Chapter I. Excommunication

OF all the penalties which the Church can inflict, excommunication is the most severe, and it virtually contains the others. It deprives the delinquent of all the advantages which he possessed as a member of the Church, and puts him outside the communion of the faithful. According to the ancient discipline of the Church, no excommunicated person could hold any intercourse with the faithful, nor could the faithful hold intercourse with him, but at the close of the Middle Ages, when heresy became more common, it grew to be impossible to maintain the ancient rigour, and Martin V introduced an important mitigation in the law. By the decree Ad evitanda, he distinguished between those under censure who were still to be avoided and those who were to be tolerated. All who were excommunicated by name, and at the same time specially denounced by name, together with all who notoriously violated the privilege of the canon by striking clerics, were still to be avoided; all others were to be tolerated. By this concession Catholics might without scruple, as far as concerned the censure, henceforth have intercourse with persons under censure who were tolerated. The concession was not, indeed, made directly in favour of those under censure, but these could not fail to benefit indirectly by the relaxation in the law that had been granted to the faithful. The tolerated as well as those to be avoided were still theoretically subject to the former disabilities, but custom made a distinction between them in several important respects.

The Code retains the distinction between excommunicates who are to be avoided and those who are tolerated; no one is to be avoided as excommunicated unless he has been excommunicated by name by the Holy See, publicly denounced as such, and in the sentence it is expressly said that he is to be avoided (Can. 2258).

By the ancient discipline one of the faithful who held unlawful intercourse with one who was under excommunication himself incurred the minor excommunication, but this penalty has ceased to exist since the promulgation of the constitution of Pius IX, Apostolicae Sedis, where no mention is made of it.

The effects of excommunication, according to the Code, may be enumerated as follows:

(a) An excommunicated person has no right to assist at divine offices—that is, functions of the power of order which are ordained to the worship of God by the institution of Christ or of the Church, and which can be exercised by clerics alone.

(b) An excommunicated person cannot receive the sacraments, and after a declaratory or condemnatory sentence, not even the sacramentals.

(c) As a general rule the lawful administration of the sacraments and sacramentals is forbidden to excommunicated persons. However, especially if other ministers are not to be had, the faithful may ask for the sacraments and sacramentals from an excommunicated priest, and then the latter can administer the same without asking the reason for the request.

But from one who is to be avoided and from others after a condemnatory or declaratory sentence, only in danger of - death can the faithful ask for sacramental absolution, and then also the other sacraments and sacramentals if other ministers are not to be had.

(d) An excommunicated person does not share in the indulgences, suffrages, and public prayers of the Church.

The faithful, however, are not forbidden to pray for him privately. Priests are not forbidden privately and with the avoidance of scandal to offer Mass for him, but only for his conversion, if he is to be avoided.

(e) An excommunicated person is removed from the exercise of ecclesiastical offices in law within the limits laid down under the proper heads.

(f) An act of jurisdiction, both of the external and internal forum, when exercised by an excommunicated person is unlawful, and also invalid after a condemnatory or declaratory sentence, with the exceptions mentioned above.

(g) An excommunicated person is debarred from the right of electing, presenting, nominating, he cannot acquire dignities, offices, benefices, ecclesiastical pensions, or other posts in the Church; nor can he be promoted to orders.

(h) After a condemnatory or declaratory sentence of excommunication he is deprived of the emoluments of office if he had one in the Church, and if he is to be avoided, of the office itself.

(k) The faithful ought to avoid communicating in secular matters with one who is to be avoided, unless there is question of a spouse, of parents, children, servants, subjects, and generally unless a reasonable cause excuses it (Can. 2259-2267).

Beside the foregoing effects immediately produced by excommunication, there are others more remote. If the person under excommunication violates the censure by unlawfully and solemnly exercising sacred Orders, he incurs irregularity, and if after due admonitions he takes no steps to be released from the censure but remains in it for a whole year, he becomes suspect of heresy (Can. 985, vii; 2340).