Excommunication
EXCOMMUNICATION. To excommunicate means "to cut off from communion" or "to exclude from fellowship in a community." In a Christian setting, the term excommunication also applies to exclusion from Holy Communion, or the Eucharist.
Historically, religious practice admitted some form of putting a person outside the community. Any community claims the right to protect itself against nonconforming members who may threaten the common welfare. In a religious setting this right has often been reinforced by the belief that the sanction affects one's standing before God, inasmuch as it entails being cut off from the community of the saved. In religious traditions in which nonconformity was punishable by death, excommunication was introduced as a mitigation of the death penalty. In medieval Christendom and during the early years of the Reformation, excommunicated persons were turned over to civil authorities, who could inflict the death penalty upon them.
With the shift in modern times to considering religious affiliation a matter of free choice, doubts have been expressed about the meaning and value of excommunication. Although practiced less frequently today, some current examples include the ḥerem in Orthodox Judaism, "shunning" among some traditional Christian bodies, withdrawal of membership by congregation-based communities, and "excommunication" as practiced by Mormons, Roman Catholics, and some other mainline Christian churches.
In the Western Christian tradition, excommunication is seen as based on practice reflected in scripture, especially Paul (see, for example, 1 Cor. 5:1–13, 2 Cor. 2:5–11, 2 Thes. 3:14–15). Theoretical justification is taken from the command to bind and loose (Mt. 18:15–18). This same passage supplies key elements of procedure, including advance warning and attempts to lead the delinquent to conversion.
Early Christian practice mixed liturgical excommunications, which were part of the nonrepeatable public penitential practices, with disciplinary ones that could culminate in a person being declared anathema. In the thirteenth century Innocent III specified excommunication as a disciplinary penalty distinct from other punishments, characterizing it as specifically medicinal, intended to heal the delinquent. The number of crimes for which excommunication could be incurred increased steadily through the eighteenth century, but a marked reduction in their number began with the reforms of Pius IX in 1869 and continued with the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law in 1917.
As a medicinal, or healing, penalty, excommunication under Roman Catholic law may be incurred only if a serious sin has been committed, or if the person is obstinate in a position after being given formal warnings and time to repent. Reflecting medieval and later developments, some excommunications are automatic (latae sententiae), incurred by committing a specified act, such as abortion or physically striking the pope. Other excommunications are imposed (ferendae sententiae) after an administrative or judicial investigation. Excommunication must always be lifted as soon as the delinquent repents and seeks peace with the church.
A distinction used to be drawn between major excommunications, which cut a person off from all participation in community life, and minor ones, which prohibited participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. Current canon law has dropped this distinction, although the 1917 code did characterize some excommunicates as vitandi, with whom contact must be completely avoided. Under the 1917 code all others were tolerati, and contact with them could be permitted.
An excommunicated person loses basic rights in the church, but not the effects of baptism, which can never be lost. In the revision of the code carried out after Vatican II the effects of excommunication were clarified, and the distinction of vitandi and tolerati was dropped. Instead, all are treated as tolerati so far as the effects are concerned. These depend on whether the excommunication was imposed by a public declaration or sentence of condemnation, or was incurred automatically but without much public notice.
Generally, a person who is excommunicated is denied any role in administering the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. He or she may not receive any of the sacraments or administer sacramentals, such as burials, and is forbidden to exercise any church offices or functions. If the penalty has been declared or imposed by a sentence, any liturgical actions the excommunicate attempts are to be suspended until he or she leaves; the excommunicate loses any offices or other functions in the church; and may make no claim for income or other benefits from the church.
Under the reform of the law, automatic excommunication can be incurred in only six instances, including abortion. It may be imposed for a limited number of other crimes against faith, the Eucharist, or the seal of the confessional in the sacrament of penance. If imposed by a sentence or public declaration, excommunication can be lifted only by a public authority in the church, usually the local diocesan bishop. Otherwise, it can be lifted by a priest during the sacrament of penance, but unlike the 1917 code the revised rules require that in all cases the bishop be contacted afterward for the reconciliation to remain in effect.
Bibliography
Recommended studies of early Christian practice are Kenneth Helm's Eucharist and Excommunication: A Study in Early Christian Doctrine and Discipline (Frankfurt, 1973) and John E. Lynch's "The Limits of Communio in the Pre-Constantinian Church," Jurist 36 (1976): 159–190. For historical background and detailed commentary on Roman Catholic canon law through the 1917 Code of Canon Law, see Francis Edward Hyland's Excommunication: Its Nature, Historical Development and Effects (Washington, D. C., 1928), and for an overview of efforts to reform Roman Catholic law on this subject, see Thomas J. Green's "Future of Penal Law in the Church," Jurist 35 (1975): 212–275, which includes a bibliography. Both the Dictionnaire de droit canonique (Paris, 1953) and the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2d ed. (Freiburg, 1957–1968), offer extensive articles, under the terms Excommunication and Bann, respectively.
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