Excommunication
EXCOMMUNICATION
An ecclesiastical penalty, by which they who incur the guilt of any heinous sin, are separated from the church, and deprived of its spiritual advantages. Thus the Jews “put out of the synagogue” those they deemed unworthy Joh 9:22 12:42 16:2. There were two degrees of excommunication among them: one a temporary and partial exclusion form ecclesiastical privileges, and from society; the other a complete excision form the covenant people of God and their numerous privileges, and abandonment to eternal perdition. See ANATHEMA.The right and duty of excommunication when necessary were recognized in the Christian church by Christ and his apostles, Mat 18:15-18 1Co 5:1-13 16:22 Gal 5:12 1Ti 1:20 Tit 3:10 . The offender, found guilty and incorrigible, was to be excluded from the Lord’s supper and cut off from the body of believers. This excision from Christian fellowship does not release one from any obligation to obey the law of God and the gospel of Christ; nor exempt him from any relative duties, as a man or a citizen. The censure of the church, on the other hand, is not to be accompanied, as among papists, with enmity, curses, and persecution. Our Savior directs that such an offender be regarded “as heathen man and a publican;” and the apostles charge the church to “withdraw from” those who trouble them, and “keep no company with them,” “no, not to eat;” but this is to be understood of those offices of civility and fraternity which a man is at liberty to pay or to withhold, and not of the indispensable duties of humanity, founded on nature, the law of nations, and the spirit of Christianity, 2Th 3:6,15 2Jo 1:10-11 .
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Excommunication
Excommunication is a form of ecclesiastical censure involving exclusion from the membership of the Church. Such exclusion may be temporary or permanent. It may cut off the offender from all communion and every privilege, or it may be less severe, allowing some intercourse and certain benefits.
1. The term.-The word excommunication is not found in Authorized Version or Revised Version , nor are the obsolete forms excommunion (Milton), excommenge (Holinshed), excommuned (Gayton). There are general references to the subject, and one or two cases are mentioned with some detail. The Greek verb signifies mark off from () by a boundary (). It is used sometimes in a good sense (e.g. Act 13:2, Rom 1:1, Gal 1:15), and sometimes in a bad one (e.g. Luk 6:22; note the three degrees of evil treatment-, , ). See also Mat 13:49; Mat 25:32, 2Co 6:17, Gal 2:12. It is employed by various Greek writers-Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, and others-and is found frequently in the Septuagint . Excommunicatio is a Latin word of later origin. It is used in the Vulgate.
2. Warrant for the practice in the Apostolic Church.-Excommunication in apostolic times rested upon a threefold warrant.
(1) Natural and inherent right.-Every properly constituted society has the right and power to exclude members not conforming to its rules. The Church has authority to exercise a right which every society claims. An analogy is sometimes drawn between the Church and the State. The State has power to send into exile, to deprive of civil rights, and even claims and exercises the power to inflict a death-sentence. So, in spiritual matters, the Church may pass sentences of separation more or less complete, and though the supreme judge alone can pronounce the sentence of death in an absolute sense, yet the Church can pass such a sentence in a relative sense-the offender being regarded as dead from the standpoint of the ecclesiastical court. Upon this point-whether in excommunication and in binding and loosing the power of the Church is final and absolute-two divergent views have been held. As typical of these two schools of thought, see Dante, de Mon. iii. viii. 36ff., and Tarquini, Juris eccl. Inst. 4, Rome, 1875, p. 98. The former declares it is not absolute, sed respective ad aliquid. Posset [enim] solvere me non poenitentem, quod etiam facere ipse Deus non posset; the latter states that St. Peter (Mat 16:19) is invested with potestas clavium, quae est absoluta et monarchica.
(2) The example of the Jewish nation and Church.-In the Pentateuch it is stated that certain heinous sins cannot be forgiven. By some form of excommunication or by death itself the sinner is to be cut off. Thus the sanctity of the nation is restored and preserved. In the later days of Judaism the penalties became somewhat milder as a general rule. The foundations of Jewish excommunication are Lev 13:46, Num 5:2-3; Num 12:14-15; Numbers 16, Jdg 5:23, Ezr 7:26, Neh 13:25. The effects are described in Ezr 7:26; Ezr 10:8. The Talmud mentions three kinds of excommunication, the first two disciplinary, the third complete and final expulsion. There was separation, separation with a curse, and final separation with a terrible anathema. For Gospel references see Luk 6:22, Joh 9:22; Joh 9:34-35; Joh 12:42; Joh 16:2. The sentence might be pronounced on twenty-four different grounds.
(3) The authority of Jesus Christ.-The main basis of authority for the Christian Church is the teaching of its Founder. The passages of most importance on the subject under consideration are Mat 16:19; Mat 18:18, Joh 20:23. Excommunication must be preceded by private and public exhortation, conducted in the spirit of love, with caution, wisdom, and patience. Only as a last resort, and when all else has failed, must the sentence of banishment be pronounced (see Mat 13:24-30; Mat 13:36-43; Mat 13:47-50). From Christ Himself the Church received authority, not only to bind the impenitent and unbelieving and to loose the penitent believer, but also, in its properly constituted courts, to condemn and expel gross offenders and to forgive and re-instate them if truly penitent.
3. Legislation in the Apostolic Church.-The general methods of procedure are made clear by St. Pauls method of dealing with the case of the incestuous person at Corinth (1 Corinthians 5, 2Co 2:6-11). The excommunication of the offender was a solemn, deliberate, judicial act of the members of the Church specially gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the purpose, and equipped with the authority and power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The act of exclusion was that of the Church itself and not of the Apostle Paul. The power was not in the hands of an official, or body of officials. Wherever it has become the prerogative of a priesthood it has led to great abuse and the results have been disastrous both to priests and people.
The object of this act of discipline was to reform the sinner (1Co 5:5), and to preserve the purity of the Church. Where a difference of opinion existed as to the course to be pursued, the verdict was decided by the majority (2Co 2:6). The sentence might be modified or rescinded according to sub-sequent events (2Co 2:6-8). To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1Co 5:5), is an obscure passage. Perhaps St. Paul thought that a sin of the flesh was more likely to be cured by bodily suffering than in any other way. In his opinion certain afflictions of the body were due to the operations of Satan (2Co 2:11; 2Co 12:7, 1Ti 1:20). Probably he thought that, in accordance with the sentence of the Church, God would allow Satan to inflict some physical malady that would lead the offender to repentance. If we may take 2Co 2:6-11 to refer to the same case, the desired result was reached.
It cannot have been unknown to Paul that he was here using a form of words similar to the curses by which the Corinthians had formerly been accustomed to consign their personal enemies to destruction by the powers of the world of death. It seems not open to doubt that the Corinthians would understand by this phrase that the offender was to suffer disease and even death as a punishment for sin; and Paul goes on to add that this punishment of the flesh is intended to bring salvation ultimately to his soul ( ): by physical suffering he is to atone for his sin. The whole thought stands in the closest relation to the theory of the confession-inscriptions, in which those who have been punished by the god thank and bless him for the chastisement (Ramsay in Expository Times x. [1898-99] 59).
For cases in which physical ill followed ecclesiastical censure see Act 5:1; Act 8:20; Act 13:10. Some hold that the delivery to Satan was by virtue of the special authority of St. Paul himself, while the Church had power to expel only. There is nothing in the text to support such a view. This punishment must not be confounded with the anathema of Rom 9:3, 1Co 16:22, Gal 1:8-9. The attempt to explain the word () to mean excommunication from the society-a later use of the Hebrew in Rabbinical writers and the Greek in ecclesiastical-arose from a desire to take away the apparent profanity of the wish (Sanday-Headlam, Romans 5 [International Critical Commentary , 1902], p. 228). Calvin and some other reformers thought the expression . (1Co 16:22) was a formula of excommunication. Buxtorf (Lex. Chald., Basel, 1639, pp. 827, 2466) says it was part of a Jewish cursing formula from the Prophecy of Enoch (Jud 1:14).There is no reason for such an opinion. It was not held until the meaning of the words was lost or partially so. They are neither connected nor synonymous as some have supposed, and are rightly separated in Revised Version -If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema. Maran atha (cf. Php 4:5).
In addition to the specific case at Corinth and general references in such passages as 1Th 5:14, 2Th 3:14 (cf. Rom 16:17, Jam 5:16), we find more precise directions in later books-the Pastoral Epistles and General Epistles of St. John (see 1Ti 5:19-20; 1Ti 6:3, Tit 3:10, 1Jn 1:8 f., 1Jn 5:16, 2Jn 1:10, 3Jn 1:9-10). Heresy, schism, insubordination, usurpation of the authority of the Church by a section, became grounds of excommunication. The morals, doctrine, and government of the Church were all imperilled at times and could be preserved only by strict discipline and severe penalties upon wrong-doers. As in the Jewish community, the sentence of excommunication might be lighter or heavier, the exclusion being more or less complete. It might mean only expulsion from the Lords Table, but not from the Lords House; or it might be utter banishment from the Lords House and an interdict against all social intercourse with its members.
It is beyond the scope of this article to trace the history of excommunication in the Christian Church. Suffice it to say that the distinction between the minor () and major ( ) forms of it, which existed from very early times, if not from the Apostolic Age itself, were continued for centuries with a wealth of elaborate detail as to the exact penalties involved in each, and as to the attitude of those within the Church to those without its pale. Unfortunately, excommunication often became an instrument of oppression in the hands of unworthy men. In mediaeval days it frequently entailed outlawry and sometimes death.
The censures of the Church, reserved in her early days for the gravest moral And spiritual offences, soon lost their salutary terrors when excommunications became incidents in territorial squabbles, or were issued on the most trivial pretext; and when the unchristian penalty of the interdict sought to coerce the guilty by robbing the innocent of the privilege of Christian worship and even of burial itself (A. Robertson, Regnum Dei [Bampton Lectures, 1901], p. 257).
See also Anathema, Chastisement, Discipline, Restoration of Offenders.
Literature.-articles Discipline in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , Dict. of Christ and the Gospels , Discipline (Christian) in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics , Excommunication in Dict. of Christ and the Gospels , Smiths Dict. of the Bible 2, Jewish Encyclopedia , Catholic Encyclopedia , Bann (kirchlicher) in Realencyklopdie fr protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3; E. v. Dobschtz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. translation , London, 1904; H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History, do. 1909; E. Schrer, History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] , Edinburgh, 1885-1890; C. v. Weizscker, Das apostolische Zeitalter3, Tbingen, 1902 (Eng. translation of 2nd ed., London, 1894-95); A. Edersheim, LT [Note: T Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Edersheim).] 4, London, 1887; J. Bingham, Origines Ecclesiasticae, do. 1708-1722; H. Hallam, View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages10, do. 1853.
H. Cariss J. Sidnell.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
EXCOMMUNICATION
A penalty, or censure, whereby persons who are guilty of any notorious crime or offence, are separated from the communion of the church, and deprived of all spiritual advantages. Excommunication is founded upon a natural right which all societies have of excluding out of their body such as violate the laws thereof, and it was originally instituted for preserving the purity of the church; but ambitious ecclesiastics converted it by degrees into an engine for promoting their own power, and inflicted it on the most frivolous occasions. In the ancient church, the power of excommunication was lodged in the hands of the clergy, who distinguished it into the greater and less. The less consisted in excluding persons from the participation of the eucharist, and the prayers of the faithful; but they were not expelled the church. The greater excommunication consisted in absolute and entire seclusion from the church, and the participation of all its rights: notice of which was given by circular letters to the most eminent churches all over the world, that they might all confirm this act of discipline, by refusing to admit the delinquent to their communion. The consequences were very terrible.
The person so excommunicated, was avoided in all civil commerce and outward conversation. No one was to receive him into his house, nor eat at the same table with him; and, when dead, he was denied the solemn rites of burial. The Jews expelled from their synagogue such as had committed any grievous crime.
See Joh 9:32. Joh 12:42. Joh 16:2. and Joseph.Antiq. Jud. lib.9. cap. 22. and lib. 16. cap. 2. Godwyn, in his Moses and Aaron distinguishes three degrees or kinds of excommunication among the Jews. The first he finds intimated in Joh 9:22. the second in 1Co 5:5. and the third in 1Co 16:22. The Romish pontifical takes notice of three kinds of excommunication.
1. The minor, incurred by those who have any correspondence with an excommunicated person.
2. The major, which falls upon those who disobey the commands of the holy see, or refuse to submit to certain points of discipline; in consequence of which they are excluded from the church militant and triumphant, and delivered over to the devil, and his angels.
3. Anathema, which is properly that pronounced by the pope against heretical princes and countries. In former ages, these papal fulminations were most terrible things; but latterly they were formidable to none but a few petty states of Italy. Excommunication, in the greek church, cuts off the offender from all communion with the three hundred and eighteen fathers of the first council of Nice, and with the saints; consigns him over to the devil and the traitor Judas, and condemns his body to remain after death as hard as a flint or piece of steel, unless he humble himself, and make atonement for his sins by a sincere repentance. The form abounds with dreadful imprecations; and the Greeks assert, that, if a person dies excommunicated, the devil enters into the lifeless corpse; and, therefore, in order to prevent it, the relations of the deceased cut his body in pieces, and boil them in wine. It is a custom with the patriarch of Jerusalem annually to excommunicate the pope and the church of Rome; on which occasion, together with a great deal of idle ceremony, he drives a nail into the ground with a hammer, as a mark of malediction.
The form of excommunication in the church of England anciently ran thus: “By the authority of God the Father Almighty, the Son, and Holy Ghost, and of Mary the blessed mother of God, we excommunicate, anathematize, and sequester from the holy mother church, & 100:” The causes of excommunication in England are, contempt of the bishops’ court, heresy, neglect of public worship and the sacraments, incontinency, adultery, simony, &c. It is described to be twofold; the less is an ecclesiastical censure, excluding the party from the participation of the sacrament; the greater proceeds farther, and excludes him not only from these, but from the company of all christians; but if the judge of any spiritual court excommunicates a man for a cause of which he has not the legal cognizance, the party may have an action against him at common law, and he is also liable to be indicted at the suit of the king. Excommunication in the church of Scotland, consists only in an exclusion of openly profane and immoral persons from baptism and the Lord’s supper; but is seldom publicly denounced, as, indeed, such persons generally exclude themselves from the latter ordinance at least; but it is attended with no civil incapacity whatever.
Among the Independents and Baptists, the persons who are or should be excommunicated, are such as are quarrelsome and litigious, Gal 5:12; such as desert their privileges, withdraw themselves from the ordinances of God, and forsake his people, Jud 1:19; such as are irregular and immoral in their lives, railers, drunkards, extortioners, fornicators, and covetous, Eph 5:5. 1Co 5:11. “The exclusion of a person from any Christian church does not affect him temporal estate and civil affairs; it does not subject him to fines or imprisonments; it interferes not with the business of a civil magistrate; it makes no change in the natural and civil relations between husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants; neither does it deprive a man of the liberty of attending public worship; it removes him, however, from the communion of the church, and the privileges dependent on it: this is done that he may be ashamed of his sin, and be brought to repentance; that the honour of Christ may be vindicated, and that stumbling-blocks may be removed out of the way.”
Though the act of exclusion be not performed exactly in the same manner in every church, yet (according to the congregational plan) the power of excision lies in the church itself. The officers take the sense of the members assembled together; and after the matter has been properly investigated, and all necessary steps taken to reclaim the offender, the church proceeds to the actual exclusion of the person from among them, by signifying their judgment or opinion that the person is unworthy of a place in God’s house. In the conclusion of this article, however, we must add, that too great caution cannot be observed in procedures of this kind; every thing should be done with the greatest meekness, deliberation, prayer, and a deep sense of our own unworthiness; with a compassion for the offender, and a fixed design of embracing reproving, instructing, and, if possible, restoring him to the enjoyment of the privileges he has forfeited by his conduct.
See CHURCH.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
excommunication
(Latin: ex, out of; communicatio, communion)
A spiritual censure by which one is excluded from the communion of the faithful and suffers consequences inseparably attached by canon law to such exclusion. It is also called anathema , especially when inflicted with solemnities described in the Roman Ritual. While not vindictive, excommunication is the Church ‘s most serious penalty, its chief purpose being the correction of the guilty. This correction takes the form of exclusion from the spiritual benefits of the Church as a society and Mystical Body of Christ. Excommunication directly affects only the individual, who does not cease thereby to be a Christian , owing to the indelible character of Baptism . A secondary purpose of excommunication may be said to be the spiritual protection of the faithful. This is evidenced in the classification of the excommunicated as the vitandi (vitare, to avoid) and the tolerati (tolerare, to tolerate). Both these classes are equally cut off from the faithful as regards religious communication; but, in addition, the former are to be carefully shunned even in profane as well as religious matters. The vitandus on account of the notorious nature of his fault is one stigmatized by name, publicly, and through judicial sentence. Opposed to these classes, the earlier and classic division of excommunication was: major excommunication, effective complete exclusion from the community of the faithful; minor excommunication, a deprivation of certain of the Church ‘s benefits, e.g., reception of the Sacraments and public prayer. The rational rights of the Church as an autonomous society to excommunicate from membership is as evident as her right to admit to same. The examples of the Old and New Testament, and the practise of the Apostles furnish proof of this. In the Old Testament we have exclusion from the Synagogue (1 Esdras 10). In the New Testament the Apostle delivers “such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5). The “power of the keys” embraces not only power to remit sin, but all penal and coercive power necessary to the end of the Church (Matthew 18:16).
The adequate and general effect of excommunication is sufficiently evident thus far, from the explanation of the definition. In particular, the definitely classified canonical effects follow: exclusion from divine services of the Church , deprivation of the Sacraments (and sometimes sacramentals); exclusion from the public prayers of the Church , either by way of satisfaction or impetration; loss of the right to participate in legal acts of the Church ; loss of income from ecclesiastical office; and loss of right to social intercourse in case of vitandus. Canon law distinguishes two fora or courts: the sacramental, or the tribunal of Penance, and the non-sacramental, either public or private. When the penitent appears in the sacramental forum, the Roman Ritual prescribes the same formula for absolution from excommunication as that used for remission of sin. In the non-sacramental forum, since absolution is a jurisdictional act, any formula expressing the effect intended may be employed. Following the general law of jurisdiction as it applies to censures, excommunication may be taken away by the one who had inflicted it, his superior, delegate, or successor.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Excommunication
This subject will be treated under the following heads: I. General Notions and Historical Summary; II. Kinds of Excommunication; III. Who Can Excommunicate? IV. Who Can Be Excommunicated? V. Effects of Excommunication; VI. Absolution from Excommunication; VII. Excommunications Latæ Sententiæ Now in Force.
I. GENERAL NOTIONS AND HISTORICAL SUMMARY
Excommunication (Lat. ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion — exclusion from the communion), the principal and severest censure, is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society. Being a penalty, it supposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Church can inflict, it naturally supposes a very grave offence. It is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended, not so much to punish the culprit, as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness. It necessarily, therefore, contemplates the future, either to prevent the recurrence of certain culpable acts that have grievous external consequences, or, more especially, to induce the delinquent to satisfy the obligations incurred by his offence. Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society. Undoubtedly 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, interdict for clerics and laymen, irregularity ex delicto, etc. Excommunication, however, is clearly distinguished from these penalties in that it is the privation of all rights resulting from the social status of the Christian as such. The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian, since his baptism can never be effaced; he can, however, be considered as an exile from Christian society and as non-existent, for a time at least, in the sight of ecclesiastical authority. But such exile can have an end (and the Church desires it), as soon as the offender has given suitable satisfaction. Meanwhile, his status before the Church is that of a stranger. He may not participate in public worship nor receive the Body of Christ or any of the sacraments. Moreover, if he be a cleric, he is forbidden to administer a sacred rite or to exercise an act of spiritual authority.
Right of the Church to Excommunicate
The right to excommunicate is an immediate and necessary consequence of the fact that the Church is a society. Every society has the right to exclude and deprive of their rights and social advantages its unworthy or grievously culpable members, either temporarily or permanently. This right is necessary to every society in order that it may be well administered and survive. The fundamental proof, therefore, of the Church’s right to excommunicate is based on her status as a spiritual society, whose members, governed by legitimate authority, seek one and the same end through suitable means. Members who, by their obstinate disobedience, reject the means of attaining this common end deserve to be removed from such a society. This rational argument is confirmed by texts of the New Testament, the example of the Apostles, and the practice of the Church from the first ages down to the present. Among the Jews, exclusion from the synagogue was a real excommunication (Ezra 10:8). This was the exclusion feared by the parents of the man born blind (John 9:21 sq.; cf. 12:42; 16:2); the same likewise that Christ foretold to His disciples (Luke 6:22). It is also the exclusion which in due time the Christian Church should exercise: “And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican” (Matthew 18:17). In the celebrated text: “Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matthew 18:18; cf. 16:19), it is not only the remission of sins that is referred to, but likewise all spiritual jurisdiction, including judicial and penal sanctions. Such, moreover, was the jurisdiction conferred on St. Peter by the words: “Feed my lambs”; “feed my sheep” (John 21:15, 16, 17). St. Paul excommunicated regularly the incestuous Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:5) and the incorrigible blasphemers whom he delivered over to Satan (1 Timothy 1:20). Faithful to the Apostolic teaching and example, the Church, from the very earliest ages, was wont to excommunicate heretics and contumacious persons; since the fourth century numerous conciliary canons pronounce excommunication against those who are guilty of certain offences. Of the facts there can be no doubt (Seitz, Die Heilsnotwendigkeit der Kirche, Freiburg, 1903).
Excommunication not only External
In the first Christian centuries it is not always easy to distinguish between excommunication and penitential exclusion; to differentiate them satisfactorily we must await the decline of the institution of public penance and the well-defined separation between those things appertaining to the forum internum, or tribunal of conscience and the forum externum, or public ecclesiastical tribunal; nevertheless, the admission of a sinner to the performance of public penance was consequent on a previous genuine excommunication. On the other hand, formal exclusion from reception of the Eucharist and the other sacraments was only mitigated excommunication and identical with minor excommunication (see below). At any rate, in the first centuries excommunication is not regarded as a simple external measure; it reaches the soul and the conscience. It is not merely the severing of the outward bond which holds the individual to his place in the Church; it severs also the internal bond, and the sentence pronounced on earth is ratified in heaven. It is the spiritual sword, the heaviest penalty that the Church can inflict (see the patristic texts quoted in the Decree of Gratian, cc. xxxi, xxxii, xxxiii, C. xi, q. iii). Hence in the Bull “Exsurge Domine” (16 May, 1520) Leo X justly condemned Luther’s twenty-third proposition according to which “excommunications are merely external punishments, nor do they deprive a man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church”. Pius VI also condemned (Auctorem Fidei, 28 Aug., 1794) the forty-sixth proposition of the Pseudo-Synod of Pistoia, which maintained that the effect of excommunication is only exterior because of its own nature it excludes only from exterior communion with the Church, as if, said the pope, excommunication were not a spiritual penalty binding in heaven and affecting souls. The aforesaid proposition was therefore condemned as false, pernicious, already reprobated in the twenty-third proposition of Luther, and, to say the least, erroneous. Undoubtedly the Church cannot (nor does it wish to) oppose any obstacle to the internal relations of the soul with God; she even implores God to give the grace of repentance to the excommunicated. The rites of the Church, nevertheless, are always the providential and regular channel through which Divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclusion from such rites, especially from the sacraments, entails therefore regularly the privation of this grace, to whose sources the excommunicated person has no longer access.
History of Excommunication
While excommunication ranks first among ecclesiastical censures, it existed long before any such classification arose. From the earliest days of the Christian society it was the chief (if not the only) ecclesiastical penalty for laymen; for guilty clerics the first punishment was deposition from their office, i.e. reduction to the ranks of the laity. Subsequently, when ecclesiastical discipline allowed clerics more easily to resume their ministry, the ancient deposition became suspension; thenceforth even clerics were subject to excommunication, by which they lost at once their rights as Christians and as clerics. Both laymen and clerics were henceforth threatened or punished with excommunication for offences that became daily more definite and numerous, particularly for refusing obedience either to special ecclesiastical precepts or the general laws of the Church. Once the forum externum, or public ecclesiastical tribunal, was distinctly separated from the forum sacramentale, or tribunal of sacramental penance, say from the ninth century on, excommunication became gradually an ever more powerful means of spiritual government, a sort of coercive measure ensuring the exact accomplishment of the laws of the Church and the precepts of her prelates. Excommunication was either threatened or inflicted in order to secure the observance of fasts and feasts, the payment of tithes, the obedience of inferiors, the denunciation of the guilty, also to compel the faithful to make known to ecclesiastical authority matrimonial impediments and other information.
Abuse
This extension of the use of excommunication led to abuses. The infliction of so grave a penalty for offences of a less grievous kind and most frequently impossible to verify before the public ecclesiastical authority, begot eventually a contempt for excommunication. Consequently the Council of Trent was forced to recommend to all bishops and prelates more moderation in the use of censures (Sess. XXV, c. iii, De ref.). The passage is too significant to be here omitted: “Although the sword of excommunication is the very sinews of ecclesiastical discipline, and very salutary for keeping the people to the observance of their duty, yet it is to be used with sobriety and great circumspection; seeing that experience teaches that if it be wielded rashly or for slight causes, it is more despised than feared, and works more evil than good. Wherefore, such excommunications which are wont to be issued for the purpose of provoking a revelation, or on account of things lost or stolen, shall be issued by no one whomsoever but the bishop; and not then, except on account of some uncommon circumstance which moves the bishop thereunto, and after the matter has been by him diligently and very maturely weighed.” Then follow equally explicit measures for the use of censures in judicial matters. This recommendation of the Council of Trent has been duly heeded, and the use of censures as a means of coercion has grown constantly rarer, the more so as it is hardly ever, possible for the Church to obtain from the civil power the execution of such penalties.
Excessive Number of Excommunications
In the course of time, also, the number of canonical excommunications was excessively multiplied, which fact, coupled with their frequent desuetude, made it difficult to know whether many among them were always in force. The difficulty was greater as a large number of these excommunications were reserved, for which reason theologians with much ingenuity construed favourably said reservation and permitted the majority of the faithful to obtain absolution without presenting themselves in Rome, or indeed even writing thither. In recent times the number of excommunications in force has been greatly diminished, and a new method of absolving from them has been inaugurated; it will doubtless find a place in the new codificacation of the canon law that is being prepared. Thus, without change of nature, excommunication in foro externo has become an exceptional penalty, reserved for very grievous offences detrimental to Christian society; in foro interno it has been diminished and mitigated, at least in regard to the conditions for absolution from it. However, as can readily be seen from a perusal of the excommunications actually in force, it still remains true that what the Church aims at is not so much the crime as the satisfaction to be obtained from the culprit in consequence of his offence.
Refusal of Ecclesiastical Communion
Finally, real excommunication must not be confounded with a measure formerly quite frequent, and sometimes even known as excommunication, but which was rather a refusal of episcopal communion. It was the refusal by a bishop to communicate in sacris with another bishop and his church, in consideration of an act deemed reprehensible and worthy of chastisement. It was undoubtedly with this withdrawal of communion that Pope Victor threatened (or actually punished) the bishops of Asia in the paschal controversy (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., V, xxiv); it was certainly the measure to which St. Martin of Tours had recourse when he refused to communicate with the Spanish bishops who caused Emperor Maximinus to condemn to death the heretic Priscillian with some of his adherents (Sulpicius Severus, Dial., iii, 15). Moreover, a similar privation of communion was in early Christian times imposed by councils as a regular penalty for bishops found guilty of certain minor faults; the most frequent example is that of bishops who, without good reason, neglected to attend the provincial council (so the Councils of Carthage, 401, can. xi; Agde, 506, can. xxxv; Tarragona, 516, can. vi; II Macon, 585, can. xx; etc.). These bishops were evidently not excommunicated, properly speaking; they continued to govern their dioceses and publicly to hold ecclesiastical services; they were simply deprived, as the aforesaid texts say, of the consolation of communion with their episcopal brethren.
II. KINDS OF EXCOMMUNICATION
(1) Major and Minor
Until recently excommunication was of two kinds, major and minor.
(a) Minor excommunication is uniformly defined by canonists and by Gregory IX (cap. lix, De sent. exc., lib. V, tit. xxxix) as prohibition from receiving the sacraments, what theologians call the passive use of the sacraments. In order to receive the Eucharist and the other sacraments, those who had incurred this penalty had to be absolved therefrom; as it was not reserved, this could be done by any confessor. Indirectly, however, it entailed other consequences. The canon law (cap. x, De cler. excomm. ministrante, lib. V, tit. xxvii) taught that the priest who celebrates Mass while under the ban of minor excommunication sins grievously; also that he sins similarly in administering the sacraments; and finally, that while he can vote for others, he himself is ineligible to a canonical office. This is readily understood when we remember that the cleric thus excommunicated was presumed to be in the state of grievous sin, and that such a state is an obstacle to the lawful celebration of Mass and the administration of the sacraments. Minor excommunication was really identical with the state of the penitent of olden times who, prior to his reconciliation, was admitted to public penance. Minor excommunication was incurred by unlawful intercourse with the excommunicated, and in the beginning no exception was made of any class of excommunicated persons. Owing, however, to many inconveniences arising from this condition of things, especially after excommunications had become so numerous, Martin V, by the Constitution “Ad evitanda scandala” (1418), restricted the aforesaid unlawful intercourse to that held with those who were formally named as persons to be shunned and who were therefore known as vitandi (Lat. vitare, to avoid), also with those who were notoriously guilty of striking a cleric. But as this twofold category was in modern times greatly reduced, but little attention was paid to minor excommunication, and eventually it ceased to exist after the publication of the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”. The latter declared that all excommunications latæ sententiæ that it did not mention were abolished, and as it was silent concerning minor excommunication (by its nature an excommunication latæ sententiæ of a special kind), canonists concluded that minor excommunication no longer existed. This conclusion was formally ratified by the Holy Office (6 Jan., 1884, ad 4). (b) Major excommunication, which remains now the only kind in force, is therefore the kind of which we treat below, and to which our definition fully applies. Anathema is a sort of aggravated excommunication, from which, however, it does not differ essentially, but simply in the matter of special solemnities and outward display.
(2) A jure and ab homine
Excommunication is either a jure (by law) or ab homine (by judicial act of man, i.e. by a judge). The first is provided by the law itself, which declares that whosoever shall have been guilty of a definite crime will incur the penalty of excommunication. The second is inflicted by an ecclesiastical prelate, either when he issues a serious order under pain of excommunication or imposes this penalty by judicial sentence and after a criminal trial.
(3) Latæ and Ferendæ Sententiæ
Excommunication, especially a jure, is either latæ or ferendæ sententiæ. The first is incurred as soon as the offence is committed and by reason of the offence itself (eo ipso) without intervention of any ecclesiastical judge; it is recognized in the terms used by the legislator, for instance: “the culprit will be excommunicated at once, by the fact itself [statim, ipso facto]”. The second is indeed foreseen by the law as a penalty, but is inflicted on the culprit only by a judicial sentence; in other words, the delinquent is rather threatened than visited with the penalty, and incurs it only when the judge has summoned him before his tribunal, declared him guilty, and punished him according to the terms of the law. It is recognized when the law contains these or similar words: “under pain of excommunication”; “the culprit will be excommunicated”.
(4) Public and Occult
Excommunication ferendæ sententiæ can be public only, as it must be the object of a declaratory sentence pronounced by a judge; but excommunication latæ sententiæ may be either public or occult. It is public through the publicity of the law when it is imposed and published by ecclesiastical authority; it is public through notoriety of fact when the offence that has incurred it is known to the majority in the locality, as in the case of those who have publicly done violence to clerics, or of the purchasers of church property. On the contrary, excommunication is occult when the offence entailing it is known to no one or almost no one. The first is valid in the forum externum and consequently in the forum internum; the second is valid in the forum internum only. The practical difference is very important. He who has incurred occult excommunication should treat himself as excommunicated and be absolved as soon as possible, submitting to whatever conditions will be imposed upon him, but this only in the tribunal of conscience; he is not obliged to denounce himself to a judge nor to abstain from external acts connected with the exercise of jurisdiction, and he may ask absolution without making himself known either in confession or to the Sacred Penitentiaria. According to the teaching of Benedict XIV (De synodo, X, i, 5), “a sentence declaratory of the offence is always necessary in the forum externum, since in this tribunal no one is presumed to be excommunicated unless convicted of a crime that entails such a penalty”. Public excommunication, on the other hand, is removed only by a public absolution; when it is question of simple publicity of fact (see above), the absolution, while not judicial, is nevertheless public, inasmuch as it is given to a known person and appears as an act of the forum externum.
(5) Vitandi and Tolerati
Public excommunication in foro externo has two degrees according as it has or has not been formally published, or, in other words, according as excommunicated persons are to be shunned (vitandi) or tolerated (tolerati). A formally published or nominative excommunication occurs when the sentence has been brought to the knowledge of the public by a notification from the judge, indicating by name the person thus punished. No special method is required for this publication; according to the Council of Constance (1414-18), it suffices that “the sentence have been published or made known by the judge in a special and express manner”. Persons thus excommunicated are to be shunned (vitandi), i.e. the faithful must have no intercourse with them either in regard to sacred things or (to a certain extent) profane matters, as we shall see farther on. All other excommunicated persons, even though known, are tolerati, i. e. the law no longer obliges the faithful to abstain from intercourse with them, even in religious matters. This distinction dates from the aforesaid Constitution “Ad evitanda scandala”, published by Martin V at the Council of Constance in 1418; until then one had to avoid communion with all the excommunicated, once they were known as such. “To avoid scandal and numerous dangers”, says Martin V, “and to relieve timorous consciences, we hereby mercifully grant to all the faithful that henceforth no one need refrain from communicating with another in the reception or administration of the sacraments, or in other matters Divine or profane, under pretext of any ecclesiastical sentence or censure, whether promulgated in general form by law or by a judge, nor avoid anyone whomsoever, nor observe an ecclesiastical interdict, except when this sentence or censure shall have been published or made known by the judge in special and express form, against some certain, specified person, college, university, church, community, or place.” But while notoriously excommunicated persons are no longer vitandi, the pope makes an exception of those who have “incurred the penalty of excommunication by reason of sacrilegious violence against a cleric, and so notoriously that the fact can in no way be dissimulated or excused”. He declares, moreover, that he has not made this concession in favour of the excommunicated, whose condition remains unchanged, but solely for the benefit of the faithful. Hence, in virtue of ecclesiastical law, the latter need no longer deprive themselves of intercourse with those of the excommunicated who are “tolerated”. As to the vitandi, now reduced to the two aforementioned categories, they must be shunned by the faithful as formerly. It is to be noted now that the minor excommunication incurred formerly by these forbidden relations has been suppressed; also, that of the major excommunications inflicted on certain definite acts of communion with the vitandi, only two are retained in the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis” (II, 16, 17): that inflicted on any of the faithful for participation in a crime that has merited nominative excommunication by the pope, and that pronounced against clerics alone for spontaneous and conscious communion in sacris with persons whom the pope has excommunicated by name. Moreover, those whom bishops excommunicate by name are as much vitandi as are those similarly excommunicated by the pope.
(6) Reserved and Non-Reserved
Finally, excommunication is either reserved or non-reserved. This division affects the absolution from censure. In the forum internum any confessor can absolve from non reserved excommunications; but those that are reserved can only be remitted, except through indult or delegation, by those to whom the law reserves the absolution. There is a distinction between excommunications reserved to the pope (these being divided into two classes, according to which they are either specially or simply reserved to him) and those reserved to bishops or ordinaries. As to excommunications ab homine, absolution from them is reserved by law to the judge who has inflicted them. In a certain sense excommunications may also be reserved in view of the persons who incur them; thus absolution from excommunications in foro externo incurred by bishops is reserved to the pope; again, custom reserves to him the excommunication of sovereigns.
III. WHO CAN EXCOMMUNICATE?
Excommunication is an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the rules of which it follows. Hence the general principle: whoever has jurisdiction in the forum externum, properly so called, can excommunicate, but only his own subjects. Therefore, whether excommunications be a jure (by the law) or ab homine (under form of sentence or precept), they may come from the pope alone or a general council for the entire Church; from the provincial council for an ecclesiastical province; from the bishop for his diocese; from the prelate nullius for quasi-diocesan territories; and from regular prelates for religious orders. Moreover, anyone can excommunicate who, by virtue of his office, even when delegated, has contentious jurisdiction in the forum externum; for instance, papal legates, vicars capitular, and vicars-general. But a parish priest cannot inflict this penalty nor even declare that it is incurred, i. e. he cannot do so in an official and judicial manner. The subjects of these various authorities are those who come under their jurisdiction chiefly on account of domicile or quasi-domicile in their territory; then by reason of the offence committed while on such territory; and finally by reason of personal right, as in the case of regulars.
IV. WHO CAN BE EXCOMMUNICATED?
Since excommunication is the forfeiture of the spiritual privileges of ecclesiastical society, all those, but those only, can be excommunicated who, by any right whatsoever, belong to this society. Consequently excommunication can be inflicted only on baptized and living persons. Although the Church recites against the devil exorcisms in which the word anathema occurs, he cannot be excommunicated, for he in no way belongs to the Church. Among living persons, those who have not been baptized have never been members of the Christian society and therefore cannot be deprived of spiritual benefits to which they have never had a right; in this way, infidels, pagans, Mohammedans, and Jews, though outside of the Church, are not excommunicated. As the baptized cease, at death, to belong to the Church Militant, the dead cannot be excommunicated. Of course, strictly speaking, after the demise of a Christian person, it may be officially declared that such person incurred excommunication during his lifetime. Quite in the same sense he may be absolved after his death; indeed, the Roman Ritual contains the rite for absolving an excommunicated person already dead (Tit. III, cap. iv: Ritus absolvendi excommunicatum jam mortuum). However, these sentences or absolutions concern only the effects of excommunication, notably ecclesiastical burial. With the foregoing exceptions, all who have been baptized are liable to excommunication, even those who have never belonged to the true Church, since by their baptism they are really her subjects, though of course rebellious ones. Moreover, the Church excommunicates not only those who abandon the true faith to embrace schism or heresy, but likewise the members of heretical and schismatic communities who have been born therein. As to the latter, however, it is not question of personal excommunication; the censure overtakes them in their corporate capacity, as members of a community in revolt against the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Catholics, on the contrary, cannot be excommunicated unless for some personal, grievously offensive act. Here, therefore, it is necessary to state with precision the conditions under which this penalty is incurred. Just as exile presupposes a crime, excommunication presupposes a grievous external fault. Not only would it be wrong for a Christian to be punished without having committed a punishable act, but justice demands a proportion between the offence and the penalty; hence the most serious of spiritual chastisements, i.e. forfeiture of all the privileges common to Christians, is inconceivable unless for a grave fault. Moreover, in order to fall within the jurisdiction of the forum externum, which alone can inflict excommunication, this fault must be external. Internal failings, e.g. doubts entertained against the Catholic Faith, cannot incur excommunication. Note, however, that by external fault is not necessarily meant a public one; an occult external fault calls forth occult excommunication, but in foro interno, as already seen. Most authors add that the offence must be consummated, i.e. complete and perfected in its kind (in genere suo), unless the legislator have ordained otherwise. This, however, is a rule of interpretation rather than a real condition for the incurring of censure, and is tantamount to saying that attempt at a crime does not entail the penalty meted out to the crime itself, but that if the legislator declares that he wishes to punish even the attempt, excommunication is incurred (cf. Const. “Apost. Sedis”, III, 1, for attempt at marriage on part of clerics in major orders).
Considered from a moral and juridical standpoint, the guilt requisite for the incurring of excommunication implies, first, the full use of reason; second sufficient moral liberty; finally, a knowledge of the law and even of the penalty. Where such knowledge is lacking, there is no contumacy, i.e. no contempt of ecclesiastical law, the essence of which consists in performing an action known to be forbidden, and forbidden under a certain penalty. The prohibition and the penalty are known either through the text of the law itself, which is equivalent to a juridical warning, or through admonitions or proclamations issued expressly by the ecclesiastical judge. Hence arise various extenuating reasons (causæ excusantes), based on lack of guilt, which prevent the incurring of excommunication:
(1) Lack of the full use of reason. This excuses children, also those who have not attained the age of puberty, and, a fortiori, the demented. Inadvertence, however, is not presumed; while it may affect moral responsibility and excommunication in foro externo, it is no obstacle to juridical guilt. (2) Lack of liberty resulting from grave fear. Such fear impairs the freedom of the will, and while it exists contumacy or rebellion against the laws of the Church cannot be presumed. Evidently, a proper estimation of this extenuating reason depends on the circumstances of each particular case and will be more readily accepted as an excuse for violating a positive law than in palliation of an offence against the natural or Divine law. (3) Ignorance. The general principle is, that whosoever is ignorant of the law is not responsible for transgressing it; and whosoever is ignorant of the penalty does not incur it. But the application of this principle is often complicated and delicate. The following considerations, generally admitted, may serve as a guide: (a) All ignorance, both of law and of fact, is excusatory. (b) The ignorance known as “invincible” always excuses; it may also be called inculpable or probable ignorance. (c) There are two kinds of culpable ignorance, one known as crassa or supina, i.e. gross, improbable ignorance, and supposing a grievously guilty neglect in regard to knowledge of the law ; the other is affected ignorance, really a deliberate ignorance of the law through fear of incurring its penalty. (d) Ordinarily, gross ignorance does not excuse from punishment. But it does so only when the law formally exacts a positive knowledge of the prohibition. The laws that inflict excommunication contain as a rule two kinds of expressions. Sometimes the offence only is mentioned, e.g. “all apostates, heretics’s, etc., or “those who absolve their accomplices in a sin against chastity” (Const. “Apost. Sedis”, I, 1, 10). Sometimes causes are inserted that exact, as a necessary condition, the knowledge or effrontery of the culprit, e.g., “those who knowingly read books” condemned under pain of excommunication, “regulars who have the audacity to administer the Viaticum without permission of the parish priest” (Const. “Apost. Sedis”, I, 2; II, 14). Gross ignorance excuses in the second case but not in the first. (e) For many authors, affected ignorance is equivalent to a knowledge of the law, since by it some avoid enlightening themselves concerning a dreaded penalty; these authors conclude that such ignorance never excuses. Other canonists consider that this penal law is to be strictly interpreted; when, therefore, it positively exacts knowledge on the part of the culprit, he is excused even by affected ignorance. As, in practice, it is not always easy to establish the shades of difference, it will suffice to remark that in a case of occult excommunication the culprit has the right to judge himself and to be judged by his confessor according to the exact truth, whereas, in the forum externum the judge decides according to presumptions and proofs. Consequently, in the tribunal of conscience he who is reasonably persuaded of his innocence cannot be compelled to treat himself as excommunicated and to seek absolution; this conviction, however, must be prudently established.
V. EFFECTS OF EXCOMMUNICATION
If we consider only its nature, excommunication has no degrees: it simply deprives clerics and laymen of all their rights in Christian society, which total effect takes on a visible shape in details proportionate in number to the rights or advantages of which the excommunicated cleric or layman has been deprived. The effects of excommunication must, however, be considered in relation also to the rest of the faithful. From this point of view arise certain differences according to the various classes of excommunicated persons. These differences were not introduced out of regard for the excommunicated, rather for the sake of the faithful. The latter would suffer serious inconveniences if the nullity of all acts performed by excommunicated clerics were rigidly maintained. They would also be exposed to grievous perplexities of conscience if they were strictly obliged to avoid all intercourse, even profane, with the excommunicated. Hence the practical rule for interpreting the effects of excommunication: severity as regards the excommunicated, but mildness for the faithful. We may now proceed to enumerate the immediate effects of excommunication. They are summed up in the two well known verses: Res sacræ, ritus, communio, crypta, potestas, prædia sacra, forum, civilia jura vetantur,
i.e. loss of the sacraments, public services and prayers of the Church, ecclesiastical burial, jurisdiction, benefices, canonical rights, and social intercourse.
(1) Res Sacr
These are the sacraments; the excommunicated are forbidden either to receive or administer them. The sacraments are of course validly administered by excommunicated persons, except those (penance and matrimony) for whose administration jurisdiction is necessary; but the reception of the sacraments by excommunicated persons is always illicit. The licit administration of the sacraments by excommunicated ecclesiastics hinges upon the benefit to be derived by the faithful. Ecclesiastics excommunicated by name are forbidden to administer the sacraments except in cases of extreme necessity; apart from this necessity penance and matrimony administered by such ecclesiastics are null (Decret. “Ne temere”, art. iv). Excommunicated ecclesiastics tolerati, however, may licitly administer the sacraments to the faithful who request them at their hands, and the acts of jurisdiction thus posited are maintained by reason of the benefit accruing to the faithful, most frequently also because of common error (error communis), i.e. a general belief in the good standing of such ecclesiastics. The faithful, on their side, may, without sin, ask tolerated excommunicated ecclesiastics to administer sacraments to them; they would, however, sin grievously in making this request of the vitandi, except in case of urgent necessity.
(2) Ritus
Hereby are meant the Mass, the Divine Office, and other sacred ceremonies. An excommunicated person may not and should not assist at these ceremonies. If he be a toleratus, his presence need not be taken into account, and the service can be continued. If he be a vitandus he must be warned to retire, and in case of refusal he must be forcibly compelled to withdraw; but if he still persists in remaining, the service must be discontinued, even the Mass, unless the Canon has been commenced. (Benedict XIV, De sacr. Miss., sect. ii, n. 117.) Nevertheless, since the condition of an excommunicated person, even a vitandus, is no worse than that of an infidel, he may assist at sermons, instructions, etc., venerate images and relics, take holy water, and use privately other sacramentals. The excommunicated cleric is not released from any of his obligations in regard to the Divine Office and, if bound to it, must recite it, but privately and not in the choir. A toleratus may be admitted to the choir, but a vitandus must be expelled therefrom. All excommunicated clerics are prohibited from celebrating Mass and performing other strictly liturgical functions, under penalty of the irregularity ex delicto for violation of the censure; participation in the liturgical acts performed by an excommunicated cleric is a forbidden communicatio in sacris; however, no censure would result from it except in the case of clerics voluntarily communicating in sacris with those whom the pope had excommunicated by name (Const. “Apost. Sedis”, II, 17). In each case the fault should be estimated according to circumstances.
(3) Communio
These are, properly speaking, the public suffrages of the Church, official prayers, Indulgences, etc., in which the excommunicated have no share. But they are not excluded from the private suffrages (i.e. intercessory petitions) of the faithful, who can pray for them.
(4) Crypta
This word signifies ecclesiastical burial, of which the excommunicated are deprived. In chapter xii, de sepulturis (lib. III, tit. xxviii), Innocent III says: “The canons have established that we should not hold communion after their death with those with whom we did not communicate during their lifetime, and that all those should be deprived of ecclesiastical burial who were separated from the unity of the Church, and at the moment of death were not reconciled thereunto.” The Ritual (tit. VI, cap. ii, n. 2) renews this prohibition for those publicly excommunicated, and most writers interpret this as meaning those whose excommunication has been publicly proclaimed (Many, De locis sacris, p. 354), so that, under this head, the ancient discipline is no longer applicable, except to the vitandi. However this does not mean that the tolerati can always receive ecclesiastical burial; they may be deprived of it for other reasons, e.g. as heretics or public sinners. Apropos of this leniency, it must be remembered that it is not the excommunicated the Church wishes to favour, but rather the faithful for whose sake communion with the tolerati is allowed in the matter of burial as well as in other matters. The interment of a toleratus in a consecrated cemetery carries with it no longer the desecration of said cemetery; this would follow, however, in the case of the vitandi. (See BURIAL.)
(5) Potestas
Potestas signifies ecclesiastical jurisdiction, of which both the passive and the active use, to speak canonically, are forbidden the excommunicated. Jurisdiction is used passively when a person is the object of one of its acts, of a concession. Now, ecclesiastical authority has no official relations with the exile unless, at his request, it negotiates the conditions for his return to society. Connected with this discipline is the rule forbidding the excommunicated to receive from the pope any kind of rescript (of grace or justice), except in regard to their excommunication, under pain of nullity of such rescript (c. xxvi, de rescriptis, lib. I, tit. iii, and c. i, eod., in VI). Hence the custom of inserting in papal rescripts the so-called ad effectum absolution from censures, intended solely to ensure the value of the rescript, but affecting in no wise the excommunication, if already existent. Jurisdiction is used actively when exercised by its depositaries. It is easy to understand that the Church cannot leave her jurisdiction in the hands of those whom she excludes from her society. In principle, therefore, excommunication entails the loss of jurisdiction both in foro externo and in foro interno and renders null all acts accomplished without the necessary jurisdiction. However, for the general good of society, the Church maintains jurisdiction, despite occult excommunication, and supplies it for acts performed by the tolerati. But as the vitandi are known to be such, this merciful remedy cannot be applied to them except in certain cases of extreme necessity, when jurisdiction is said to be “supplied” by the Church.
(6) Pr dia sacra
Pr dia sacra are ecclesiastical benefices. The excommunicated ecclesiastic is incapable of acquiring a benefice, and his presentation to it would be legally null. A benefice already held is not forfeited at once, even when to the censure the law adds privation of benefice; this is carried into effect only through a sentence which must be at least declaratory and issue from a competent (i.e. the proper) judge. Nevertheless, from the very first the excommunicated beneficiary loses those fruits of his benefice belonging to choir service, provided he is bound thereunto. Moreover, should he live a year in the state of excommunication, he can be deprived of his benefice through judicial sentence. The aforesaid effects do not result from occult excommunication.
(7) Forum
The excommunicated person is an exile from ecclesiastical society, consequently from its tribunals; only inasmuch, however, as they would be to his advantage. On the other hand, if he be summoned before them to satisfy a third party he is obliged to appear. Hence he cannot appear as plaintiff, procurator, or advocate; he may be the defendant, or the party accused. At this point the difference between the vitandi and the tolerati consists in this, that the former must be prevented from introducing any legal action before an ecclesiastical tribunal, whereas the latter can be debarred from so doing only when the prosecutor alleges and proves excommunication as already incurred. It is a question here only of public excommunication and before ecclesiastical tribunals.
(8) Civilia jura
Civilia jura, i.e. the ordinary relations between members of the same society, outside of sacred and judicial matters. This privation, affecting particularly the person excommunicated, is no longer imposed on the faithful except in regard to the vitandi. The medieval canonists enumerated the prohibited civil relations in the following verse: Os, orare, vale, communio, mensa negatur,
namely: (a) conversations, exchange of letters, tokens of benevolence (osculum); (b) prayer in common with the excommunicated; (c) marks of honour and respect; (d) business and social relations; (e) meals with the excommunicated.
But at the same time they specified the reasons that rendered these relations licit: Utile, lex humilis, res ignorata, necesse,
that is to say: (a) both the spiritual and the temporal benefit of the excommunicated and of the faithful; (b) conjugal law; (c) the submission owed by children, servants, vassals, and subordinates in general; (d) ignorance of excommunication or of the prohibition of a particular kind of intercourse; (e) finally, any kind of necessity, as human law, is not binding to this degree.
Remote Effects
All the effects that we have just enumerated are the immediate results of excommunication, but it also causes remote effects, which are not a necessary consequence and are only produced when the person censured occasions them. They are three in number: (1) The cleric who violates excommunication by exercising one of the liturgical functions of his order, incurs an irregularity ex delicto. (2) The excommunicated person who remains a year without making any effort to obtain absolution (insordescentia) becomes suspected of heresy and can be followed up and condemned as guilty of such (Council of Trent, Sess. XXV, cap. iii, De ref.; cf. Ferraris, s. v. “Insordescens”). (3) This neglect makes it the judge’s duty to deprive the excommunicated cleric of all benefices, though some judges postpone for three years the fulfilment of this obligation (see Hollweck, Die kirchlichen Strafgesetze, art. 1, note 3).
Effects of Invalid or Unjust Excommunication
An excommunication is said to be null when it is invalid because of some intrinsic or essential defect, e.g. when the person inflicting it has no jurisdiction, when the motive of the excommunication is manifestly incorrect and inconsistent, or when the excommunication is essentially defective in form. Excommunication is said to be unjust when, though valid, it is wrongfully applied to a person really innocent but believed to be guilty. Here, of course, it is not a question of excommunication latæ sententiæ and in foro interno, but only of one imposed or declared by judicial sentence. It is admitted by all that a null excommunication produces no effect whatever, and may be ignored without sin (cap. ii, de const., in VI). But a case of unjust excommunication brings out in a much more general way the possibility of conflict between the forum internum and the forum externum, between legal justice and the real facts. In chapter xxviii, de sent. excomm. (Lib. V, tit. xxxix), Innocent III formally admits the possibility of this conflict. Some persons, he says, may be free in the eyes of God but bound in the eyes of the Church; vice versa, some may be free in the eyes of the Church but bound in the eyes of God: for God’s judgment is based on the very truth itself, whereas that of the Church is based on arguments and presumptions which are sometimes erroneous. He concludes that the chain by which the sinner is bound in the sight of God is loosed by remission of the fault committed, whereas that which binds him in the sight of the Church is severed only by removal of the sentence. Consequently, a person unjustly excommunicated is in the same state as the justly excommunicated sinner who has repented and recovered the grace of God; he has not forfeited internal communion with the Church, and God can bestow upon him all necessary spiritual help. However, while seeking to prove his innocence, the censured person is meanwhile bound to obey legitimate authority and to behave as one under the ban of excommunication, until he is rehabilitated or absolved. Such a case seems practically impossible nowadays.
VI. ABSOLUTION FROM EXCOMMUNICATION
Apart from the rare cases in which excommunication is imposed for a fixed period and then ceases of itself, it is always removed by absolution. It is to be noted at once that, though the same word is used to designate the sacramental sentence by which sins are remitted and that by which excommunication is removed, there is a vast difference between the two acts. The absolution which revokes excommunication is purely jurisdictional and has nothing sacramental about it. It reinstates the repentant sinner in the Church; restores the rights of which he had been deprived, beginning with participation in the sacraments; and for this very reason, it should precede sacramental absolution, which it thenceforth renders possible and efficacious. After absolution from excommunication has been given in foro externo, the judge sends the person absolved to a confessor, that his sin may be remitted; when absolution from censure is given in the confessional, it should always precede sacramental absolution, conformably to the instruction in the Ritual and the very tenor o the formula for sacramental absolution, It may be noted at once that the principal effect of absolution from excommunication may be acquired without the excommunicated person’s being wholly reinstated in his former position. Thus, an ecclesiastic might not necessarily recover the benefice which he had lost; indeed he might be admitted to lay communion only. Ecclesiastical authority has the right to posit certain conditions for the return of the culprit, and every absolution from excommunication calls for the fulfilment of certain conditions which vary in severity, according to the case.
Excommunication, it must be remembered, is a medicinal penalty intended, above all, for the correction of the culprit; therefore his first duty is to solicit pardon by showing an inclination to obey the orders given him, just as it is the duty of ecclesiastical authority to receive back the sinner as soon as he repents and declares himself disposed to give the required satisfaction. This satisfaction is often indicated in the law itself; for instance, usurpers of ecclesiastical property are excommunicated until such time as they make restitution (Council of Trent, Sess. XXII, c. xi); and again, it is determined by the judge who grants absolution or the indult for absolving. Besides expiatory practices habitually known as “penance”, such satisfaction exacts opportune measures for the reparation of the past, as well as guarantees for the future. It is not always necessary that these measures be executed prior to absolution, which is frequently granted on the solemn promise of the excommunicated party either to accomplish a specified act, such as coming to an agreement with the Church for the property usurped, or simply to abide by the orders of ecclesiastical authority (standi mandatis ecclesi ). In such cases absolution is not unusually given under pain of “reincidence” (ad reincidentiam), i.e., if within a definite period the person censured has not accomplished a certain specified act, he reincurs the same excommunication; his status is just as if he had never been absolved. However, this clause of reincidence is not to be presumed; when occasion requires, it is inserted in the sentence of absolution or in the indult granted for that purpose.
The formula of absolution from excommunication is not strictly determined, and, since it is an act of jurisdiction, it suffices if the formula employed express clearly the effect which it is desired to attain. The formula for remitting the excommunication in foro externo should be such as to absolve validly from public excommunication. Similarly, an excommunication imposed by judicial sentence is to be revoked by an absolution in the same form; occult excommunication may be revoked in the confessional by the sacramental formula. The Roman Ritual (tit. LII, c. ii) gives the formula of absolution used in foro externo and states that in foro interno absolution is given in the usual sacramental form.
Who Can Absolve from Excommunication?
The answer is given in the customary rules of jurisdiction. The right to absolve evidently belongs to him who can excommunicate and who has imposed the law, moreover to any person delegated by him to this effect, since this power, being jurisdictional, can be delegated. First, we must distinguish between excommunication ab homine, which is judicial, and excommunication a jure, i.e. latæ sententiæ. For the former, absolution is given by the judge who inflicted the penalty (or by his successor), in other words by the pope, or the bishop (ordinary), also by the superior of said judge when acting as judge of appeal. As to excommunication latæ sententiæ, the power to absolve is either ordinary or delegated. Ordinary power is determined by the law itself, which indicates to what authority the censure is reserved in each case. Delegated power is of two kinds: that granted in permanency and set down in the law and that granted or communicated by personal act, e. g. by authority (faculties) of the Roman Penitentiaria, by episcopal delegation for special cases, or bestowed upon certain priests. Of this second kind of delegation there is no need to speak, as it belongs to each one to verify the power (faculties) that he possesses. Delegation of the first kind carries with it the power to absolve from excommunication without special request or particular faculties. Such power is in this case conferred by the law itself. Nevertheless this power is subject to the general law that governs delegation and is valid only for the cases and under the conditions mentioned in the concession. Thus faculties granted for the forum internum cannot be extended to the forum externum, nor can those granted for specially reserved excommunications be used for simply reserved cases, and so on. However, the faculties proceeding from both kinds of delegation may be “cumulated”, i.e. may be held and exercised by the same person.
These principles admitted, we must remember that with reference to reservation or the right to absolve, excommunications are divided into four classes: excommunications specially reserved to the pope; excommunications simply reserved to the pope; excommunications reserved to the bishop (ordinary); and, finally, excommunications that are not reserved (nemini reservat ). According to this classification, as a general rule, only the pope can absolve from the first two kinds of excommunication, although his power extends to the others; bishops (ordinaries), but not other priests, can remove excommunications of the third class; finally, those of the fourth class, and those only, can be revoked by any approved priest, without further special delegation. At this point, however, must be considered certain concessions of the law that may be grouped in three categories: the permanent faculties of bishops; concessions for urgent cases; and concessions for the point of death.
(1) The Faculties of Bishops
The Council of Trent (Sess. XXIV, c. vi, De ref.) authorizes bishops to absolve their own subjects in their own dioceses from all excommunications, consequently from those reserved to the Holy See, when occult or, rather, not pertaining to the forum externum. They can exercise this power either in person or through a special delegate of their choice, but in the tribunal of conscience only. However, the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis” restricted this provision of the council to excommunications simply reserved to the pope, so that, without special indult, bishops can no longer absolve from specially reserved cases, even in foro interno. On the other hand, the indults they receive are more or less liberal and widely communicable.
(2) Urgent Cases
In the chapter “Nuper” (xxix, de sent. excomm., lib. V, tit. xxxix), Innocent III sets forth the principle that governs such cases: “When it is difficult for the excommunicated person to go to him who excommunicated him, he may be absolved by his bishop or even by his own priest, on promising to obey the orders of him by whom excommunication was pronounced.” This is the principle that moralists and canonists formulated as an axiom: Impedito casus papalis fit episcopalis: in case of one who is prevented from presenting himself to the pope, the excommunication reserved to the pope may be removed by the bishop. But most authors carried the analogy still further: for him who is prevented from presenting himself to the bishop, the excommunication may be removed by any confessor. In regard to the obligation of submitting to the orders of the pope or the bishop, the moralists and canonists generally taught as follows: First, no one was obliged to apply in writing (correct as to the removal of excommunication, though Innocent III says nothing of this kind concerning a request for information). Then they distinguished between obstacles that were more or less prolonged: perpetual obstacles were such as exceed five years; obstacles of long duration were those lasting over six months; and obstacles of short duration, those continuing for less than six months. When the obstacle was perpetual the bishop or, if he could not be reached, any priest might absolve without appealing to the superior; this could also be done, but not without obligation of recourse to the superior on the cessation of the obstacle, when the latter was of long duration, provided there were urgency. Finally, the authors drew up a long list of those who were supposed to be unable to present themselves in person to the pope; and this list included almost every one (Gury, Theol. Moralis, II, nn. 952 and 375). This practice, far more lenient than was intended by Innocent III, has been recently profoundly modified by a decree of the Congregation of the Inquisition (Holy Office) dated 23 June, 1886. Henceforth “in urgent cases when absolution cannot be deferred without danger of grave scandal or infamy, which is left to the conscientious appreciation of the confessor, the latter, after having imposed the necessary satisfaction, can absolve, without other faculties, from all censure; even those specially reserved to the Holy See, but under pain or reincidence under the same censure if, within a month, the penitent thus absolved does not recur to the Holy See by letters and through the medium of the confessor.” This new method has been more precisely explained and even rendered easier by subsequent papal decisions. The absolution thus given is direct (Holy Office, 19 Aug., 1891), and although recourse to the Penitentiaria is obligatory, its object is not to ask a new absolution, but only to solicit the order of the Church, the penitent, as stated above, having had to make a serious promise to conform to them (standi mandatis Ecclesi ). The power thus granted in urgent cases is valid for all cases, without exception, reserved by law to the pope or the ordinary, even for the absolution of an accomplice (Holy Office, 7 June, 1899).
As to what constitutes a state of urgency, the reply of 16 June, 1897, is very reassuring, since it permits absolution from censures “as soon as it becomes too distressing to the penitent to remain in the state of sin during the time necessary for soliciting and receiving from Rome the power to absolve”. Now, according to the moralists it is too much to remain even a day or two in the state of sin, especially for priests. The appeal, though usually made through the medium of the confessor, can be made by the penitent himself if he be capable; indeed he should write himself if he cannot easily return to the same confessor (Cong. of the Penitentiaria, 7 Nov., 1888). Finally, if both confessor and penitent find it impossible to appeal by letters, these may be dispensed with (Holy Office, 18 Aug., 1898). The letters should be addressed to the Congregation of the Penitentiaria and should contain information concerning all necessary circumstances, but under a false name (Sacr. Pen., 7 Nov., 1888). If the interested party, though able to appeal to the Holy See, fails to do so within a month from the time of receiving absolution, he or she incurs the former censures, which remain effective until there is a new absolution followed by recourse to Rome. There would, however, be no reincidence if the interval of a month were to expire through the confessor’s fault. It is to be noted that this sanction of reincidence applies to all censures reserved to the pope, but not to those reserved by law to the ordinaries. Finally, this method is not obligatory for censures reserved to ordinaries by diocesan law. Bishops, however, could profitably apply it to such censures, and some have already done so.
(3) In Danger of Death
It is a principle repeatedly set forth in canon law that at the point of death all reservations cease and all necessary jurisdiction is supplied by the Church. “At the point of death”, says the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, c. vii), “in danger of death”, says the Ritual (tit. III, cap. i, n. 23), any priest can absolve from all sins and censures, even if he be without the ordinary faculties of confessors, or if he himself be excommunicated; he may do so even in presence of another priest properly authorized (Holy Office, 29 July, 1891). The Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis” expressly maintains this merciful concession, merely adding, for the case in which the moribund is restored to health, the obligation of having recourse to the Holy See, if he has been absolved from excommunication specially reserved to the pope, unless he prefers to ask absolution of a confessor provided with special faculties. This recourse, although identical with that of which we have just spoken for urgent cases, nevertheless differs from it on two points: it is not imposed for the absolution from excommunications simply reserved, and the short delay of a month is not counted from the time of receiving absolution, but from the time of recovery.
VII. EXCOMMUNICATIONS LATÆ SENTENTIÆ NOW IN FORCE
In the preamble of the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”, Pius IX stated that during the course of centuries, the number of censures latæ sententiæ had increased inordinately, that some of them were no longer expedient, that many were doubtful, that they occasioned frequent difficulties of conscience, and finally, that a reform was necessary. On this head Pius IX had anticipated the almost unanimous request of the Catholic episcopate presented at the Vatican Council (Colleetio Lacensis, VII, col. 840, 874, etc.). The number of excommunications latæ sententiæ enumerated by the moralists and canonists is really formidable: Ferraris (Prompta Biblioth., s. v. Excommunicatio, art. ii-iv) gives almost 200. The principal ones were destined to protect the Catholic Faith, the ecclesiastical hierarchy and its jurisdiction, and figured in the Bull known as “In C na Domini” read publicly each year in Rome, on Holy Thursday. In time, this document had received various additions (Ferraris, loc. cit., art. ii, the text of Clement XI), and from it the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis” derives excommunications specially reserved, with exception of the tenth. The Constitution of Pius IX deals with no penalties other than censures; it leaves intact all censures ferendæ sententiæ but suppresses all censures latæ sententiæ that it does not retain. Now, besides those which it enumerates it retains:
(1) the censures decreed (and not simply mentioned) by the Council of Trent; (2) the censures of special law, i.e. those in vigour for papal elections, those enforced in religious orders and institutes, in colleges, communities, etc. As to the censures enumerated, they should be interpreted as if pronounced for the first time, and ancient texts should be consulted for them only in so far as such texts have not been modified by the new law.
Thus the excommunications latæ sententiæ enforced to-day by common law in the Catholic Church proceed from three sources:
(A) those enumerated in the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”; (B) those pronounced by the Council of Trent; and (C) those introduced subsequently to the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”, i.e. later than 12 October, 1869.
We enumerate them here with a brief commentary.
A. Excommunications of the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”
These are divided into four categories:
(a) those specially reserved to the pope; (b) those simply reserved to the pope; (c) those reserved to the bishop (ordinary); (d) those not reserved to anyone.
(a) Excommunications Specially Reserved to the Pope
These are twelve in number and are imposed upon the following persons:
(1) “All apostates from the Christian Faith, heretics of every name and sect, and those who give them credence, who receive or countenance them, and generally all those who take up their defence.” Strictly speaking, an apostate is one who goes over to a non Christian religion, e.g. Islam; to such apostates are assimilated those who publicly renounce all religion; this apostasy is not to be presumed; it is evident that both kinds of apostates exclude themselves from the Church. A heretic is one who rejects a Catholic dogma. The first to be considered is the heretic who becomes such of his own volition; who, being in the Catholic Church, obstinately repudiates a truth of faith. Excommunication is incurred by him, if, with full knowledge, he exteriorly formulates an heretical proposition; and if he seeks to propagate his error he is dogmatizans and should be denounced. Next comes the heretic who belongs to an heretical association; for such a person his heretical membership alone is sufficient to bring him under sentence of excommunication. In his case the penalty is incurred by adhesion to the heresy, notably by wilful and active participation in sacris (i.e. in public worship) with heretics; hence the excommunication of those who contract a mixed marriage before an heretical minister as such (Holy Office, 28 Aug., 1888). Finally, the penalty extends to those who believe in heretics (credentes) and join their ranks; to those who receive them, i.e. who give them shelter in their homes, so as to protect them from the pursuit of authority; and to those who countenance or defend them as heretics and in view of the heresy, provided it be a positive and efficacious assistance.
(2) “All those who knowingly read, without permission of the Apostolic See, books by these same apostates and heretics and upholding heresy, as also the books of any authors whomsoever specifically prohibited by Letters Apostolic, and all who keep, print, or in any way defend these same books.” After heretical persons come heretical books. The act that incurs excommunication is, first, reading done to a considerable extent and culpably, i.e. by one who knows the nature of the books and of the excommunication, and who, moreover, has not the necessary permission. The secondary acts punishable with the same penalty are the keeping in one’s possession, the printing (rather the publishing), and, finally, the defence, by word or by writing, of the books in question. These books are of two kinds: first, those written by apostates, or heretics, and which uphold and commend heresy, two conditions that must exist simultaneously; second, books specifically condemned, i. e., by mention of their titles, not by decree of the Index, but by Letters from the pope himself, Bulls or Briefs, and under pain of excommunication (for a list of these books see Hilgers, “Der Index der verbotenen Bücher”, Freiburg, 1904, p. 96; and “Die Bücherverbote in Papstbriefen”, Freiburg, 1907).
(3) “Schismatics and those who elude or obstinately withdraw from the authority of the reigning Roman pontiff.” The schismatics here referred to are of two kinds: those who are such because they belong to separated Churches which reject the authority of the pope, and those who, being Catholics, become schismatics by reason of obstinate disobedience to the authority of the pope as such.
(4) “All those, of no matter what state, rank, or condition, who appeal from the ordinances or mandates of the reigning Roman pontiff to a future ecumenical council, and all who have given aid, counsel, or countenance to this appeal.” The appeal from the commands of the pope to a future ecumenical council, not only implies the superiority of the council over the pontiff, but is pre-eminently an act of injurious disobedience to the Head of the Church. Were this appeal efficacious it would render all church government impossible, unless it be accepted that the normal state of the Church is a general council in perpetual session, or at least meeting at short intervals. This extreme Gallicanism is justly punishable with excommunication. The penalty is visited upon all those who have influenced such act of appeal, either by aid, counsel, or support. This excommunication, however, is to be strictly interpreted; it would not be incurred in consequence of an appeal made to a future pope, the Holy See being vacant, or to a general council actually assembled.
(5) “All who kill, mutilate, strike, seize, incarcerate, detain or pursue with hostile intent, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, legates or nuncios of the Holy See, or drive them from their dioceses, jurisdictions, estates, or domains, as also those who ratify these measures or further them by aid or countenance.” The object of this penalty is not so much to protect the members of the clergy, like the celebrated excommunication of the canon “Si quis suadente diabolo”, of which we shall speak below, but rather to safeguard the prelates or superiors in whom the Church has lodged her jurisdiction. The text clearly indicates the acts punished by excommunication, i.e. all violent attacks on the person of a prelate as such; it likewise specifies the culprits, i.e. those who perpetrate such assaults and those who are responsible for them, as also their active accomplices.
(6) “Those who directly or indirectly prevent the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, either in foro interno or in foro externo, and who, for this purpose, have recourse to the secular tribunal; also those who provoke or deliver the orders of this tribunal or lend it their aid, counsel, or support.” The preceding article protects those who are the depositaries of jurisdiction; the present article protects the exercise of said jurisdiction. It punishes any obstacle raised against the delivery or execution of a sentence or decision of the ecclesiastical authority. It is not question here of the power of order (potestas ordinis) or of facts that do not really imply jurisdiction, e.g. a simple contract. Nor is it question of measures taken with prelates so as to influence them into exercising their jurisdiction in a given direction, e.g. to confer a benefice on Caius or withhold one from Titius; this censure is meant to punish any obstacle that really prevents action on the part of a prelate who wishes to perform an act of jurisdiction or to carry it into effect. He is directly prevented when violence is used against him; indirectly, when his subordinates are prevented from acting. The chief opposition here considered is recourse to secular and especially judicial authority. Excommunication is therefore incurred under this head by all who provoke the intervention of secular tribunals, provided such intervention actually follow; by all who deliver orders or directions intended to prevent the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; finally, by all who co-operate in these acts with aid, counsel, or support, unless under compulsion. Moralists and canonists exempt from this penalty the clerks and servants of the secular courts.
(7) “Those who directly or indirectly oblige lay judges to cite ecclesiastical persons before their tribunal, except in cases provided for by canonical agreements, also those who enact laws or decrees against the liberty or rights of the Church.” The first part of this article has for its object the protection of the privileges of the ecclesiastical forum, i.e. of those ecclesiastics whose right it is to be judged by ecclesiastical tribunals; consequently, those are excommunicated who oblige lay judges to summon clergymen before their tribunal in cases where this ecclesiastical privilege (privilegium fori) should be respected. But the judges themselves, who act by virtue of their office, are not excommunicated (Holy Office, 1 Feb., 1870). Those who thus force lay judges to violate the privilegium fori are of two kinds: namely, those who actually cite ecclesiastics before secular judges, and the legislators or makers of laws detrimental to the rights of the Church. The first are not excommunicated provided they have no other means of obtaining justice, i.e. when the laws of the country in question do not recognize the aforesaid ecclesiastical privilegium fori (Holy Office, 23 Jan., 1886). There remains, therefore, of this censure little more than the second part of the article, which now affects chiefly the legislators responsible for laws and decrees against the liberty and rights of the Church. The regulations governing excommunications have been renewed and somewhat extended by the Motu Proprio “Quantavis diligentia” of 9 October, 1911.
(8) “Those who have recourse to lay power for the prevention of Apostolic Letters or Acts of any kind emanating from the Apostolic See or from its legates or delegates; those who directly or indirectly prohibit the promulgation of these acts or letters, or who, on the occasion of such promulgation, strike or terrify either the parties interested or third parties.” This article should be compared with number 6 (above), from which it differs in that it protects, not all exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but that which the Holy See exercises in its official letters, it being eminently important to ensure the free communication of the faithful with Rome. The letters in question are: first, Apostolic Letters, in which the pope himself speaks, Bulls, Briefs, Encyclicals, etc.; second, the Acts of the Holy See emanating from Roman Congregations or other organs of the Curia, which constitute but one authority with the pope (Holy Office, 13 Jan., 1892); finally, the acts of the official representatives of the pope, e.g. papal legates and delegates. The excommunication considers not only Letters that concern all the faithful, but also those regarding individuals, e. g. grants of benefices, dispensations, etc. This admitted, the penalty applies to three classes of persons, namely: those who resort to secular power, not only judicial but administrative, to prevent these Letters from being published or from producing their effect; those who, by means of authority, prevent such publication or execution; and finally, those who, on the occasion of these Letters, strike or terrify either the beneficiaries or even third parties who take part in their publication or execution. According to the more probable opinion, excommunication is incurred even if these measures of opposition do not produce the intended results.
(9) “All falsifiers of Apostolic Letters, even in the form of a Brief, and of petitions concerning matters of grace or justice signed by the Roman pontiff, or by cardinal vice-chancellors or those who replace them, or simply by command of the pope; also those who falsely publish Apostolic Letters, even in the form of a Brief; and finally, those who falsely sign petitions of this kind with the name of the Roman pontiff, of the vice-chancellor, or of those who replace them.” This excommunication punishes what is generally known as forgery, not in all its forms, but in so far as it affects such pontifical letters or grants as are issued through the tribunals known as the “Segnatura Gratiæ” and the “Segnatura Justitiæ”, i.e. whence issue papal favours purely benevolent or connected with litigation. It does not therefore attain forgeries affecting the letters of grants of the Roman Congregations or of prelates. It may be somewhat of a surprise to know that this excommunication does not include those who fabricate an entire Apostolic Letter, the definition of falsification (falsum) meaning only a notable alteration of authentic Letters either by suppression, erasures, writing over, or substitution. Petitions addressed to the pope, when granted, are first signed by him, or by the vice-chancellor, or other officers. The grant does not thereby become official, but the petition thus signed serves as a basis for the wording of Apostolic Letters (Bulls or Briefs) that actually grant the favour requested. In this process three acts are punishable with excommunication: the false signing of a petition; the falsification of Apostolic Letters, and the publication of Letters thus falsified, in order to use them.
(10) “Those who absolve an accomplice in a sin against chastity, and that even at the moment of death, provided another priest, although he be not approved for confession, can hear the confession of the dying person without serious danger of infamy or scandal.” This excommunication is not derived from the Bull “In C na Domini”, but from the celebrated Constitution of Benedict XIV, “Sacramentum Pœnitentiæ” (1 June, 1741), completed by his Constitution “Apostolici muneris” (8 Feb., 1745). By these Bulls the pope, with a view to protecting the Sacrament of Penance from sacrilegious abuse, withdraws all jurisdiction from a confessor for absolving from sins against chastity which he may have committed with another person, whether man or woman; the absolution he might impart for such sin would be null, and the mere attempt to absolve would incur excommunication. The sin thus withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the confessor is any grievous exterior sin against the Sixth Commandment, but it must be such on both sides. The confessor accessary to it cannot pardon it, but, this sin once pardoned, he incurs no penalty by again hearing the confession of his accomplice. This being the case, excommunication is incurred by the confessor if he pronounce the formula of absolution after his accomplice has accused himself or herself of this sin, even though he had not the intention of absolving, or even if he only feign to absolve (Holy Office, 5 Dec., 1883), thereby allowing the penitent to suppose that he has absolved him or her; or again if he be the cause of the penitent’s refraining from accusing himself or herself of this sin (S. Peniten., 19 Feb., 1896). Neither gross (crassa, supina) nor affected ignorance excuses from the censure (Holy Office, 13 Jan., 1892). There are but two cases in which excommunication is not incurred: first, under absolutely exceptional circumstances where the penitent could not approach another confessor, as the human law does not bind at the cost of such serious disadvantage; again, at the moment of death. But even then Benedict XIV does not restore the power of absolving nor exempt from excommunication, unless it be morally impossible for the dying person, without grave danger of slander or scandal, to call in another confessor; this condition, however, should be interpreted broadly.
(11) “Those who usurp or sequester the jurisdiction, property, or revenues belonging to ecclesiastical persons by reason of their churches or benefices.” To usurp is to take as if it legitimately belonged to oneself that which belongs to another; hence it is that this article does not apply to thieves of ecclesiastical property (Holy Office, 9 March, 1870). To sequester is formally and authoritatively to place in the custody of a third party property withdrawn from the possession of a previous owner. The rights and property protected by this article do not include all church property but only the rights and property of beneficed clergy as such; they are, as a matter of fact, the principal possessions of the Church. Other property, e.g. that belonging to pious establishments (opera pia) or confraternities and that intended for the maintenance or reparation of churches, is protected, indeed, by distinct censures, but its usurpation or sequestration does not incur the excommunication contemplated by this article, which was declared applicable to intruded parish priests in Switzerland (Pius IX, Encyclical of 21 Nov., 1873; S. Cong. of the Council, 23 May, 1874) and in Prussia (25 Feb., 1875). It applies quite certainly to governments that despoil the Church of her property.
(12) “Those who themselves or through others, invade, destroy, or detain cities, lands, places, or rights of the Roman Church, those who hold possession of, disturb, or detain its sovereign jurisdiction, and all who give aid, counsel, or countenance to these offences.” This penalty applies to the authors and accomplices of the invasion and detention of the temporal domains of the Holy See.
(b) Excommunications Simply Reserved to the Pope
Before enumerating those it intends to retain, the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis” pronounces a first excommunication of this kind against “those who presume to absolve, without the requisite faculties and under any pretext whatsoever, from excommunications that are specially reserved”. This article is directed against those who dare to absolve in bad faith or rashly; a well-founded doubt, however, and even gross ignorance may be pleaded as excuses. Then follow seventeen excommunications simply reserved, declared against the following persons:
(1) “Those who either publicly or privately teach or defend propositions condemned by the Holy See under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ; likewise those who teach or maintain as lawful the practice of asking the penitent the name of his or her accomplice, a practice condemned by Benedict XIV in his Constitutions ‘Suprema’ (7 July, 1745), ‘Ubi primum’ (2 July, 1746), and ‘Ad eradicandam’ (28 Sept., 1746).” This article contains two distinct parts. In the first it is not question of all propositions condemned by popes or councils in terms less condemnatory (e.g. rash, offensive, etc.) than the specific stigma heretical (to defend heretical propositions being heresy itself and already declared a chief cause of excommunication, see above), but only those which the popes have specifically forbidden to be maintained under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ. These propositions are:
(a) the forty-one errors of Luther condemned by Leo X, 16 May, 1520; (b) the seventy-nine theses of Michael Baius condemned 1 Oct., 1567, 29 Jan., 1579, and 16 March, 1641; (c) the thesis on confession and absolution by letter or messenger, condemned by Clement VIII, 20 June, 1602; (d) the twenty-eight propositions condemned by Alexander VII, 24 Sept., 1665; (e) the seventeen propositions condemned by the same pope, 18 March, 1666; (f) the sixty-five propositions condemned by Innocent XI, 4 March, 679; (g) the sixty-eight propositions of Miguel de Molinos condemned by the same pope, 20 November, 1687; (h) the second of two propositions condemned by Alexander VIII, 24 August, 1690; (i) the thirty-one propositions condemned by the same pope, 7 December, 1690; (k) the five propositions on duelling condemned by Benedict XIV, 10 November, 1752; (1) and finally the sixty-five Modernistic propositions condemned by decree of the Holy Office, 3 July, 1907, according to the Motu Proprio of Pius X, 19 November, 1907.
The text of all these propositions will be found in Denzinger’s “Enchiridion Symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum “, etc. (10th ed., Freiburg, 1908), also, the last series excepted, in Pennachi’s “Comment. in Const. Apost. Sedis”, I, 168. The second part of the article aims at the abusive practice of requiring the penitent, under pain of being refused absolution, to divulge the name of his or her accomplice in any crime, a dangerous practice and opposed to the conditions of secrecy under which sacramental confession is made. Benedict XIV denounced it, notably in Portugal, by the aforementioned Constitutions. It is to be noted, however, that this excommunication is not incurred by the confessor who asks a penitent the name of his or her accomplice, but only by him who teaches or maintains that this practice is permitted. Moreover, the expression “to teach or maintain” implies more than merely to affirm or share the condemned opinions.
(2) “Those who, at the instigation of the devil, violently lay hands on ecclesiastics or religious of either sex, exception being made, as regards reservation, in behalf of cases and of persons that the law or privileges allow the bishop or others to absolve.” This is the celebrated privilege or immunity “of the canon” (privilegium canonis), so called from the canon “Si quis, suadente diabolo” (Decretum of Gratian, C. xvii, q. iv, c. xxix), enacted by the Council of Lateran in 1139 and intended to protect the honour of the clergy from material violence and injury. The persons protected are all who belong to the clergy in the broad sense of the word, i.e. both minor and major clerics, tonsured persons, monks, nuns, novices, and even tertiaries living in community. This privilege is to be interpreted broadly. The acts punished are all injurious corporal violence, such as blows and wounds, a fortiori mutilation; also pursuit, imprisonment, and arrest, likewise insulting acts, such as a slap in the face, etc. The penalty is not imposed for acts that are not grievous, for verbal injuries, for excusable violence, e.g. in the case of legitimate defence, or finally when one is unaware that he is dealing with a cleric. Nowadays only the real perpetrators of these deeds are excommunicated, not accomplices nor those who are morally responsible. Once the fact is publicly known the culprits are vitandi even without being denounced by name. Absolution from this excommunication is regularly reserved to the pope, but the text of the article maintains the faculties possessed by bishops and others, such as we have heretofore indicated.
(3) “Those who fight duels, those who challenge or accept challenge thereunto, all accomplices, all who help or countenance such combats, all who designedly assist thereat, finally all who permit duelling or who do not prevent it in so far as lies in their power, no matter what their rank or dignity, be it royal or imperial.” This severe discipline against duelling dates from the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV, e. xix, De ref.); here, however, only the excommunication in question is considered. It aims at duelling, properly so called, by challenge and on accepted conditions, not at other single combats or altercations. University duels, so common in Germany, are included (S. Cong. of the Council, 29 Aug., 1890). The malice of the duel lies in the fact that it makes right depend upon the fate of arms; this penalty is extended to all who take any part whatever in these detestable combats. The excommunication is incurred, first, by the duellists themselves, not only when they actually fight, but as soon as they have proposed or accepted a challenge; next, by the official witnesses or seconds, also by physicians expressly brought upon the scene (Holy Office, 28 May, 1884), and by all spectators not accidentally present; likewise by those who permit these affairs, when such permission is necessary, e.g. in the army, and by those who, although able to prevent duelling, refrain from so doing.
(4) “Those who become members of the Masonic sect, of the Carbonari, or of other similar sects that plot either openly or secretly against the Church or legitimate authorities; all who countenance these sects in any way whatever, and finally, all who do not inform against the occult chiefs or leaders, i.e. until they have made such denunciations.” Certain associations are prohibited because of their evil or dangerous object; this article deals only with those to which it is forbidden to belong under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ. These are known by their aim, which is to plot against the Church or legitimate authorities, obviously by illicit or criminal means; this excludes at once purely political groups. It matters little whether or not these societies exact secrecy from their members, though the element of secrecy constitutes an unfavourable presumption. The article names two of these sects, the Freemasons and the Carbonari; to these we must add the Fenians (Holy Office, 12 Jan., 1870). There are four prohibited American societies: the Independent Order of Good Templars (Holy Office, 9 Aug., 1893), the Odd Fellows, the Sons of Temperance, and the Knights of Pythias (Holy Office, 20 June, 1894), but not under pain of excommunication. In regard to the sects of which our article treats, three distinct acts incur excommunication: the inscribing of one’s name as a member, the positive favouring of the sect as such, and failure to denounce the occult leaders. For this last act censure is not incurred if the leaders be not occult, or if they be not known with sufficient certainty. The denunciation, if imperative, must be made within a month; once it is made the excommunication is no longer reserved, and one is in a condition to receive absolution from any confessor without further formality.
(5) “Those who command the violation of or who themselves rashly violate the immunity of ecclesiastical asylum.” Immunity, or right of sanctuary, protected criminals who took refuge near the altar or within sacred edifices; it was forbidden to remove them from such places of refuge either by public or private force. This immunity, although formerly beneficial, has disappeared from modern life; the excommunication here retained has hardly more than the value of a principle; it may be noted that the article is cautiously worded. By its terms excommunication would be incurred only by those who rashly, and without being constrained thereto, violate the right of sanctuary as such (Holy Office, 1 Feb., 1871; 22 Dec., 1880).
(6) “Persons of any kind, condition, sex, or age who violate the clausura [i.e. canonical enclosure] of nuns by penetrating into their monasteries, those introducing or admitting them, also nuns who leave their clausura, except in the cases and in the manner provided for by the Constitution ‘Decori’ of St. Pius V.” The reader will find in the article CLOISTER further details; here it suffices to add that the enclosure in question is that of the papal enclosure (clausura papalis), or that of religious women with solemn vows. The Constitution “Decori” (24 Jan., 1570) limits the reasons of egress to fire, leprosy, or an epidemic; even in the two latter cases it is necessary for such nuns to have the written authorization of the bishop.
(7) “Women who violate the enclosure [clausura] of male religious and the superiors and others who admit them.” Here also it is question of religious with solemn vows; moreover, it has not seemed necessary to provide for exceptional cases nor for permission.
(8) “Those who are guilty of real simony [simonia realis] for the obtaining of any benefices whatever, and their accomplices.” (For this article and the two that follow see SIMONY.)
(9) “Those who are guilty of confidential simony [simonia confidentialis] apropos of any benefice or any dignity whatever.”
(10) “Those who are guilty of real simony for the purpose of entering a religious order.”
(11) “All who traffic in Indulgences or other spiritual favours are excommunicated by the Constitution of St. Pius V, ‘Quam plenum’ (2 Jan., 1569).” This Constitution enumerates the abuses that the pope wished to remedy. Certain Spanish bishops were accustomed to issue public grants of Indulgences or various other spiritual favours, but in a manner for which they were unauthorized; the abuse consisted mainly in the pecuniary conditions they imposed for obtaining these favours (Indulgences, choice of a confessor for the absolution of reserved cases, Mass and burial in time of interdict, dispensation from abstinence, the right to present several sponsors at baptism, etc.). To overcome these abuses St. Pius V inflicted two kinds of penalties: bishops were punished by being forbidden entrance into church and by suspension of the “fruits”, or revenues, of their benefices; culprits of inferior rank were excommunicated. The penalties against bishops have been suppressed; excommunication, however, is retained to punish those who would reap unlawful profit from the publication or granting of Indulgences or of the other spiritual favours enumerated.
(12) “Those who collect stipends for Masses and make profits out of them by having the Masses celebrated in places where the stipends are not so high.” The object of the penalty is to remedy all shameful traffic in Mass-stipends; to incur it two things are necessary: not only must the stipends for Masses (called missæ manuales) be collected, but a portion of them must be withheld when remitting them to the priests who are to fulfil the obligation of saying the Masses. Despite the wording of the article, it is not necessary that both conditions, the quest of stipends and the celebration of the Masses, occur in different places (Holy Office, 19 Aug., 1891, ad 4).
(13) “All those excommunicated by the Constitutions of St. Pius V, ‘Admonet nos’ (29 March, 1567); Innocent IX, ‘Quæ ab hâc Sede’ (4 Nov., 1591); Clement VIII, ‘Ad Romani Pontificis curam’ (26 June, 1592); and Alexander VIII, ‘Inter cæteras’ (24 Oct., 1660), concerning the alienation and enfeoffment of cities and places belonging to the Holy Roman Church.” This article deals with the temporal domains of the Church and calls here for no special comment.
(14) “Religious who, without permission of the parish priest, venture to administer extreme unction or the Eucharist as Viaticum, to ecclesiastics or laymen, except in cases of necessity.” The penalty affects religious with solemn vows and professed, but is not incurred if they have at least the presumed permission of the parish priest, if they be in ignorance, finally if it be a case of necessity. Those to whom these religious must not administer the sacraments are seculars, ecclesiastics or laymen; they may, however, administer them to persons domiciled in their convents.
(15) “Those who without legitimate permission take relics from the cemeteries or catacombs of Rome or its territory, and those who give such persons aid or countenance.” The permission is to be sought from the Roman Vicariate, and excommunication is incurred only by carrying away from the catacombs genuine relies, not other objects. Relics are the remains, not of anyone happening to be buried in the catacombs, but only of martyrs or of those regarded as such by reason of the “signs of martyrdom” that distinguish their tombs, notably the phial of blood, according to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, 10 April, 1668, and 27 Nov., 1863.
(16) “Those who hold communion in criminal crime with a person whom the pope has excommunicated by name, that is, those who give him assistance or countenance.” The “criminal crime” (crimen criminosum) is the very one for which the culprit was excommunicated; the article, of course, does not contemplate participation in the offensive act itself, since excommunication by name is necessarily posterior to such an act. The penalty is inflicted for subsequently assisting or countenancing the excommunicated person. This is a survival (see above, II (5)] of the penalties incurred by intercourse with the excommunicated. It must be noted that this censure is not imposed for intercourse with all excommunicated persons, but only with vitandi, those whom the pope has excommunicated by name, not such as have been excommunicated by a Roman Congregation (Holy Office, 16 June, 1897) or by the bishop.
(17) “Clerics who knowingly and wilfully hold communion in divinis with persons whom the pope has excommunicated by name and receive them at Divine service.” The excommunicated in question are the same as in the preceding article, and they cannot be admitted to Divine worship; however, the penalty incurred concerns ecclesiastics only, when acting freely and with full knowledge [see above, II (5)].
(c) Excommunications Reserved to the Bishop (Ordinary)
These are three in number and affect the following persons:
(1) “Ecclesiastics in Holy orders and regulars or nuns who dare to contract marriage after having made a solemn vow of chastity, also those who dare to contract marriage with one of these persons.” The ecclesiastics whose marriage is null in consequence of the impediment of Holy orders are subdeacons and those in still higher orders; the nuns and male religious whose marriage is null through the impediment of vow are members of the great orders. Nevertheless, the impediment does not exist from the time of their first profession that follows the novitiate, but only from the solemn profession made three years later. The penalty is incurred by an attempt at marriage, not by an act of betrothal; such an attempt is recognized in any contract having the figura matrimonii, i. e. which would constitute a marriage if there were no impediment; consequently the penalty is incurred for civil marriage (Holy Office, 22 Dec., 1880), even if there were other impediments, e.g. consanguinity (Holy Office, 16 Jan., 1892).
(2) “Those who efficaciously procure abortion.” The fruitless attempt is not punished with excommunication; authors do not agree as to whether the woman guilty of self-abortion is excommunicated.
(3) “Those who knowingly make use of counterfeit Apostolic Letters or who co-operate in the crime.” [See above, (a) (9).] This article is not directed against forgers but against those who endeavour to profit by falsified letters. Petitions signed by the pope or in his name are not mentioned. Accomplices are also punished; but the culprits must act knowingly, and be fully aware that they are using falsified papal letters.
(d) Excommunications That Are Not Reserved (Nemini Reservat )
These are four in number and are pronounced against the following persons:
(1) “Those who command or oblige the giving of ecclesiastical burial to notorious heretics or to persons excommunicated by name or placed under interdict.” The article does not consider funeral ceremonies, but only material interment in consecrated ground. Those who admit heretics or others to ecclesiastical burial are not punished, but only those who, by authority or force, compel such an interment, thereby violating the prohibition of the Church. Nor is it question here of all who, according to the Ritual, should be deprived of ecclesiastical burial, but merely of the two categories indicated.
(2) “Those who wound or terrorize the inquisitors, informers, witnesses, or other ministers of the Holy Office; those who lacerate or burn the writings of this tribunal and all who give to the aforesaid assistance, counsel, or countenance.” This excommunication does not apply in countries where the Holy Office has no organized tribunal; the inquisitional functions devolve in such countries on the bishop, who is protected by the specially reserved excommunications described above, under (a) (5), (6), (8).
(3) “Those who alienate and those who have the audacity to receive church property without Apostolic authorization, according to the terms of the Constitution ‘Ambitiosæ, de rebus eccl. non alienandis’.” The author of this Constitution (Extravagantes, lib. III, tit. iv, inter comm.) was Paul II (1 March, 1467). It forbids under pain of reserved excommunication and of the nullity of the acts, not only alienations (properly so called) of ecclesiastical property, sales, donations, etc., but also all contracts savouring of alienation, such as mortgages, emphyteusis or perpetual lease, long-term leases, etc. For the manifest benefit of the Church these contracts must be authorized by the pope; only objects of small value are excepted (see Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, no. 20).
(4) “Those who, through their own fault, neglect or omit to denounce within a month the confessors or priests by whom they have been solicited to immodest acts, in all the cases set forth by our predecessors. Gregory XV in the Constitution ‘Universi’ (20 Aug., 1622) and Benedict XIV in the Constitution ‘Sacramentum p nitentiæ’ (1 June, 1741).” This excommunication is not intended to punish those solicited to sin (they are not therefore guilty), but to protect the administration of the Sacrament of Penance. Persons thus solicited are strictly obliged to make known to the inquisitor or the bishop those priests who have solicited them to the aforesaid acts; if, through their own fault, such denunciation is not made within a month they incur excommunication, which ceases only when they have made known in the aforesaid manner the guilty party. The solicitation here alluded to is not any provocation to evil, but to sins against chastity on the part of confessors or priests, and in connexion with the Sacrament of Penance, this being the abuse that the legislator especially seeks to punish. Said connexion exists when the solicitation takes place “during the very act of sacramental confession, immediately before or after, on the occasion or under the pretext of confession, or finally, in the confessional”.
B. Excommunications Pronounced by the Council of Trent
These are eight in number, the first being simply reserved to the pope and the other seven non reserved:
(1) Sess. XXII, c. ii, De ref.: against usurpers, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, of any kind of church property, until the time of restitution and absolution. This penalty protects all ecclesiastical property, properly so called, i.e. of which the administration belongs to ecclesiastical authority, such as real and personal property, revenues, etc. Excommunication is incurred by usurpers, namely by those who claim for themselves the ownership of this property, and passes on to the successive acquirers of such property until restitution or composition (agreement) is made. This penalty was applied at the time of the recent spoliations in Italy and France.
(2) Sess. IV, De editione et usu sacrorum librorum. — The excommunication pronounced by the council was restricted by the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis” to those who, without the approbation of the bishop, print, or have printed, books treating of sacred things; this must here be understood solely of the text of Holy Writ and of notes and commentaries on the same (Holy Office, 22 Dec., 1880).
(3) Sess. XXIV, c. vi, De ref. matr.: against those who are guilty of the crime of abduction, in regard to any woman, with a view to marriage, and all who lend them advice, aid, or countenance.
(4) Sess. XXIV, c. ix, De ref. matr.: against temporal rulers and magistrates who directly or indirectly oppose obstacles to the liberty of their subjects in the matter of contracting marriage.
(5) Sess. XXV, c. v, De regul.: against secular magistrates who at the request of the bishop, do not give the support of the secular arm in re-establishing the clausura or enclosure of nuns. This excommunication is abrogated in practice or at least is inapplicable.
(6) Sess. XXV, c. xviii, De regul.: against those who unjustly oblige a woman to enter a monastery unwillingly, or to take the habit, or make a profession, and those who thereunto give their counsel, aid, or countenance, as also against those who, without good reason, prevent a woman from taking the veil or making her profession.
(7) Sess. XXIV, c. i, De ref. matr.: against “those who deny that clandestine marriages [before the legislation of the council] are true and valid; as also those who falsely affirm that marriages contracted by the children of a family without the consent of their parents are invalid and that parents can make such marriages valid or invalid.”
(8) Sess. XIII, can. xi: “This council ordains and declares that sacramental confession, when a confessor may be had, is of necessity to be made before Communion by those whose conscience is burdened by mortal sin, how contrite soever they may think themselves. But if anyone shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or even in public disputation to defend the contrary, he shall be thereupon excommunicated.”
C. Excommunications Pronounced or Renewed Since the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”
These are four in number, the first two being specially reserved to the pope, the third to the ordinary; the fourth is non reserved.
(1) The Constitution “Romanus Pontifex” (28 Aug., 1873), besides other penalties, declares specially reserved excommunication: first, against the dignitaries and canons of cathedral churches (or those having the administration of vacant cathedrals) who would dare to concede and transfer the administration of their church with the title of vicar to the person elected by the chapter, or named or presented to said church by lay power; second, against those so elected or presented; and third, against all who aid, advise, or countenance the aforesaid offenders.
(2) Excommunication specially reserved against the members of the “Catholic Italian Society for the restoration of the rights of the Christian and especially of the Roman people”, and against its promoters, supporters, and adherents (S. Peniten., 4 Aug., 1876; Acta S. Sed., IX, 352). Amongst other rights this society proposed to restore popular participation in the election of the sovereign pontiff.
(3) Excommunication reserved to the ordinary against laymen (for ecclesiastics the penalty is suspension) who traffic in Mass-stipends and trade them with priests for books and other merchandise (S. Cong. of the Council, decree “Vigilanti studio”, 25 May, 1893).
(4) Excommunication, non-reserved, against missionaries, both regulars and seculars, of the East Indies (Farther Orient) or the West Indies (America) who devote themselves to commerce or who participate in it, and their immediate superiors, provincial or general, who fail to punish the culprits, at least by removal, and even after a single offence. This excommunication comes down from the Constitutions of Urban VIII, “Ex delicto” (22 Feb., 1633), and Clement IX, “Sollicitudo” (17 July, 1669), but was suppressed by reason of non-mention in the Constitution “Apostolicæ Sedis”; it was re-established, however, at the request of the S. Cong. of the Inquisition, 4 Dec., 1872. This excommunication is non-reserved, but the culprit cannot be absolved prior to making restitution, unless he be at the point of death.
———————————–
Canonists usually treat of excommunication in their commentaries on the Corpus Juris Canonici, at the title De sententia excommunicationis (lib. V, tit. xxxix). Moralists deal with it apropos of the treatise on censures (De Censuris). One of the best works is that of D’ANNIBALE Summula Theologiæ moralis (5th ed., Rome, 1908). For details consult the numerous commentaries on the Constitution Apostolicæ Sedis. Special works by ancient writers: AVILA, De censuris (Lyons, 1608); SUAREZ, De censuris (Coimbra, 1603). ALTIERI, De censuris ecclesiasticis (Rome, l618). — Cf. KOBER, Der Kirchenbann (Tübingen, 1857): IDEM in Kirchenlex., s. v. Bann; HOLLWECK, Die kirchlichen Strafgesetze (Mainz, 1899); HILARIUS A SEXTEN, De censuris (Mainz, 1898); MÜNCHEN, Das kanonische Gerichtsverfahren und Strafrecht (Cologne, 1874); TAUNTON, The Law of the Church (London, 1906), s. v. Excommunication; SMITH, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law (New York, 1884); SANTI-LEITNER, Pr lect. Jur. Canonici (New York, 1905), V, 210-15; LEGA, De Judiciis Eccl. (Rome, 1900).
A. BOUDINHON. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VCopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Excommunication
the judicial exclusion of offenders from the religious rites and privileges of the particular comemunlity to which they belong. It is a power founded upon a right inherent in all, religious societies, and is analogous to the powers of capital punishment, banishment, and exclusion from membership which are exercised by political and municipal bodies. If Christianity is merely a philosophical idea thrown into the world to do battle with other theories, and to be valued according as it maintains its ground or not in the conflict of opinions, excommunication, and ecclesiastical punishments and discipline are unreasonable. If a society has been instituted for maintaining any body of doctrine and any code of morals, they are necessary to the existence of that society. That the Christian Church is an organized polity, a spiritual “kingdom of God” on earth, is the declaration of the Bible; and that the Jewish Church was at once a spiritual and a temporal organization is clear. Among the Jews, however, excommunication was not only an ecclesiastical, but also a civil punishment, because in their theocracy there was no distinction between the divine and the statutory right (Exo 31:14; Ezr 10:3; Ezr 10:11; Neh 13:28). But among Christians excommunication was strictly confined to ecclesiastical relations, as the situation and constitution of the Church during the first three centuries admitted of no intermingling or confounding of civil and religious privileges or penalties. Excommunication, in the Christian Church, consisted at first simply in exclusion from the communion of the Lord’s Supper and the love-feasts: “with such a one, no, not to eat” (1Co 5:11). It might also include a total separation from the body of the faithful; and such a. person was, with regard to the Church, “as a heathen man and a publican.” But this excision did not exempt him from my duties to which he was liable in civil life, neither did it withhold from him any natural obligations, such as are founded on nature, humanity, and the law of nations (Mat 18:17; 1Co 5:5; 1Co 5:11; 1Co 10:16-18; 2Th 3:6; 2Th 3:14; 2Jn 1:10-11). SEE CHURCH.
I. Jewish. The Jewish system of excommunication was threefold. For a first offense a delinquent was subjected to the penalty of (niddui). Rambaam (quoted by Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae, on 1Co 5:5), Moriunus (De Panitentia, 4:27), and Buxtorf (Lexicon Tahn. col. page 303 sq.) enumerate the twenty-four offenses for which it was inflicted. They are various, and range in heinousness from the offense of keeping a fierce dog to that of taking God’s name in vain. Elsewhere (Talm. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 16, 1) the causes of its infliction are reduced to two, termed money and epicurism, by which is meant debt and wanton insolence. The offender was first cited to appear in court, and if he refused to appearer to make amends, his sentence was pronounced “Let NI. or N. be under excommunication.” The excommunicated person was prohibited the use of the bath, or of the razor, or of the convivial table; and all who had to do with him were commanded to keep him at four cubits’ distance. He was allowed to go to the Temple, but not to make the circuit in the ordinary manner. The term of this punishment was thirty days, and it was extended to a second and to a third thirty days when necessary. If at the end of that time the offender was still contumacious, he was subjected to the second excommunication termed (cherem), a word meaning something devoted to God (Lev 27:21; Lev 27:28; Exo 22:20 [19]; Num 18:14). Severer penalties were now attached. The offender was not allowed to teach or to be taught in company with others, to hire or to be hired, nor to perform any commercial transactions beyoand purchasing the necessaries of life. The sentence was delivered by a court of ten, and was accompanied by a solemn malediction, for which authority was supposed to be found in the “Curse ye Meroz” of Jdg 5:23. Lastly followed (shamma-tha), which was an entire cutting off from the congregation. It has been supposed by some that these two latter forms of excoanmunication were undistinguishable from each other. See BAN.
The punishment of excommunication is not appointed by the law of Moses. It is founded on the natural right of self-protection which all societies enjoy. The case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. (Numbers 16), the curse denounced on Meroz (Jdg 5:23), the commission and proclamation of Ezra (Ezr 7:26; Ezr 10:8), and the reformation of Nehemiah (13:25), are appealed to by the Talmudists as precedents by which their proceedings are regulated. In respect to the principle involved, the “cutting off from the people” commanded for certain sins (Exo 30:33; Exo 30:38; Exo 31:14; Lev 17:4), and the exclusion from the camp denounced on the leprous (Leveticus 13:46; Num 12:14), are more apposite.
In the New Testament, Jewish excommunication is brought prominently before us in the case of the man that was born blind and restored to sight (John 9). “The Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age, ask him” (Joh 9:22-23). “And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out” (Joh 9:34-35). The expressions here used, , refer, no doubt, to the first form of excommunication, or niddui. Our Lord warns his disciples that they will have to suffer excommunication at the hands of their countrymen (Joh 16:2), and the fear of it is described as sufficienmt to prevent persons in a respectable position from acknowledging their belief in Christ (Joh 12:42). In Luk 6:22, it has been thought that our Lord referred specifically to the three forms of Jewish excommunication, “Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company [], and shall reproach you [], and cast out your name as evil [], for the Son of man’s sake.” The three words very accurately express the simple separation, the additional malediction, and the final exclusion of niddui, cherem, and shammathal. This verse makes it probable that the three stages were already formally distinguished from each other, though, no doubt, the words appropriate to each are occasionally used inaccurately. See the monographs in Latin on Jewish excommunication by Musculus (Lips. 1703), Opitz (Kilon. 1680). II. In the New Testament. Excommunication in the New Testament is not merely founded on the natural right possessed by all societies, nor merely on the example of the Jewish Church and nation. It was instituted by our Lord (Mat 18:15; Mat 18:18), and it was practiced by and commanded by Paul (1Ti 1:20; 1Co 5:11; Tit 3:10).
1. Its Institution. The passage in Matthew has led to much controversy, into which we do not enter. It runs as follows: “If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained the brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear themn, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be. bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Our Lord here recognizes and appoints a way in which a member of his Church is to become to his brethren as a heathen man and a publican, i.e., be reduced to a state analogous to that of the Jew suffering the penalty of the third form of excommunication. It is to follow on his contempt of the censure of the Church passed on him for a trespass which he has committed. The final excision is to be preceded, as in the case of the Jew, by two warnings.
2. Apostolic Example. In the Epistles we find Paul frequently claiming the right to exercise discipline over his converts (comp. 2Co 1:23; 2Co 13:10). In two cases we find him exercising this authority to the extent of cutting off offenders from the Church. One of these is the case of the incestuous Corinthian “Ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1Co 5:2-5). The other case is that of Hymenmeus and Alexander: “Holding faith and a good conscience, which some, having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck; of whom is Hymeneeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1Ti 1:19-20). It seems certain that these persons were excommunicated, the first for immorality, the others for heresy. What is the full meaning of the expression “deliver unto Satan” is doubtful. All agree that excommunication is contained in it, but whether it implies any further punishment, inflicted by the extraordinary powers committed specially to the apostles, has been questioned. The strongest argument for the phrase meaning no more than excommunication may be drawn from a comparison of Col 1:13.
Addressing himself to the “saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse,” Paul exhorts them to “give thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” The conception of the apostle here is of men lying in the realm of darkness, and transported from thence into the kingdom of the Son of God, which is the inheritance of the saints in light, by admission into the Church. What he means by the power of darkness is abundantly clear from many other passages in his writings, of which it will be sufficient to quote Eph 6:12 : “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Introduction into the Church is therefore, in Paul’s mind, a translation from the kingdom and power of Satan to the kingdom and government of Christ. This being so, he could hardly more naturally describe the effect of excluding a man from the Church than by the words “deliver him unto Satan,” the idea being that the man ceasing to be a subject of Christ’s kingdom of light, was at once transported back to the kingdom of darkness, and delivered therefore into the power of its ruler, Satan. This interpretation is strongly confirmed by the terms in which Paul describes the commission which he received from the Lord Jesus Christ when he was sent to the Gentiles: “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Act 26:18). Here again the act of being placed in Christ’s kingdom, the Church, is pronounced to be a translation from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. Conversely, to be cast out of the Church would be to be removed from light to darkness, to be withdrawn from God’s government, and delivered into the power of Satan (so Balsamon and Zonaras, in Basil. Song of Solomon 7; Estius, in 1 Corinthians 5; Beveridge, in Can. Apost. 10). If, however, the expression means more than excommunication, it would imply the additional exercise of a special apostolical power, similar to that exerted on Ananias and Sapphira (Act 5:1), Simon Magus (8:20), and Elymas (13:10). (So Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, Hammond, Grotius, Lightfoot.)
3. Apostolic Precept. In addition to the claim to exercise discipline, and its actual exercise in the form of excommunication by the apostles, we find apostolic precepts directing that discipline should be exercised by the rulers of the Church, and that in some cases excommunication should be resorted to: “If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother,” writes Paul to the Thessalonians (2Th 3:14). To the Romans: “Mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have heard, and avoid them” (Rom 16:17). To the Galatians: “I would they were even cut off that. trouble you” (Gal 5:12). To Timothy: “If any man teach otherwise, … from such withdraw thyself” (1Ti 6:3). To Titus he uses a still stronger expression: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject” (Tit 3:10). John instructs the lady to whom he addresses his second epistle not to receive into her house, nor bid God speed to any who did not believe in Christ (2Jn 1:10); and we read that in the case of Cerinthus he acted himself on the precept that he had given (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3:28). In his third epistle he describes Diotrephes, apparently a Judaizing presbyter, “who loved to have the pre- eminence,” as “casting out of the Church,” i.e., refusing Church communion to the stranger brethren who were traveling about preaching to the Gentiles (3Jn 1:10). In the addresses to the Seven Churches the, angels or rulers of the church of Pergamos and of Thyatira are rebuked for “suffering” the Nicolaitans and Balaamites “to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things, sacrificed unto idols” (Rev 2:20). There are two passages still more important to our subject. In the epistle to the Galatians, Paul denounces, “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed [ ]. As I said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” ( , Gal 1:8-9). And in the second epistle to the Corinthians: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Corinthians 16:22). It has been supposed that these two expressions, “let him be Anathema,” “let him be Anathema Maranatha,” refer respectively to the two later stages of Jewish excommunication the cherem and the shammahi. This requires consideration.
The words and have evidently the same derivation, and originally they bore the same meaning. They express a person or thing set apart, laid up, or devoted. But whereas a thing may be set apart by way of honor or for destruction, the words, like the Latin “sacer” and the English “devoted,” came to have opposite senses , and . The Sept. and several ecclesiastical writers use the two words almost indiscriminately, but in general the form is applied to the votive offering (see 2Ma 9:16; Luk 21:5; and Chrysost. Hom. 16 in Ep. cad Rom.), and the form to that which is devoted to evil (see Deu 7:26; Jos 6:17; Jos 7:13). Thus Paul declares that he could wish himself an from Christ if he could thereby save the Jews (Rom 9:3). His meaning is that he would be willing to be set apart as a vile thing, to be cast aside and destroyed, if only it could bring about the salvation of his brethren. Hence we see the force of in Gal 1:8. “Have nothing to do with him,” would be the apostle’s injunction, “but let him be set apart as an evil thing, for God to deal with him as he thinks fit.” Hammond (in loc.) paraphrases it as follows: “You are to disclaim and renounce all communion with him, to look on him as on an excommunicated person, under the second degree of excommunication, that none is to have any commerce with in sacred things.” Hence it is that came to be the common expression employed by councils at the termination of each canon which they enacted, meaning that whoever was disobedient to the canon was to be separated from the communion of the Church and its privileges, and from the favor of God, until he repented (see Bingham, Ant. 16:2,16). SEE ANATHEMA.
The expression as it stands by itself without explanation in 1Co 16:22, is so peculiar, that it has tempted a number of ingenious expositions. Parkhurst hesitatingly derives it from
, “Cursed be thou.” But this derivation is not tenable. Buxtorf, Morinus, Hammond, Bingham, and others identify, it with the Jewish shammatha. They do so by translating shammatha, “The Lord comes.” But shammatha cannot be made to mean “The Lord comes” (see Lightfoot, in loc.). Several fanciful derivations are given by rabbinical writers, as ” There is death,” “There is desolation;” but there is no mention by them of such a signification as “The Lord comes.” Lightfoot derives it from , and it probably means a thing excluded or shut out. Maranatha, however peculiar its use in the text may seem to us, is a Syro-Chaldaic expression, signifying “The Lord is come” (Chrysostom, Jerome, Estius, Lightfoot), or “The Lord cometh.” If we take the former meaning, we may regard it as giving the reason why the offender was to be anathematized; if the latter, it would either imply that the separation was to be in perpetuity, “donee Dominus redeat” (Augustine), or, more properly, it would be a form of solemn appeal to the day on which the judgment should be ratified by the Lord (comp. Jud 1:14). In any case it is a strengthened form of the simple . And thus it may be regarded as holding towards it a similar relation to that which existed between the shanmaftha and the cherem, but not on any supposed ground of etymological identity between the two words shammatha and maranatha. Perhaps we ought to interpunctuate more strongly between , and and read , i.e., “Let him be anathema. The Lord will come.” The anathema and the cherem answer very exactly to each other (see Lev 27:28; Num 21:3; Isa 43:28). SEE MARANATHA.
4. Restoration to Communion. Two cases of excommunication are related in Holy Scripture, and in one of them the restitution of the offender is specially recounted. The incestuous Corinthian had been excommunicated by the authority of Paul, who had issued his sentence from a distance without any consultation with the Corinthians. He had required them publicly to promulgate it and act upon it. They had done so. The offender had been brought to repentance, and was overwhelmed with grief. Hereupon Paul, still absent as before, forbids the further infliction of the punishment, pronounces the forgiveness of the penitent, and exhorts the Corinthians to receive him back to communion, and to confirm their love towards him.
5. The Nature of Excommunication is made more evident by these acts of Paul than by any investigation of Jewish practice or of the etymology of words. We thus find
(1) that it is a spiritual penalty, involving no temporal punishment except accidentally;
(2) that it consists in separation from the communion of the Church;
(3) that its object is the good of the sufferer (1Co 5:5), and the protection of the sound members of the Church (2Ti 3:17);
(4) that its subjects are those who are guilty of heresy (1Ti 1:20) or gross immorality (1Co 5:1);
(5) that it is inflicted by the authority of the Church at large (Mat 18:18) wielded by the highest ecclesiastical officer (1Co 5:3; Tit 3:10);
(6) that this officer’s sentence is promulgated by the congregation to which the offender belongs (1Co 5:4), in deference to his superior judgment and command (2Co 2:9), and in spite of any opposition on the part of a minority (ib. 6);
(7) that the exclusion may be of indefinite duration or for a period;
(8) that its duration may be abridged at the discretion and by the indulgence of the person who has imposed the penalty (ib. 8);
(9) that penitence is the condition on which restoration to communion is granted (ib. 7);
(10) that the sentence is to be publicly reversed as it was publicly promulgated (ib. 10).
III. In the Post-Apostolic Christian Church.
(I.) In general. Such a power is necessarily inherent in every community; and although “the only sense in which the apostles, or, of course, any of their successors in the Christian ministry, can be empowered to ‘forgive sins’ as against God is by pronouncing and proclaiming his forgiveness of all those who, coming to him through Christ, repent and forsake their sins,” yet since offenses as against a community may “be visited with penalties by the regular appointed officers of that community, they may enforce or remit such penalties. On these principles is founded the right which the Church claims both to punish ecclesiastical offenses, and to pronounce an absolute and complete pardon of a particular offender on his making the requisite submission and reparation.” (II.) In the early Christian Church.
1. In the discipline of the primitive Church, according to the apostolic injunction, recourse was not had to excommunication until “after the first and second admonition” (). If the offender proved refractory after the time granted for repentance (Siegel, Alterthumer, 2:131), he was liable to excommunication, which at first consisted simply in the removal of the offender from the Lord’s Supper and the love-feasts: hence the word excommunication, separation from communion. The practice was founded on the words ,f the apostle (1Co 5:11), “with such an one, no, not to eat;” which do not refer to ordinary meals and the common intercourse of life, but to the agapae and other solemnities. The chief difference between Jewish and Christian excommunication consisted in this: the former extended in its consequences to the affairs of civil life, whereas the latter was strictly confined to ecclesiastical relations. It was impossible, in the constitution and situation of the Church during the three first centuries, that there should have been any confounding or intermingling of civil and religious privileges or penalties. But, though instituted at first for the purpose of preserving the purity of the Church, excommunication was afterwards by degrees converted by ambitious ecclesiastics into an engine for promoting their own power, and was often inflicted on the most frivolous occasions (Bingham, Orig. Ecclesiastes book 15, chapter 2). The primitive Church was very cautious in exercising its power of excommunication. No man could be condemned to it in his absence, or without being allowed liberty to answer for himself. Legal conviction was always required, i.e., by his own confession, by credible evidence, or by open notoriety. Minors were subjected to corporal discipline rather than to this censure (Bingham, Orig. Eccl. book 16, chapter 2; Cave, Prim. Christianity, 3:5).
2. There were two excommunications, the greater (major) and lesser (minor). The excommunicatio minor () excluded from participation in the Eucharist and prayers of the faithful, but did not expel from the Church; for the person under its sentence might stay to hear the psalmody, reading of the Scripture, sermons and prayers of the catechumens and penitents, and then depart as soon as the first service, called the service of catechumens, was ended (Theod. Ep. 77; ad Eelul. 3:797). This punishment was commonly inflicted upon lesser crimes, or if upon greater, upon such sinners only as showed a willingness to repent- upon those who had lapsed rather through infirmity than maliciousness. The excommunicatio major, greater excommunication ( ), was a total expulsion from the Church, and separation from communion in all holy offices with it (Encyclop. Metropolitana). When attended with execratioans, excommunication was called anathema (see article, volume 1, page 219). The several churches mutually informed each other of their own separate excommunications in order that a person excommunicated by one church might be held so by all; and any church which received him was held deserving of similar punishment. He who was guilty of any intercourse with an excommunicated person, himself incurred a like sentence, which deprived him of Christian burial and insertion in the diptychs or catalogues of the faithful. No gifts or oblations were received from the excommunicated. No intermarriages might take place with them. Their books might not be read, but were to be burned (Bingham, Oruq. Eccl. book 15). For the restoration of excommunicated persons, penances (q.v.) and public professions of repentance were required; and in Africa and Spain the absolution of lapsed persons (i.e., those who, in time of persecution, had yielded to the force of temptation, and fallen away from their Christian profession by the crime of actual sacrifice to idols) was forbidden, except at the hour of death, or in cases where martyrs interceded for them. SEE LAPSI.
(III.) The Roman Church. As the pretensions of the hierarchy increased, excommunication became more and more an instrument of ecclesiastical power, as well as a means of enlarging it. When the Church had full control of the state, its sentences were attended with the gravest civil as well as ecclesiastical consequences. There are three degrees of excommunication, the minor, the major, and the anathema.
1. The minor is incurred by holding communion with an excommunicated person: oratione, locutione, bibendo, comedendo praying, speaking, drinking, eating; and absolution may be given by any priest on confession. Priests who have incurred the minor ban may administer the Eucharist, but cannot partake of it.
2. The major excommussicatio falls upon those who disobey the commands of the pope, or who, having been found guilty of any offense, civil or criminal, refuse to submit to certain points of discipline; in consequence of which they are excommunicated from the Church triumphant, and delivered over to the devil and his angels. It requires a written sentence from a bishop after three admonitions. It deprives the condemned person of all the blessings of the Church in any shape, except that he is not debarred from hearing the Word. So long as the State obeyed the Church, civil disabilities followed the sentence of excommunication; no obedience was due to the excommunicated; the laws could give them no redress for injuries; and none could hold intercourse with them under penalty of excommunication. On this last point, however, a distinction has been made since the 15th century between those who are called tolerati (tolerated) and those who are designated as vitandi (persons to be shunned). Only in the case of the latter (a case extremely rare, and confined to heresiarchs, and other signal offenders against the faith or public order of the Church) are the ancient rules for prohibition of intercourse enforced. With the ‘tolerated,’ since the celebrated decree of Pope Martin V in the Council of Constance, the faithful are permitted to maintain the ordinary intercourse. By the 12th century the word ban (bannus, bannum), which in ancient jurisprudence denoted a declaration of outlawry, had come into ecclesiastical use to denote the official act of excommunication. SEE BAN.
The professed aim of excommunication was the reform of the offender as well as the purification of the Church. Absolution can be granted, in case of the major ban, only by the authority which laid the bans or its successor. Before absolution the authorities must be satisfied of penitence. The “penitent must first swear to obey the commands of the Church, and to make all necessary atonement for his special offense; he must then be reconciled by kneeling, bareheaded and stripped to his shirt, before the bishop sitting at the church gates. Here he again repeats his oath, and the bishop, reciting the psalm Deus misereatar, strikes him with a rod during each verse. Then, after certain prayers, he absolves him and leads him into the church.”
3. The anathema is attended with special ceremonies. “The bishop must be attended by twelve priests, each of whom, as well as himself, bears a lighted candle. He then sits before the high altar, or any other public place which he prefers, and delivers his sentence, which adjudges the offender to be anathemizatsum et damnatum cum diabolo et angelis ejus et omnibus reprobis in wternum igem cursed and damned with the devil and his angels and all the reprobate to eternal fire. The candles are then dashed down. The ceremonials of absolution from this sentence are not very different from the last, although the form of prayer is varied” (Encyclop. Metrop. s.v.). The effects of the anathema were summed up in the monkish lines
Si pro delicto anathema quis efficiatur,
Os, orare, vale, comnamunio, mensa negatur.
SEE ANATHEMA; SEE BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE
“In the Roman Catholic Church the power or excommunicating is held t6 reside, not in the congregation, but in the bishop; and this is believed to be in exact accordance with the remarkable proceeding commemorated in the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1Co 5:3; 1Co 5:5), and with all the earliest recorded examples of its exercise. Like all the powers of the episcopate, it is held to belong, in an especial and eminent degree, to the Roman bishop, as primate of the Church; but it is by no means believed to be. long to him exclusively, nor has such exclusive right ever been claimed by the bishops of Rome. On the contrary, bishops within their sees, archbishops while exercising visitatorial jurisdiction, heads of religious orders within their own communities, all possess the power to issue excommunication, not only by the ancient law of the Church, but also by the most modern discipline” (Chambers, s.v.). But Aquinas held that excommunication, as not belonging to the keys of order, not to those of jurisdiction, and as not referring to grace directly, but only accidentally, might be exercised by persons not in holy orders, but yet having jurisdiction in ecclesiastical courts (Summa, Suppl. 3, qu. 22). See Marshall, Penitential Discipline, Oxf. 1844, page 139. The Council of Trent declares (sess. 25, chapter 3, de Reform.) that, “Although the sword of excommunication is the very sinews of ecclesiastical discipline, and very salutary for keeping the people in their duty, yet it is to be used with sobriety and great circumspection; seeing that experience teaches that if it be rashly or for slight causes wielded, it is more despised than feared, and produces destruction rather than safety. It shall be a crime for any secular magistrate to prohibit an ecclesiastical judge from excommunicating any one, or to command that he revoke an excommunication issued, under pretext that the things contained in the present decree have not been observed; whereas the cognizance hereof does not pertain to seculars but to ecelesiastics. And every excommunicated person soever who, after the lawful monitions, does not change his mind, shall not only not be received to the sacraments and to communion and intercourse with the faithful, but if, being bound with censures, he shall, with obdurate heart, remain for a year in the defilement thereof, he may even be proceeded against as suspected of heresy.” The popes have exercised the power of excommunication against entire communities at once. The Capitularies of Pepin the Less, in the 8th century, ordained that the greater excommunication should be followed by banishment from the countmy. On the claim of the popes to excommunicate and depose monarchs, and to free subjects from their allegiance, see M’Clintock, Temporal Power of the Pope (N.Y. 1855, 12mo). “The latest examples of papal excommunication of monarchs were Napoleon I in 1809, and Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy, in 1860; neither of whom, however, was excommunicated by name, the pope having confined himself to a solemn and reiterated publication of the penalties decreed by his predecessors against those who unjustly invaded the territories of the Holy See, usurped or violated its rights, or violently impeded their free exercise. The excommunication of a sovereign was regarded as freeing subjects from their allegiance; and, in the year 1102, this sentence was pronounced against the emperor Henry IV, an example which subsequent popes likewise ventured to follow. But the fearful weapons with which the popes armed themselves in this power of excommunication were rendered much less effective through their incautious employment, the evident worldly motives by which it was sometimes governed and the excommunications which rival popes hurled against each other during the time of the great papal schism” (Chambers, s.v.).
(IV.) The Greek Church. In the Greek Church excommunication cuts off the offender from all communion with the 318 fathers of the first Council of Nicena, consigns him to the devil and his angels, and condemns his body to remain after death as hard as a piece of flint, unless lie humbles himself and makes atonement for his sins by a sincere repentance. “The form abounds with dreadful imprecations; and the Greeks assert that, if a person dies excommunicated, the devil enters into the lifeless corpse; and, therefore, in order to prevent it, the relations of the deceased cut his body in pieces and boil them in wine. Every year, and a fixed Sunday, the greater ban’ is pronounced against the pope and the Church of Rome, on which occasion, together with a great deal of idle ceremony, he drives a nail into the ground with a hammer as a mark of malediction” (Buck, s.v.). Sir Paul Rycaut (Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches, Lond. 1679, 8vo), who wrote his observations on the state of that communion in 1678, has gives? in the original Greek, the form of an excommunication issued against an unknown thief whom the authorities were seeking to discover. It runs as follows: “If they restore not to him that which is his own, and possess him peaceably of it, but suffer him to remain injured and damnifyed, let him be separated from the Lord God Creator, and be accursed, and unpardoned, and undissolvable after death in this world, and in the other which is to come. Let wood, stones, and iron be dissolved, but not they: may they inherit the leprosy of Gehazi and the confusion of Judas may the earth be divided, and devour them like Dathn and Abiram; may they sigh and tremble an earth like Cain, and the wrath of God be upon their heads and countenances; may they see nothing of that for which they labor, and beg their bread all the days of their lives; may their works, possessions, labors, and services be accursed; always without effect or success, and blown away like dust; may they have the curses of the holy and righteous patriarchs Abram, Isaac, and Jacob; of the 318 saints who were the divine fathers of the Synod of Nice, and of all other holy synods; and being without the Church of Christ, let no human administer unto them the things of the Church, or bless them, or offer sacrifice for them or give them the , or the blessed bread, or eat, or drink, or work with them, or converse with them; and after death let no man bury them, in penalty of being under the same state of excommunication; for so let them remain until they have performed what is here written.”
(V.) In Protestant Churches. New relations between Church and State followed hard upon the Reformation, and new limits were soon assigned to the exercise of discipline. According to the view of the Wittemberg reformers, the ban could have no civil effect unless ratified by the State. The necessity of the power of excommunication in the Church was asserted by all the Reformers. They maintained that excommunication is the affair of the whole Church, clergy and laity (Calvin, Institut. volume 4, chapter 11; Melancthon, Corpus Ref. ed. Bretschneider, 3:965). SEE ERASTIANISM. They disclaimed the right of using the excommunicatio major. In general, the “Reformers retained only that power of excommunication which appeared to them to be inherent in the constitution of the Christian society, and to be sanctioned by the Word of God; nor have any civil consequences been generally connected with it in Protestant countries. To connect such consequences with excommcunication in any measure whatever is certainly inconsistent with the principles of the Reformation” (Chambers, s.v.).
The causes of excommunication in the established Church of England are, contempt of the bishops’ court, heresy, neglect of public worship and the sacraments, incontinency, adultery, sinony, etc. If the judge of any spiritual court excommunicates a man for a cause of which he has not the legal cognizance, the party may have an action against him at common law, and he is also liable to be indicted at the suit of the king (Can. 65, 68; see also the Homily On the Right Uses of the Church). The 33d Article of Religion is as follows: “That person which, by open denunciation of the Church, is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as a heathen and publican until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a judge that hath authority thereunto.” “By old English law an excommunicated person was disabled from doing any act required to be done by one that is probes et legalis honzo. He could not serve on juries, nor be witness in any court, nor bring an action real or personal to recover lands or money due to him. By stat. 5 and 6 Edward VI, cap. 4, striking, or drawing a weapon to strike, in a church or churchyard, incurred ipso facto excommunication; ipso facto excommunication, or latae sententivs, meaning some act so clear or manifest that no sentence is requisite, in contradistinction from sententiae ferendae, i.e., when sentence must be passed before the offender be considered excoamumunicated. The offenses which, in the reign of Edward III, 1373, were punished by ipsofacto excommunication, are enumerated in some articai issued when Wittlesey was archbishop of Canterbury; most of them are such as might be injurious to the persons or properties of the clergyi The document may be found in Conc. Magn. Britt. 3:95. By 3 James I, cap. 5, every popish recusant convict stands to all intents and purposes disabled, as a person lawfully excommunicated.
The ecclesiastical law denies Christian burial to those excommunicated majori excommunicatione, and an injunction to the ministers to that effect will be found in the sixty-eighth canon, and in the rubric of the burial service. The law acknowledged two excommunications: the lesser excluded the offender from the communion of the Church only; the greater from that communion, and also from the company of the faithful, etc. The sixty fifth canon enjoins ministers solemnly to denounce those who stand lawfully excommunicated every six months, as well in the parish church as in the cathedral church of the diocese in which they remain, ‘openly in time of divine service, upon some Sunday,’ ‘that others may be thereby both admonished to refrain their company and society, and excited the rather to procure out a writ de exconmunicato copiendo, thereby to bring and reduce them into due order and obedience.’ By statute 52 George III, cap. 127, excommunications, and the proceedings following thereupon, are discontinued, except in certain cases specified in the act; which may receive definitive sentences as spiritual censures for offenses of ecclesiastical cognizance; and instead of sentence of excommunication, which used to be pronounced by the ecclesiastical courts in cases of contumacy, the offenders are to be declared contumacious, and to be referred to the court of chancery, by which a writ de contumae capiendo is issued instead of the old writ de excommunicato capiendo. Formerly this writ de excommunicato capiendo was issued by the court of chancery upon it being signified by the bishop’s certificate that forty days have elapsed since sentence of excommunication has been published in the church without submission of the offender. The sheriff then received the writ, called also a significavit, and lodged the culprit in the county jail till the bishop certified his reconciliation. A similar method of proceeding to that now adopted was recommended by a report of a committee of both houses of Parliament as far back as March 7, 1710, and again on April 30, 1714. No person excommunicated for such offenses as are still liable to the punishment can now be imprisoned for a longer term than six months (Burns, Eccl. Law, by Tyrwhit, adv.). In Scotland, when the lesser excommunication, or exclusion from the sacraments has failed, the minister pronounces a form by which the impenitent offender is declared ‘excommunicated, shut out from the communion of the faithful, debarred from their privileges, and delivered unto Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.’ The people are then warned to avoid all unnecessary intercourse with him. Anciently, in Scotland, an excommunicated person was incapable of holding feudal rights, but at present the sentence is unaccompanied by any civil penalty or disqualification” (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, s.v.).
The law of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, as expressed by the 42d canon of 1832, is as follows: Sec. 1. If any persons within this Church offend their brethren by any wickedness of life, such persons shall be repelled from the holy communion, agreeably to the rubric. Sec. 2. On information being laid before the bishop that any one has been repelled from communion, it shall not be his duty to institute an inquiry unless there be a complaint made to him in writing by the repelled party. But on receiving complaint, it shall be the duty of the bishop, unless he think fit to restore him from the insufficiency of the cause assigned by the minister, to institute an inquiry, as may be directed by the canons of the diocese in which the event has taken place. Sec. 3. In the case of a great heinousness of offense on the part of members of this Church, they may be proceeded against to the depriving them of all privileges of church membership, according to such rules or process as may be provided by the General Convention, and, until such rules and process shall be provided, by such as may be provided by the different State Conventions. See also the 33d Article of Religion.
In the Methodist Episcopal Church the power of excommunication lies with the minister after trial before a jury of the peers of the accused party. The grounds and forms of trial are given in the Discipline, part in, chap. i It is provided in the Constitution that no law shall ever be made doing away the privilege of accused ministers or members to have trial and right of appeal (Discipline, part 2, chapter 1, 1).
“Among the Independents, Congregationalists, and Baptists, the persons who are or should be excommunicated are such as are quarrelsome and litigious (Gal 5:12); such as desert their privileges, withdraw themselves from the ordinances of God, and forsake his people (Jud 1:19); such as are irregular and immoral in their lives, railers, drunkards, extortioners, fornicators, and covetous (Eph 5:5; 1Co 5:11). In the United States these simple principles of Church discipline are very generally followed by all evangelical denominations” (Buck, s.v.). See particularly the Form, of Government of the Presbyterian Church, book 2 of Discipline; Dexter, On Congregationalism (Boston, 1865), pages 191-2; Ripley, On Church Polity (Bost. 1867), page 81 sq.; Edwards, Nature and Use of Excommunication (Works, N.Y. 1848), 4:6:8.
Literature. See, besides the works already cited, Ferraris, Promta Bibliotheca, ed. Migne, 3:846 sq.; Siegel, Christl.-kirchl. Alterthumer, 2:131 sq.; Bingham, Orig. Ecclesiastes book 16, chapter 2, 3; Van Espen, De Censuris Ecclesiasticis (Opera, Paris, 1753, 4 volumes); Scheele, Die Kirchenzucht (Halle, 1852, 8vo); Hooker, Eccl. Polity, 8:1, 6; Calvin, Institutes, book 4, chapter 12; Thorndike, Works (Oxford, 1856), 6:21; Waterland, Works (Oxford, 1853), 3:456; Winer, Comp. Darstellung, 20; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, ed. Smith, 255; Herzog, Real- Encyklopaldie, s.v. Bann; Palmer, On the Church, 1:96; 2:277, 304; Watson, Theological Institutes, 2:574; Burnet, On the Articles, Browne, On the Articles, Forbes, On the Articles (each on Article XXXIII); Wheatly, On Common Prayer, Bohn’s ed., page 442 sq.; Scott, Synod of Dort (Philadelphia Presb. Board), page 249; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chapter 15, part 5. SEE ANATHEMA;SEE BAN; SEE DISCIPLINE.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Excommunication
As the church is a society constituted for maintaining certain doctrines and corresponding morals, it plainly has the right to exclude from communion such as flagrantly violate its doctrinal and moral code. The Jews had three forms of excommunication, alluded to in Luk 6:22 by our Lord, “blessed are ye when men shall separate you from their company (the Jewish niddui, for 30 days), and shall reproach you (the second form, cherem, for 90 days (See ANATHEMA), Jdg 5:23), and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake” (the third form, shammatha, perpetual cutting off): Joh 9:34-35 margin; compare Exo 30:33; Exo 30:38; also Joh 12:42; Joh 16:2.
Christian excommunication is commanded by Christ (Mat 18:15-18); so 1Ti 1:20; 1Co 5:11; Tit 3:10; “delivering unto Satan” means casting out of the church, Christ’s kingdom of light, into the world that lieth in the wicked one, the kingdom of Satan and darkness (Col 1:13; Eph 6:12; Act 26:18; 1Jo 5:19). The apostles besides, under divine inspiration, inflicted bodily sicknesses and death on some (e.g. Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira; Act 13:10, Elymas). For other cases of virtual, if not formal, exclusion from communion, though in a brotherly not proud spirit, see 2Th 3:14; Rom 16:17; Gal 5:12; 1Ti 6:3; 2Jo 1:10; 3Jo 1:10; Rev 2:20; Gal 1:8-9.
Paul’s practice proves that excommunication is a spiritual penalty, the temporal penalty inflicted by the apostles in exceptional cases being evidently of extraordinary and divine appointment and no model to us; it consisted in exclusion from the church; the object was the good of the offender (1Co 5:5) and the safeguard of the sound members (2Ti 2:17); its subjects were those guilty of heresy and great immorality (1Ti 1:20); it was inflicted by the church (Mat 18:18) and its representative ministers (Tit 3:10; 1Co 5:1; 1Co 5:3-4). Paul’s infallible authority when inspired is no warrant for uninspired ministers claiming the same right to direct the church to excommunicate as they will (2Co 2:7-9). Penitence is the condition of restoration. Temporary affliction often leads to permanent salvation (Psa 83:16); Satan’s temporary triumph is overruled “to. destroy the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (Luk 22:31).
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Excommunication
EXCOMMUNICATION denotes the exclusion, either temporary or permanent, and specifically on moral or religious grounds, of a member of a religious body from the privileges which membership in that body ordinarily carries with it. The word does not occur in Authorized and Revised Versions , but we have in the Gospels several references to the practice as it existed among the Jews in the time of Christ, while certain words of Christ Himself supply the germs of the usage of the Christian Church as it meets us in the Apostolic age and was subsequently developed in the ecclesiastical discipline of later times.
i. Jewish excommunication.Passing over the segregation of lepers, though this generally implied exclusion from the synagogue (Mat 8:4 || Luk 17:14),* [Note: Being forbidden to enter a walled town, they could not worship in the synagogue in such places; but in unwalled towns a corner was frequently reserved for them in the synagogue, on condition that they were the first to enter and the last to depart (see Hastings DB iii. 97a).] and coming to excommunication of the more specific kind, we find that it is certainly referred to four times in the Gospels, viz. Luk 6:22 (blessed are ye when they shall separate you from their company ), Joh 9:22 (for the Jews had agreed already that if any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue ), Joh 12:42 (they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue ), Joh 16:2 (they shall put you out of the synagogues ). It is not unlikely, however, that a fifth reference should be found in the of Joh 9:34-35 (so AVm [Note: Vm Authorized Version margin.] and many commentators). Meyer and Westcott (Gospel of St. John) object to this that no sitting of the Sanhedrin had taken place, and that the persons who cross-questioned the formerly blind man were not competent to pronounce the sentence of excommunication. It is true, no doubt, that excommunication properly denotes a formal sentence passed by the officials of the congregation (Schrer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. ii. 60),though in Talmudic times a minor form of excommunication by an individual, and especially by a rabbi, was also recognized (Jewish Encyc. vol. v. p. 286 f.),but as it was the Jews, i.e. in the language of the Fourth Gospel the Jewish authorities, who expelled the man, it seems quite possible that the examination described in John 9 was of a formal nature. This is confirmed by the expressions, they bring to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind (Joh 9:13), they called the parents (Joh 9:16), they called a second time the man that was blind (Joh 9:24), which suggests an authoritative summons before an official body. And when we read in Joh 9:25 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, this seems to imply that some grave act of formal censure had been passed upon the man.
Of the fact that excommunication was practised in the Jewish synagogue in the time of Christ, these passages leave us in no doubt. But now comes the question whether at that time there were different kinds of excommunication. In the Talmud two degrees are recognized, a minor, niddi (), and a major, hrem (); the former being a temporary exclusion from the synagogue together with a restriction upon social intercourse with others, while the latter amounted to a ban of indefinite or permanent duration.* [Note: The attempt has sometimes been made to discover in the language of the Talmud a third and more awful kind of excommunication named shammatt (); and in accordance with this it has been supposed that there may be a reference to the three presumed degrees of Jewish excommunication in Luk 6:22they shall separate you from their company (i), and reproach you (hrem), and cast out your name as evil (). But it is now generally acknowledged that the idea of this threefold distinction is due to a mistake, and that, as used in the Talmud, is simply a general designation for both the i and the rem (see Buxtorf, , s.v. ; Schrer, ii. ii. 60).] It must be remembered, however, that as an authority upon Jewish usages the Talmud does not carry us back to the earliest Christian age, and that for the practice of Jewish courts in the time of our Lord the NT itself is our only real source of information. And while it has sometimes been fancied that in the Gospels we have an indication of two kinds or degrees of excommunicationthe of Joh 9:22; Joh 12:42; Joh 16:2 being distinguished either, as something more severe, from the of Luk 6:22, or, as something more mild, from the of Joh 9:34-35the truth is that there are no adequate grounds for such discriminations. It is, of course, quite possible, and even likely, that in the time of Christ there were distinct grades of exclusion from the privileges of the Jewish community, corresponding to the later niddi and hrem, [Note: It is perhaps suggestive that is the constant LXX rendering of the OT (Jos 6:17-18; Jos 6:7; Jos 22:20, 1Ch 2:7), and that and meet us frequently in the NT as expressive of a curse or strong form of hanning (Mar 14:71, Act 23:12; Act 23:14; Act 23:21, Rom 9:3, 1Co 12:3; 1Co 16:22, Gal 1:8-9).] but the NT cannot be said to testify to anything more than the fact of excommunication itself.
For the immediate origin of the practice of excommunication as it meets us in the Gospels, we have only to go back to Ezra and the days after the Exile, when the strictest discipline was absolutely essential to the solidarity, indeed to the very existence, of the Jewish Church and nation. Ezra insisted that those Jews who had married foreign wives should either put away both their wives and the children born of them, or forfeit their whole substance and be separated from the congregation of Israel (Ezr 10:8). But the ultimate roots of the practice are to be sought in the Pentateuchal legislation, with its exclusion of the ceremonially unclean from the camp of the congregation (Lev 13:45-46, Num 5:2-3), and its devotion to destruction (, whence ) of whole cities or tribes as enemies of Israel (Deu 2:34; Deu 3:6; Deu 7:2; cf. Jdg 21:11, where the men of Jabesh-gilead themselves fall under the ban of extermination for not coming up to Mizpeh along with their brethren).
With regard to the grounds on which, in our Lords time, sentence of excommunication was passed, the Talmud speaks of twenty-four offences as being thus punishablea round number which is not to be taken too literally (Jewish Encyc., art. Excommunication)though later Rabbinical authorities have carried out the list into its particulars. When we read that the rulers decreed that any one who confessed Jesus to be Christ should be put out of the synagogue (Joh 9:22; Joh 12:42), this may show that they possessed a large discretionary power of fixing the grounds of ecclesiastical censure. But if the later lists of Talmudical writers rest on traditions that go back to the time of Christ, there were certain recognized categories of offence, such as dealing lightly with any of the Rabbinic or Mosaic precepts, under which it would be easy for the Jewish casuists to arraign any one who called Jesus Master or acknowledged Him to be the Messiah.
ii. Christian excommunication.It lies beyond the scope of this Dictionary to deal with excommunication as practised in the Apostolic Church, and as it meets us especially in the Pauline writings. But in the teaching of our Lord Himself we find the principles at least of the rules which St. Paul lays down in 1 Corinthians 5, 2Co 2:6-11, 1Ti 1:20, Tit 3:10.
In Mat 16:19 Jesus promises to St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, so that whatsoever he shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. In Mat 18:17-19 He makes a similar promise to the Church generally, or to the Twelve as representing the ecclesianot qua apostles with ecclesiastical authority, but qua disciples with the ethical power of morally disciplined men (Bruce, Expositors Gr. Test., in loc.; cf. further Joh 20:23). And in the immediately preceding context (Mat 18:15-17) He gives directions as to the way in which an offending brother is to be dealt with in the Church. The injured person is first to go to him privately and endeavour to show him his fault. If he will not listen, one or two other Christian brethren are to accompany the first as witnessesnot in any legal sense, we must suppose, but because consensus in moral judgment carries weight with the conscience (Bruce, op. cit., in loc.). If he is still obdurate, the Church is now to be appealed to: and if he refuse to hear the Church () also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican. That in this passage means the community of Christian believers, and not, as Hort, for example, thinks (Christian Ecclesia, p. 10), the Jewish local community, seems in every way probable. Jesus had already spoken at Caesarea of the that is built on Christian faith and confession (Mat 16:18), and it was altogether natural that on this later occasion He should refer to it again in speaking of the relations between Christian brethren. But it would be a mistake to find in this passage any reference to a formal process of excommunication on the part of the Church. The offender of whom Christ speaks excommunicates himself from the Christian community by refusing to listen to its united voice, and the members of the community have no option but to regard him as an outsider so long as he maintains that attitude. That Jesus meant nothing harsh by the expression as the Gentile and the publican, and certainly did not mean a permanent exclusion from the Christian society, may be judged from the way in which He treated a Roman centurion and a Syrophnician woman, and from the name given Him by His enemiesthe friend of publicans and sinners. No doubt in an organized society a solemn and formal act such as St. Paul prescribes in 1Co 5:4-5 is a natural deduction from the words of Christ in this passage; but it cannot be said that such an act is definitely enjoined by the Lord Himself. It is the attempt to find here the authoritative institution of excommunication as a formal act of ecclesiastical discipline that gives a colour of justification to the contention of some critics (e.g. Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar zum NT, in loc.) that what we have in this passage is not an actual saying of Jesus, but a reflexion of the ecclesiastical practice in the Jewish-Christian circles for which the Gospel of Matthew was written.
From our Lords teaching in this passage it seems legitimate to infer that, though excommunication may become necessary in the interests of the Christian society, it should never be resorted to until every other means has been tried, and in particular should be preceded by private dealing in a brotherly and loving spirit. From the two parables of the Tares and the Wheat (Mat 13:24-30; Mat 13:36-43) and the Draw-net (Mat 13:47-50) we may further gather that Christ would have His people to exercise a wise patience and caution in the use even of a necessary instrument. Mat 18:15-17 shows that there are offences which are patent and serious, and are not to be passed over. But from the two parables referred to we learn the impossibility of the Donatist dream of an absolutely pure Church. Not even those who have the enlightenment of the Spirit are infallible judges of character. The absolute discrimination between the good and the bad (Mat 13:48) must be postponed till the end of the age (Mat 13:49). Only under the personal rule of the Son of Man Himself shall all things that offend ( ) be gathered out of His Kingdom (Mat 13:41).
Literature.Artt. on Excommunication in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , Encyc. Bibl., and Jewish Encyc.; Schurer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. ii. p. 59 ff.; Weber, Jd. Theol.2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , Index, s.v. Bann; Martensen, Christian Ethics, iii. p. 330 ff.; the Commentaries of Meyer, Alford, Westcott (Gospel of St. John), and Bruce (Expositors Gr. Test.) on the passages referred to; Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 42 ff.
J. C. Lambert.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Excommunication
EXCOMMUNICATION.In the OT the sentence against those who refused to part with their strange wives (Ezr 10:8)his substance shall be confiscated and he himself separatedis the earliest instance of ecclesiastical excommunication. This was a milder form of the ancient Heb. chrem, curse or ban, which in the case of man involved death (Lev 27:29), and devotion or destruction in the case of property. The horror of this curse or chrem hangs over the OT (Mal 4:6, Zec 14:11). Anathema, the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] equivalent of chrem (e.g. in Deu 7:26, Jos 6:17, Num 21:3), appears in 1Co 16:22 If any love not the Lord, let him be anathema (which refers, as does also Gal 1:8, to a permanent exclusion from the Church and doubtless from heaven), and in 1Co 12:3 No one speaking in the Spirit of God says, Jesus is anathema, i.e. a chrem or cursed thing under the ban of God. Here there may be a reference to a Jewish brocard which afterwards gave rise to the Jewish tradition that Jesus was excommunicated by the Jews. The forms said to be in vogue in His day were: (1) niddi, a short sentence of thirty days; (2) chrem, which involved loss of all religious privileges for a considerable time; (3) shammatt, complete expulsion or aquae et ignis interdictio. This last form, however, lacks attestation.
References in the NT to some form of Jewish procedure are: Joh 9:22; Joh 12:42; Joh 16:2, Luk 6:22, Mat 18:15-17 may be a reference to some Jewish procedure that was taken over by the Church. It mentions admonition: (1) in private, (2) in the presence of two or three witnesses, (3) in the presence of the Church. The sentence let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican involved loss of social and spiritual privileges (cf. Tit 3:10). 1Co 5:4 shows a formal assembly met in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver one guilty of incest unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh. The purpose of the punishment, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord (v. 5)is remedial, and shows that the sentence is not a life one, as anathema seems to be (cf. 1Ti 1:20, where Hymenus and Alexander are delivered to Satan, that they may be taught not to blaspheme). The Gr. word exarate, remove, used in 1Co 5:13, suggests ara, which means both curse and prayer. In this case, at all events, the curse was intended to lead to penitence and prayer. 2Co 2:6-11 seems to refer to a different case. Here the censure or punishment was given by the majority without Pauls intervention, as in 1Co 5:4; the purpose of his writing here is that your (v.l. our) care for us (v.l. you) might be made manifest in the sight of God; but there he writes for the mans sake; here the sinner is discussed with leniency, there the case is stated with due severity. If the case be a new one, it shows a growing independence of the Christian communities, and also that the Corinthians had received a salutary lesson. The phrase lest an advantage should he gained over us by Satan (2Co 2:11) refers to the term of excommunication which St. Paul wished to end, lest the punishment should defeat its end and lead to ruin instead of recovery, and so Satan should hold what was only, metaphorically speaking, lent to him to hurt. In 2Th 3:14-15 the Apostle orders an informal and less severe excommunication of those who obey not his word. Its purpose, too, is remedial: that he may be ashamed. St. John (2Jn 1:10) orders a similar form, and 3Jn 1:9-10 describes the manner in which Diotrephes receives neither him nor the brethren, does not permit others to receive them, and casts them out of the Churchthe first instance of one party in the Christian Church excommunicating another for difference of doctrine. The loss of social and spiritual intercourse was intended to lead, in such cases, to recantation of opinions, as in others to repentance for sin.
F. R. Montgomery Hitchcock.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Excommunication
eks-ko-mu-ni-kashun: Exclusion from church fellowship as a means of personal discipline, or church purification, or both. Its germs have been found in (1) The Mosaic ban or curse (, herem, devoted), given over entirely to God’s use or to destruction (Lev 27:29); (2) The cutting off, usually by death, stoning of certain offenders, breakers of the Sabbath (Exo 31:14) and others (Lev 17:4; Ex 30:22-38); (3) The exclusion of the leprous from the camp (Lev 13:46; Num 12:14). At the restoration (Ezr 10:7, Ezr 10:8), the penalty of disobedience to Ezra’s reforming movements was that all his substance should be forfeited (herem), and himself separated from the assembly of the captivity. Nehemiah’s similar dealing with the husbands of heathen women helped to fix the principle. The New Testament finds a well-developed synagogal system of excommunication, in two, possibly three, varieties or stages. , nidduy, for the first offense, forbade the bath, the razor, the convivial table, and restricted social intercourse and the frequenting of the temple. It lasted thirty, sixty, or ninety days. If the offender still remained obstinate, the curse, herem, was formally pronounced upon him by a council of ten, and he was shut out from the intellectual, religious and social life of the community, completely severed from the congregation. , shammatha’, supposed by some to be a third and final stage, is probably a general term applied to both nidduy and herem. We meet the system in Joh 9:22 : If any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue (, aposunagogos); Joh 12:42 : did not confess … lest they should be put out of the synagogue; and Joh 16:2 : put you out of the synagogue. In Luk 6:22 Christ may refer to the three stages: separate you from their company (, aphorsosin), and reproach you (, oneidsosin = herem, malediction), and cast out your name as evil (, ekbalosin).
It is doubtful whether an express prescription of excommunication is found in our Lord’s words (Mat 18:15-19). The offense and the penalty also seem purely personal: And if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican, out of the pale of association and converse. Yet the next verse might imply that the church also is to act: Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, etc. But this latter, like Mat 16:19, seems to refer to the general enunciations of principles and policies rather than to specific ecclesiastical enactments. On the whole, Jesus seems here to be laying down the principle of dignified personal avoidance of the obstinate offender, rather than prescribing ecclesiastical action. Still, personal avoidance may logically correspond in proper cases to excommunication by the church. 2Th 3:14 : Note that man, that ye have no company with him; Tit 3:10 : A factious man … avoid (American Revised Version margin); 2Jo 1:10 : Receive him not into your house, etc., all inculcate discreet and faithful avoidance but not necessarily excommunication, though that might come to be the logical result. Paul’s anathemas are not to be understood as excommunications, since the first is for an offense no ecclesiastical tribunal could well investigate: 1Co 16:22, If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema; the second touches Paul’s deep relationship to his Lord: Rom 9:3, I myself … anathema from Christ; while the third would subject the apostle or an angel to ecclesiastical censure: Gal 1:8, Gal 1:9, Though we, or an angel … let him be anathema.
Clear, specific instances of excommunication or directions regarding it, however, are found in the Pauline and Johannine writings. In the case of the incestuous man (1Co 5:1-12), at the instance of the apostle (I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit), the church, in a formal meeting (In the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together), carrying out the apostle’s desire and will (and my spirit), and using the power and authority conferred by Christ (and with the power of our Lord Jesus), formally cut off the offender from its fellowship, consigning (relinquishing?) him to the power of the prince of this world (to deliver such a one unto Satan). Further, such action is enjoined in other cases: Put away the wicked man from among yourselves. 2Co 2:5-11 probably refers to the same case, terminated by the repentance and restoration of the offender. ‘Delivering over to Satan’ must also include some physical ill, perhaps culminating in death; as with Simon Magus (Act 8:20), Elymas (Act 13:11), Ananias (Act 5:5). 1Ti 1:20 : Hymenaeus and Alexander … that they might be taught not to blaspheme, is a similar case of excommunication accompanied by judicial and disciplinary physical ill. In 3Jo 1:9, 3Jo 1:10 we have a case of excommunication by a faction in control: Diotrephes … neither doth he himself receive … and them that would he … casteth out of the church.
Excommunication in the New Testament church was not a fully developed system. The New Testament does not clearly define its causes, methods, scope or duration. It seems to have been incurred by heretical teaching (1Ti 1:20) or by factiousness (Tit 3:10 (?)); but the most of the clear undoubted cases in the New Testament are for immoral or un-Christian conduct (1Co 5:1, 1Co 5:11, 1Co 5:13; perhaps also 1Ti 1:20). It separated from church fellowship but not necessarily from the love and care of the church (2Th 3:15 (?)). It excluded from church privileges, and often, perhaps usually, perhaps always, from social intercourse (1Co 5:11). When pronounced by the apostle it might be accompanied by miraculous and punitive or disciplinary physical consequences (1Co 5:5; 1Ti 1:20). It was the act of the local church, either with (1Co 5:4) or without (1Co 5:13; 3Jo 1:10) the concurrence of an apostle. It might possibly be pronounced by an apostle alone (1Ti 1:20), but perhaps not without the concurrence and as the mouthpiece of the church. Its purpose was the amendment of the offender: That the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1Co 5:5); and the preservative purification of the church: Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened (1Co 5:7). It might, as appears, be terminated by repentance and restoration (2Co 2:5-11). It was not a complex and rigid ecclesiastical engine, held in terrorem over the soul, but the last resort of faithful love, over which hope and prayer still hovered.
Literature
Arts. in HDB, DB, Jewish Encyclopedia, DCG; Martensen, Christian Ethics, III, 330ff; Nowack, Benzinger, Heb Archaeol.; Commentary in the place cited.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Excommunication
Though this word does not occur in the A.V. the duty of excommunicating wicked persons from the fold of Israel, and from the church as the house of God, is plainly taught. Again and again we read in the O.T. that for particular sins “that soul shall be out off from Israel” or “cut off from his people.” Exo 12:15; Exo 30:33; Exo 30:38; Lev 7:20-21; Lev 7:25; Lev 7:27; Num 9:13; Ezr 10:8; etc. How far this was acted upon we do not know. In the N.T. we find the authorities agreeing that if any one confessed that Jesus was the Christ he was to be cut off; and they excommunicated the man that had been born blind because he said that Jesus must be of God. Joh 9:34.
In the church we have a case of ‘putting away’ at Corinth. The assembly were admonished to put away from themselves the wicked person that was among them. 1Co 5:13. The person was cast out. He was afterwards repentant, and then the Corinthian saints were instructed to forgive him and to receive him again into communion. 2Co 2:6-11. The necessity of putting away an evil person is apparent; the presence of God, who is holy, demands it, and believers are called to holiness: “the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” 1Co 3:17. As to discipline on earth there is a dispensational binding and loosing (cf. Mat 18:18), to which the saints are called where it is needful to put away evil from the assembly, but always with the hope that restoration may follow. See DISCIPLINE.
Connected with the case at Corinth there was also mentioned the delivering unto Satan of the guilty person for the destruction of the flesh, but this was the determination of Paul as being there in spirit with them (1Co 5:4-5), which seems to stamp it as an apostolic act. Paul individually did the same with Hymenaeus and Alexander. 1Ti 1:20. The positive injunction to the church at Corinth was to put away from among themselves the wicked person. In 3 John we read of Diotrephes who took upon himself to cast some out of the church, which John would not forget when he visited them. As is seen at Corinth, ‘putting away’ should be an act of the assembly, not of an individual.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Excommunication
See Church, The Collective Body of Believers, Government of, Mosaic and Christian; Church, The Collective Body of Believers, Rules of Discipline in, Mosaic and Christian
Church, The Collective Body of Believers, Government of, Mosaic and Christian; Church, The Collective Body of Believers, Rules of Discipline in, Mosaic and Christian
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Excommunication
Excommunication. (expulsion from communion).
1. Jewish excommunication. — The Jewish system of excommunication was threefold.
The twenty-four offences for which it was inflicted are various, and range in heinousness from the offence of keeping a fierce dog to that of taking God’s name in vain. The offender was first cited to appear in court; and if he refused to appear or to make amends, his sentence was pronounced. The term of this punishment was thirty days; and it was extended to a second and to a third thirty days, when necessary.
If, at the end of that time, the offended was still contumacious, he was subjected to the second excommunication. Severer penalties were now attached. The sentence was delivered by a court of ten, and was accompanied by a solemn malediction.
The third excommunication was an entire cutting off from the congregation.
The punishment of excommunication is not appointed by the law of Moses; it is founded on the natural right of self-protection which all societies enjoy. In the New Testament, Jewish excommunication is brought prominently before us in the case of the man that was born blind. Joh 9:1. In Luk 6:22, it has been thought that our Lord referred specifically to the three forms of Jewish excommunication: “Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.”
Christian excommunication. — Excommunication, as exercised by the Christian Church, was instituted by our Lord, Mat 18:15; Mat 18:18, and it was practiced and commanded by St. Paul 1Co 5:11; 1Ti 1:20; Tit 3:10. In the Epistles, we find St. Paul frequently claiming the right to exercise discipline over his converts; compare 2Co 1:23; 2Co 13:10. We find,
(1) that it is a spiritual penalty, involving no temporal punishment, except accidentally;
(2) that it consists in separation from the communion of the Church;
(3) that its object is the good of the sufferer, 1Co 5:5, and the protection of the sound members of the Church, 2Ti 3:17.
(4) that its subjects are those who are guilty of heresy, 1Ti 1:20, or gross immorality, 1Co 5:1.
(5) that it is inflicted by the authority of the Church at large, Mat 18:18, wielded by the highest ecclesiastical officer, 1Co 5:3; Tit 3:10.
(6) that this officer’s sentence is promulgated by the congregation to which the offender belongs, 1Co 5:4, in defence to his superior judgment and command, 2Co 2:9, and in spite of any opposition on the part of a minority, 2Co 2:6.
(7) that the exclusion may be of indefinite duration, or for a period;
(8) that its duration may be abridged at the discretion and by the indulgence of the person who has imposed the penalty, 2Co 2:8.
(9) that penitence is the condition on which restoration to communion is granted, 2Co 2:8.
(10) that the sentence is to be publicly reversed as it was publicly promulgated. 2Co 2:10.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Excommunication
is the judicial exclusion of offenders from the religious rites and other privileges of the particular community to which they belong. Founded in the natural right which every society possesses to guard its laws and privileges from violation and abuse by the infliction of salutary discipline, proportioned to the nature of the offences committed against them, it has found a place, in one form or another, under every system of religion, whether human or divine. That it has been made an engine for the gratification of private malice and revenge, and been perverted to purposes the most unjustifiable and even diabolical, the history of the world but too lamentably proves; yet this, though unquestionably a consideration which ought to inculcate the necessity of prudence, as well as impartiality and temperance in the use of it, affords no valid argument against its legitimate exercise. From St. Paul’s writings we learn that the early excommunication was effected by the offender not being allowed to eat with the church, that is, to partake of the Lord’s Supper, the sign of communion. In the early ages of the primitive church also, this branch of discipline was exercised with moderation, which, however, gradually gave place to an undue severity. From Tertullian’s Apology we learn, that the crimes which in his time subjected to exclusion from Christian privileges, were murder, idolatry, theft, fraud, lying, blasphemy, adultery, fornication, and the like, and in Origen’s treatise against Celsus, we are informed that such persons were expelled from the communion of the church, and lamented as lost and dead unto God; [ut perditos Deoque mortuos;] but that on making confession and giving evidence of penitence, they were received back as restored to life. It was at the same time specially ordained, that no such delinquent, however suitably qualified in other respects, could be afterward admitted to any ecclesiastical office. But it does not appear that the infliction of this discipline was accompanied with any of those forms of excommunication, of delivering over to Satan, or of solemn execration, which were usual among the Jews, and subsequently introduced into them by the Romish church. The authors and followers of heretical opinions which had been condemned, were also subject to this penalty; and it was sometimes inflicted on whole congregations when they were judged to have departed from the faith. In this latter case, however, the sentence seldom went farther than the interdiction of correspondence with these churches, or of spiritual communication between their respective pastors.
To the same exclusion from religious privileges, those unhappy persons were doomed, who, whether from choice or from compulsion, had polluted themselves, after their baptism, by any act of idolatrous worship; and the penance enjoined on such persons, before they could be restored to communion, was often peculiarly severe. The consequences of excommunication, even then, were of a temporal as well as a spiritual nature. The person against whom it was pronounced, was denied all share in the oblations of his brethren; the ties both of religious and of private friendship were dissolved; he found himself an object of abhorrence to those whom he most esteemed, and by whom he had been most tenderly beloved; and, as far as expulsion from a society held in universal veneration could imprint on his character a mark of disgrace, he was shunned or suspected by the generality of mankind.
2. It was not, however, till churchmen began to unite temporal with spiritual power, that any penal effects of a civil kind became consequent on their sentences of excommunication; and that this ghostly artillery was not less frequently employed for the purposes of lawless ambition and ecclesiastical domination, than for the just punishment of impenitent delinquents, and the general edification of the faithful. But as soon as this union took place, and in exact proportion to the degree in which the papal system rose to its predominance over the civil rights as well as the consciences of men, the list of offences which subjected their perpetrators to excommunication, was multiplied; and the severity of its inflictions, with their penal effects, increased in the same ratio. The slightest injury, or even insult, sustained by an ecclesiastic, was deemed a sufficient cause for the promulgation of an anathema. Whole families, and even provinces, were prohibited from engaging in any religious exercise, and cursed with the most tremendous denunciations of divine vengeance. Nor were kings and emperors secure against these thunders of the church; their subjects were, on many occasions, declared, by a papal bull, to be absolved from allegiance to them; and all who should dare to support them, menaced with a similar judgment. These terrors have passed away; the true Scriptural excommunication ought to be maintained in every church; which is the prohibition of immoral and apostate persons from the use of those religious rites which indicate the communion of saints, but without any temporal penalty.