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Roy Bourgeois, the former priest who was excommunicated in 2008 and dismissed from the Maryknoll society last year, has been formally notified of his laicization. Bourgeois received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, relayed through his former Maryknoll superiors, notifying him of his dismissal from the society and from the priesthood. The Vatican asks Bourgeois to sign the letter, acknowledging receipt—which he says he will refuse to do. Bourgeois was excommunicated in 2008 after he participated in a ceremony in which women claimed ordination. He had repeatedly refused to reconsider his stand, and had remained...

Featured Term (selected at random):AFFECTED IGNORANCE In ecclesiastical law, directly willed ignorance of a law or of its penalty, or both. Such ignorance does not excuse a person from automatic penalties (latae sententiae), i.e., those which follow immediately on breaking the law. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was “waging war on the Catholic Church”—an apparent reference to the Obamacare regulation she finalized earlier this year that requires nearly all health-care plans to offer sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs free of charge. “This secretary of HHS is a radical. She is waging war on the Catholic Church. She’s adopted radical positions on a range of issues,” Gingrich said during a conference call on Wednesday. … In its lawsuit against the HHS and Sebelius, the Archdiocese of New York cited similar comments made...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Chinese Father Joseph Yue Fusheng has been automatically excommunicated for allowing himself to be illicitly ordained a bishop despite repeated warnings from the Vatican. "The Holy See does not recognize him as bishop of the apostolic administration of Harbin, and he lacks the authority to govern the priests and the Catholic community in the province of Heilongjiang," the Vatican said in a written statement July 10. It also praised the new auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, who has been restricted by the government after saying he would give up his role in the government-approved Catholic Patriotic Association....

At Easter, the theologian Martha Heizer returns to committing a "delictum gravis" and will hold a Eucharistic celebration in the "domestic church" – under the threat of excommunication. The Tyrolean church theologian and critic Martha Heizer has drawn the ire of many religious leaders. She and four colleagues are accused of imitating Eucharistic celebrations without a priest. In the ecclesiastical world, this is a "delictum gravis", ie a "serious offense", which may lead to the excommunication. The local clergy has now launched investigations into the case. An opinion of the Bishop, Manfred Scheuer should be be presented "in the coming...

MADRID, Spain, August 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, has granted all of the 2,000 priests attending World Youth Day this week the special power to the lift the excommunication and to grant absolution in confession to those who have committed the sin of abortion. According to the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law, any person who procures an abortion is automatically excommunicated from the Church (can. 1398).  This penalty – the worst penalty there is under canon law - can only be lifted by the pope and bishops, as well as...

Nebraska bishop: Catholic politicians who support Planned Parenthood should be denied Communion by Patrick B. Craine Thursday Apr 14, 2011 17:30 EST LINCOLN, Nebraska, April 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Though not “formally excommunicated,” Catholic politicians who support Planned Parenthood or other measures facilitating abortion are “placing themselves outside of the pale of the Church’s doctrine” and should be denied Communion, says Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. The bishop told LifeSiteNews that Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, should be seen an enemy of the Catholic Church because “it advocates doctrines, immoral activities which are contrary to ... the...

CAMDEN - Rutgers University in Camden will host a woman theologian next week whom the university describes as a "female Catholic bishop." "Roman Catholic Bishop Patricia Fresen, one of only three ordained female bishops in the world," will lecture at the university at 12:20 p.m. April 15, according to a Rutgers news release.Fresen was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 2008, according to www.CatholicCulture.org."Patricia Fresen is not a Roman Catholic bishop. That would be the position of the Diocese of Camden," said Peter Feuerherd, diocesan spokesman, on Monday when contacted about Rutgers' symposium.The lecture is being sponsored by Rutgers-Camden's...

Rorate Exclusive: Excommunication of Norma Jean Coon Lifted Rorate Caeli first broke the news that Mrs. Norma Jean Coon, whom once pretended to be ordained a deacon in the Catholic Church, had returned to the Faith and publicly repented. We then reported that she was not only attending daily Mass -- without receiving the sacraments, of course -- but a Traditional Latin Mass. We can now report, praise God, that Mrs. Coon's excommunication has been lifted by Rome. We can also tell you that she now attends daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament along with Holy Mass. Mrs. Coon:...

LifeSiteNews.com Life, Family and Culture News Barcelona archbishop begins excommunication proceedings for priest who paid for abortion by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman Tue Mar 15 5:56 PM EST BARCELONA, March 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Barcelona archbishop Lluís Martínez Sistach has begun excommunication proceedings against a priest in his diocese who has boasted of paying for abortions and blessing homosexual unions, according a statement posted on the archdiocesan website. The communiqué states that the archbishop and two other diocesan officials met with Fr. Manuel Pousa i Engroñat yesterday, “regarding several declarations of said priest regarding an abortion published in a book about...

Diane Dougherty lives in a neat, white house that she shares with her cats, Pete and Gypsy Rose. She teaches second grade in Fayetteville. She smiles a lot, her eyes flashing with intellect. She hardly looks like someone flouting centuries of tradition, challenging the Roman Catholic Church. Dougherty, 65, wants to be a deacon. But in the Catholic Church, the position of deacon — like that of priest and bishop — is held by men only. The Newnan resident is in the forefront of a movement that seeks to change all that. In ordination ceremonies in the United States and...

Twice a year (Labor Day and Memorial Day) I enjoy a picnic provided by one of my former seminary professors, along with many of his former students, mostly from classes that came years after me. During that last one, I toasted my old teacher in gratitude for the fact that he had always maintained, in my defense, that one can still believe in the Bound Powers theory, in spite of the language used in Vatican II. He smirked, and asked the younger priests there if they had ever heard of the Bound Powers theory; and no one raised his hand....

MANILA, Philippines—The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines on Wednesday reminded President Aquino III that providing contraceptives to poor couples who opt for artificial birth control face excommunication from the church.Speaking on the Church-run Radio Veritas, Bishop Nereo Odchimar of Tandag, Surigao del Sur, the current CBCP president, said that even Mr. Aquino may be covered by excommunication. Mr. Aquino, a practicing Catholic, has stood by his position that Filipino couples who choose to use artificial contraceptives should be allowed to do so."Well, being the President of all, you must consider the position of the Catholic Church...

Sitting over an overpriced gin and tonic at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel, I probed the excommunicated bishop about his secret sedevacantism. I didn't toss the issue naked on the table, since he would simply have denied everything. But I knew from several sources that, while the man publicly claimed to accept the legitimacy of then-Pope John Paul II, privately he sowed doubts among his friendlier seminarians. He whispered that the "formal and material heresies" taught by that pope had quite possibly deprived Karol Wotyjla of the throne. That would have left the seat (sede) of...

Monday August 9, 2010 Filipino Archbishop: Abortion Entails Automatic Excommunication By Patrick B. CraineMANILA, Philippines, August 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A prelate in the Philippines is warning Catholics that they face automatic excommunication if they in any way participate in an abortion.Archbishop Oscar Cruz, archbishop emeritus of Lingayen-Dagupan and a canon lawyer, told CBCPNews last week that this penalty applies to any who are “actively involved” in bringing about the abortion.  “That is called active participation … from the woman concerned, the husband who helped her, the abortionist, or the nurses,” he said to the bishops’ official news service.“Excommunication...

Soline Humbert outside the Church of St Thérése, Mount Merrion, Dublin. Cardinal Daly refused to accept from her a 10,000-name petition calling for women priests. Photograph : Matt Kavanagh The Vatican’s directive confirming its policy of excommunication for those involved in the ordination of women has been greeted with defiance by dissidents in the US and dismay by Irish campaigners‘SHOCKING.” “A travesty.” “A slap in the face.” “The action of a paranoid, scared, running-for-cover Vatican.” Those are just some of the phrases used by Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan to describe the latest directive from Rome on the ordination of women.The...

The Catholic Church won’t be celebrating one Iowa City resident’s ordination next month. In fact, neither the Diocese of Davenport nor the Vatican will even acknowledge Mary Kay Kusner’s ordination through a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. That lack of institutional acknowledgment keeps Kusner, 50, motivated as she prepares for ordination by a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. “I believe Christ’s intention was to have an inclusive church,” Kusner said. “I believe ‘catholic,’ which means universal, needs to be a truly inclusive and welcoming church.” Such a church, she said, would include the ordination of women. Kusner, a self-described devout...

I was alerted to this sad news.... Fr. Bourgeois has been excommunicated A reader sent me this: Dear Ms. , As stated in an earlier communiqué from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome, Father Bourgeois was given 30 days to recant his actions regarding the ordination of women as priests, or endure the penalty of excommunication. Since he has said he cannot recant those actions, he has been excommunicated by the CDF. Betsey Guest

The Diocese of Phoenix has a very direct Q & A regarding the direct, procured abortion at St. Joseph hospital and the consequent excommunication of hospital administrator Sister Margaret McBride. The statement ends on a curious note that has fueled some speculation. After discussing the St. Joseph Hospital situation the statement turns to another Catholic Healthcare West owned hospital: Moreover, Catholic Healthcare West has not followed the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Church in at least one of their institutions, Chandler Regional Hospital. These realities are a scandal to the faithful and must cease if CHW wishes to...

The Church's sexual abuse scandal is the "blame Bush" of Catholicism. Anything that goes wrong anywhere that has even the remotest connection to Catholicism can be explained by or blamed on the sex abuse scandal. It's reflexive now. Liberal Catholics can't say anything about the Church without bringing up the sex abuse scandal. Whether it's a conversation about altar rails, mass times, abortion, vestments, or gay marriage liberal Catholics will instinctively raise the specter of the abuse scandal as if the very existence of sin in the Church is evidence that they're right. A priest who's made quite a name...