Correct me if I’m wrong, if one is excommunicated ... one shouldn’t be able to receive the sacraments right?
I’m not a Catholic, so please be patient with me :)
Well, she's not technically "excommunicated," just "barred from Communion." Those are two different things. (I know, I know, these maddening technicalities...)
If she were excommunicated, she could not receive ANY Sacrament in the Church (couldn't receive Communion, couldn't be married in the Church, couldn't receive the Last Rites, or even be buried in consecrated ground) unless the ban of excommunication were lifted, and that would only be by her bishop (or someone specifically designated to stand in for the bishop.)
That's such a total nuke of a penalty, that as I understand it, the Church makes extra-and-specially sure that it's not just based on some difference of opinion between you and your bishop, and provides for all kinds of "procedural due process" if the excommunicated person wants to appeal it, all the way up to Rome.
In other words, it could get tied up in a lot of legal procedures. Not a bad thing, per se. The faithful have rights, too, and one right is to receive the Sacraments, and to get yourself a canon lawyer and argue before a Church tribunal if you think you've been unjustly deprived.
On the other hand --- and I'm no canon lawyer, so if somebody knows better, please correct me ---- I think that what's happening with Sebelius is just the enforcement of Canon 915, which requires priests, deacons, and others who distribute Holy Communion, to deny Communion "to those obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin." (Each word here is important.)
Up until recently, most priests (and even bishops) pretty much confined this to refusing Communion to Catholics who were involved in invalid second marriages (after divorce) when the Church continued to recognize the first marriage, and thus regarded the attempted second marriage as adultery.
It was kind of an open-and-shut case, inasmuch as the scandalous second marriage was public (the canonical word is "manifest") and thus nobody was "guessing" about the state of your soul, they were just saying that, objectively, you were not in a position to receive Communion.
The big change came when the brilliant Raymond Burke was appointed to a post analogous to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Burke has been THE key man in saying, "Look here, an invalid second marriage is not the only kind of "obstinate persistence" in "manifest grave sin" that we have to deal with. How about politicians who openly and publicly are material accomplices in the grave sin of abortion?
Burke's analysis of the situation has made all the difference. That's why these lovable squid-like bishops are now growing some vertebrae.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
Like I said, I'mo no canonist, so somebody please correct me if I've made some basic error here.