Free Republic

Archbishop Burke has declared the excommunications of would-be priestesses Rose Hudson and Elsie McGrath, and also of pretend-bishop Patricia Fresen. This decree, linked here, declares as follows: 1) that McGrath, Hudson and Fresen have incurred the censure of excommunication latae sententiae for the crime of schism (cann. 1331, 1364 s. 1); 2) that upon McGrath, Hudson and Fresen is imposed the ferendae sententiae censure of interdict for the crime of pertinacious rejection of a truth of the faith after admonition by the Ordinary (can. 1371, para. 1); and, 3) that upon Fresen is imposed the ferendae sententiae censure of...

Last Thursday, 16 of the 25 Catholics in the U. S. Senate voted to overturn the "Mexico City Policy" to allow funding to overseas health clinics providing abortions. One of the 16 was freshman Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA) who ran against, and defeated, Sen. Rick Santorum as a "pro-life" candidate. It's doubtful whether Casey, son of the legendary pro-life Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey, will ever be able to convince voters of his pro-life label again.

Tara Little Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert, administrator of the Diocese of Little Rock, speaks in a press conference Sept. 26 about the excommunication of six religious sisters in Hot Springs for membership in the schismatic Army of Mary. By Malea HargettEditor Six sisters from the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs were excommunicated by the Catholic Church for their involvement in a schismatic association based in Quebec, Canada. It is believed to be the first time anyone in the Diocese of Little Rock has been formally excommunicated. The excommunicated sisters are Mary Gerard Lalancette,...

 The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, Little Rock diocese administrator, speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, in Little Rock, Ark. Hebert announced Wednesday that six Arkansas nuns have been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for heresy. (AP Photo/Mike Wintroath) 6 Ark. nuns excommunicated for heresy   By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago   LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Six Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock announced Wednesday. The Rev....

Calling it a "very grave situation," the Vatican has excommunicated members of a controversial Quebec Catholic movement, the Army of Mary, for their heretical beliefs that derive from the writings of Marie-Paule Giguère, an 86-year-old mystic who claims to be a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary.In a judgment delivered to the group on Monday, and announced yesterday, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the ordinations of six priests in the Army of Mary this past June were illegitimate, because they were performed by a priest rather than a bishop. As a result, at least one recent...

EDITOR'S NOTE (May 16, 2007): This interview was originally published on IgnatiusInsight.com on November 6, 2006. In light of recent statements by Pope Benedict XVI about pro-abortion politicians and excommunication (in the context of a trip to Mexico and South America), as well as remarks by other Church leaders and by certain American politicians, I'm posting it again for readers of this site. Dr. Edward Peters has doctoral degrees in canon and civil law, and operates the Canon Law Info website and the "In The Light of the Law" web log. He has authored or edited several books, including Annulments...

Monday, June 18, 2007 Possible apostasy by a cleric: why we have Canon 1364 However rarely one hopes such rules will be needed, the 1983 Code of Canon Law makes provision for things like apostasy and schism, loss of ecclesiastical office, and penal procedure precisely because our divinely founded Church is inhabited by people like you and me. In any case, "canonical norms by their very nature are meant to be applied" (John Paul II, Sacrae disciplinae leges, 25) and there's nothing like a real case to consider how law should illumine life. According to a statement apparently issued...

A STATE parliamentary committee will investigate Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey's remarks that Catholic politicians supporting stem cell research could be refused holy communion and may face excommunication from the church. Archbishop Hickey came under fire yesterday after he reportedly said Catholics who did not condemn the cloning of human embryos for medical research were acting against the teachings of the Catholic faith. Archbishop Hickey said such people should not go to communion and he may consider excommunication, but he would rather the issue be resolved voluntarily by the politicians themselves. His threat mirrored that of Cardinal George Pell in Sydney,...

May Catholic clergy refuse communion to politicians who publicly support abortion rights? Who gets the right to choose in that case? This deeply theological question has lately assumed an odd prominence in American political life. This week, for example, according to news accounts, 18 Catholic House Democrats, including Reps. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), Patrick J. Kennedy (R.I.) and Carolyn McCarthy (N.Y.) publicly rebuked Pope Benedict XVI for reaffirming during a recent Mexico City trip that legislators who vote to permit the killing of the unborn have excommunicated themselves and may be refused communion during Mass. "Do you agree with the excommunications...

Prescinding for a moment from who said it (and allowing for the usual vexatious translation issues) a recent interview with a conscientious priest on the subject of abortion, excommunication, and denial of the Eucharist, illustrates well how widespread is the confusion in this area. In my opinion, these fundamental points must be sorted out, once and for all, so that those who must apply the norms to real cases can do so responsibly. I make some suggestions toward that goal here (the analysis chart is easier to read on my website). And be sure to see Phil Lawler's broader...

A primer for those who prefer knowing to opining In the vortex swirling around the pope's comments on the canonical consequences for supporting pro-abortion legislation (including what the pope said, or meant to say, or should have said), it might be good to set out calmly and simply some canons that directly impact on this situation. Strictly speaking, there are only two, but in light of comments I've heard or read, we apparently need to explicitate a third canon even though it only repeats sound personal moral theology and does not direct ecclesiastical responses to this kind of behavior....

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Pope Benedict XVI kicked off a historic five-day visit to Brazil on Wednesday by sending a tough anti-abortion message that sparked a hemisphere-wide debate over the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to influence politicians. In answer to a question about Mexico City's recent legalization of abortion, Benedict indicated that he would support Mexican bishops if they were to decide to excommunicate lawmakers who voted for the law. "It is part of the code," Benedict said, according to reporters aboard the plane. "It is based simply on the principle that the killing of an innocent human child is...

Pope Benedict on Wednesday warned Catholic politicians they risked excommunication from the Church and should not receive communion if they support abortion. It was the first time that the Pope, speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him on a trip to Brazil, dealt in depth with a controversial topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy. The Pope was asked whether he supported Mexican Church leaders threatening to excommunicate leftist parliamentarians who last month voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City. "Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed...

Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani has made several statements supporting legalized and even taxpayer-funded abortion. Some Catholics believe these warrant a "latae sententiae" excommunication from the church under canon law - in other words, an automatic excommunication that occurs "by the very commission of the offense." But there is another area on which the grounds for excommunication are much more clear: marriage. Giuliani is currently in a civil marriage with Judith Nathan. Unlike Giuliani's previous two marriages, this one was not performed under the auspices of the Catholic Church. And unlike his second marriage, he did not receive an annulment...

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI yesterday set out "nonnegotiable values" as he urged Catholic lawmakers to oppose laws favoring divorce, abortion, homosexual "marriage" and euthanasia. In a long-awaited text, the pope exhorted "Catholic politicians and legislators ... to introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature." "These values are not negotiable," he wrote, listing "respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death [and] the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman." Benedict's first such apostolic exhortation dashed any hope for a relaxation of the requirement of celibacy for Roman Catholic...

LINCOLN, February 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) ­ The Vatican’s second highest juridical authority has rejected the appeal of an American leftist group, Call to Action (CTA), to overturn a decree of excommunication by the bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, who called the group and “anti-Catholic sect”. A letter from the Apostolic Signatura, the Catholic Church’s supreme tribunal and the highest judicial authority after the Pope himself, dismissed the group’s attempt at appeal with a terse message that it had “no competence” to overturn the decree. The Signatura’s letter reiterates a December letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, Giovanni Cardinal Battista Re,...

VIENNA, Austria, February 6, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Salzburg Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun has caused a stir in the German press by saying publicly that a Catholic businessman who rented space in his shopping mall to an abortion clinic has excommunicated himself.  The businessman, Richard Lugner, at first threatened to sue Bishop Laun but has since thought better of the lawsuit but has not reconsidered his aiding and abetting the killing of unborn children. In an interview with the Catholic News Agency Austria (http://www.kath.net ), Bishop Laun was asked if Lugner's action constituted an automatic excommunication (latae sententiae).  Bishop Laun replied,...

Dec. 7, 2006 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has confirmed an American bishop's decision to excommunicate members of the dissident group Call to Action. Call to Action is "causing damage to the Church of Christ," wrote Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, in a letter to Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. In March 1996, Bishop Bruskewitz had announced the excommunication of all Catholics in his diocese who were members of Call to Action or several other dissident groups which he described as "totally incompatible with the Catholic faith." The Nebraska chapter of...

(English-language translation) Gonzalo De Villa, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Guatemala [City], assured yesterday that the Catholic Church's decision to excommunicate Father Eduardo Aguirre Oestmann reflects that "he chose to distance himself from the communion and norms of his priesthood." In 2003, Aguirre founded the Saint Mary of the New Exodus Ecumenical Communion congregation, whose goal is to gather together Catholic and non-Catholic Christians as well as non-Christians. In response, Rodolfo Cardinal Quezada Toruño signed the decree that separates him from the Catholic communion. The decision was approved by the Vatican. "[Aguirre] systematically ignored the Church's norms, he refused...

     Excommunication (1983 CIC 1331) is the most severe censure that the Catholic Church can impose on a member of the faithful. This controversial penalty is, however, fundamentally oriented to fostering the reform of the individual (1983 CIC 1312 § 1, n. 2). I have been saying for some time that excommunication, although neglected in the decades after Vatican II, will be used more frequently in the future. Evidence in support of this prediction is, I suggest, accumulating. This page will monitor instances of excommunication under the 1983 Code of Canon Law. I would, of course, appreciate information that would...