of him who issued it (cf. n. 1268). It is not required that they have been excommunicated by the Pope through apostolic letters. Cf. A. S. S., 40, p. 69; 41, p. 141.
A notorious striker of a cleric, that he must be avoided, must commit a crime which cannot be hidden by any evasion, nor excused by any defense. Thus in the Constitution Ad evitanda. Therefore there is required: a) notoriety of fact, namely in such a way that the matter is known to the greater part of a college, neighborhood, or a great number of persons; b) a certain notoriety of law; for, until the guilty person is confessed or condemned in judgment, he can always be excused by some defense, by saying, for example, that he struck the other for his own defense, that he was drunk, etc. (VII, 141, 145). Cf. what has already been said n. 1190.
These things having been premised, inquiry must be made concerning the effects of excommunication, both with respect to the excommunicated person and with respect to the faithful.