***That sounds like a very “pass-the-buck” position to me. :) As I understand it, GREAT discretion is used in the decision to excommunicate.***
It is not up to the Church to save or damn - that is God’s perogative. The Church is the teaching authority, not the Judge.
***For example, why isn’t John Kerry excommunicated? Worse than that, he is still served the Eucharist. It looks like it depends on who the celebrity is and who the Bishop is. ***
I don’t know why the likes of John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi are not excommunicated. Or the abortion doctors and nurses who happend to be Catholic. I don’t know.
*** And my only point in saying this is to show that it actually IS the Church who makes a decision on whether the person is “officially” damned or not. Anyone so deemed would be prohibited from taking the sacraments, and presumably could not be saved under normal circumstances. For one, he could not have his sins forgiven through a priest and would die in a state of mortal sin.***
The person who commits grievous sins and repents of them and believes in Jesus and is baptized, and does not commit them again will, according to Jesus, be saved.
***Well, then in what form does the imparting take if not by a vote of the majority?***
A whole bunch of segregated prayer and discussion and more prayer and more discussion and more prayer. The Truth is slowly arrived at by those men who have spent their lives in the service of God.
It is not up to the Church to save or damn - that is God’s prerogative. The Church is the teaching authority, not the Judge.
That dismisses what is going through the minds of the laymen your hierarchy is "effectively" damning to hell. Plus, it doesn't match the Catechism:
1495 Only priests who have received the faculty of absolving from the authority of the Church can forgive sins in the name of Christ.
1496 The spiritual effects of the sacrament of Penance are:
- reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace;
- reconciliation with the Church;
- remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins;
- remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin;
- peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation;
- an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle.
1497 Individual and integral confession of grave sins followed by absolution remains the only ordinary means of reconciliation with God and with the Church. (all emphasis added)
The words are the words, they speak for themselves. And, BTW, the words of the Catechism here actually match what I have interpreted from Catholics. Most will not admit it, but it really is the men of the Church who decide salvation or damnation in a very real sense to the average layman. What else could one think after reading the above (and there are more examples)?