- Sep 29, 2015
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Strangely, Pelosi is not excommunicated. She is just forbidden from receiving communion in her diocese. If words made sense being forbidden from receiving communion would mean being excommunicated. But that is a linguistic incoherence I cannot solve. She is not excommunicated. Just not to receive communion. At least not until she publicly repents and confesses. Which is what someone who was excommunicated would have to do. Go figure.Actually, I am confused - is this an excommunication or if not, what is the correct term for this and what is the difference between this and being excommunicate? Throughout my career I’ve understood excommunication as principally, exclusion from Holy Communion, and anathema as exclusion from the Church, with the Protestant concept of disfellowshipping a watered down version of the latter. How does the Roman Catholic Church use this terminology at present? My understanding is that Pelosi incurred what in prior centuries would have been referred to in the Catholic Church as a minor excommunication.
Also, there is Canon 1329 which causes one who is a crucial accessory to the commission of a sin that incurs an automatic excommunication Latae sententiae , and Canon 1398 excommunicated Latae Sententiae with absolution reserved to the Pope (in practice, handled by the Apostolic Penitentiary using a special procedure where the priest who hears the initial confession communicates the details of the case to the Apostolic Penitentiary using a psuedonym for the penitent to protect their privacy and the seal of the confessional, and the Apostolic Penitentiary* then replies as appropriate.
Now, forgive my ignorance, but wouldn’t Archbishop Cordileone’s invocation of Canon 915 have the effect of suggesting that there is a latae sententiate excommunication? He did not explicitly say it was reserved to the Pope, but is there any other canon law she could have violated? Or does canon 1329 not become reserved to the Holy See even if the sin aided and abetted, in this case canon 1398, is reserved?
I find myself hankering for the relative simplicity of the Pedalion, but I imagine if our roles were reversed you would be hankering for the clarity and objectivity of the Code of Canon Law (since Orthodox churches don’t have canon laws so much as they have canons in the ancient Greek meaning of the term, which is to say, guidelines, due to the principles of exactness and economy which allow canons to be waved, applied but with greatly reduced penances, applied strictly, or economized out of existence, for example, the ancient canons prohibiting clergy from attending theatrical performances or eating or spending the night in a tavern (which made sense in the 6th century when theaters were houses of lewd entertainments and taverns were inextricably associated with immoral acts prohibited everywhere in the US except for certain rural counties in Nevada). I want to learn as much as someone other than a canon lawyer reasonably can learn about Catholic canon law, however, so as to be able to contrast it with the Eastern Orthodox and the very obscure Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian canon law (the Eastern Orthodox make use of the Apostolic Canons, and the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox use the Didascalia, an ancient church order similar to the Didache, and even include it in some editions of their Bible).
Pursuant to this end, if anyone has heard of any works comparing Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canon law, or the separate Codes of Canon Law for the Roman Church and the Sui Juris Eastern Catholic Churches, that would be of great interest to me.
*This institute should not be confused with the small prison in the Vatican where a few years back some officials accused of corruption were detained during a trial; my understanding is the Vatican Gendarmerie and other security forces (the Swiss Guard) generally make use of Italian prisons, for example, when the Gendarmes arrest a pickpocket in the Piazza San Pietro.
A Latae sententiae excommunication is a real excommunication. But since nobody actually delivers a writ of excommunication, who is to say the person is actually excommunicated? Is it published somewhere who is excommunicated in this way? No. How do I know who is excommunicated this way? I can't know. How does the person excommunicated this way even know? Maybe they have figured it out, or maybe they are totally ignorant of being excommunicated. I guess they should know but I suspect some don't. And others will pretend they aren't excommunicated. Is Nancy Pelosi under Latae sententia excommunication? Maybe. Who knows? It's silly. Canon law is not perfect. This is a prime example.
As to who can remit sins and excommunications surrounding abortion, that has been broadened in recent years. Numerous pastors were given special permission to hear such confessions and lift those excommunications. And I believe that has now been extended to all priests. Considering the prevalence of abortion, that is probably a good thing. All one needs to do to be relieved of the guilt they may have for an abortion is one sincere confession. Then they can be fully restored and receive the Eucharist again without danger. In the case of scandal they would need to make a public statement as well.So I think in the case of abortion it is no longer (practically at least) limited to the Holy See.
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