Excommunication (Catholic Church)

rdf:langString Excommunication (Catholic Church)

rdf:langString In the canon law of the Catholic Church, excommunication (Lat. ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion, meaning exclusion from the communion), the principal and severest censure, is a penalty that excludes the guilty Catholic of all participation in church life. Being a penalty, it presupposes guilt and being the most serious penalty that the Catholic Church can nowadays inflict, it supposes a grave offense.The excommunicated person is basically considered as an exile from the Church, for a time at least, in the sight of ecclesiastical authority. Excommunication is intended to invite the person to change behaviour or attitude, repent, and return to full communion. It is not an "expiatory penalty" designed to make satisfaction for the wrong done, much less a "vindictive penalty" designed solely to punish. Excommunication, which is the gravest penalty of all, is always "medicinal", and is "not at all vindictive". The Catholic Church teaches in the Council of Trent that "excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent". Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Catholic society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society. There can and do exist other penal measures which entail the loss of certain fixed rights; among them are other censures, e.g. suspension for clerics, and interdict. Excommunication, however, is distinguished from these penalties in that it is the privation of all rights resulting from the social status of the Catholic as such. Excommunicated persons cease to be Catholic in a certain sense, but their baptism can never be effaced, and they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church; they can, however, be considered as an exile from Catholic society and as non-existent, for a time at least, in the sight of ecclesiastical authority. But such exile can have an end as soon as the offender has given suitable satisfaction. Meanwhile, their status before the church is that of a stranger. They may not receive any of the sacraments. Moreover, if a cleric, he is forbidden to administer a rite or to exercise an act of spiritual authority. The Church excommunicates as a last resort and at least nowadays, very rarely. Excommunications are lifted when the excommunicated person repents, or at least gives some sign of repenting.