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Church Teaching

Excommunication

Edward Peters

September 19, 2023 7:59 am September 19, 2023

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Most Catholics know that excommunication has played an important role in ecclesiastical life since ancient times. Many also assume that this controversial procedure was relegated to the history books after…

Excommunication remains an important part of canon law. In fact, there are signs that in the years to come it will play a larger role in Church life than we’ve been accustomed to seeing. To understand why, let’s look at three key questions frequently raised about excommunication.

Is excommunication the most severe penalty that the Church can apply, or is it a medicinal remedy intended to bring about personal repentance and conversion?

Is excommunication imposed in response to certain serious violations of canon law, or is it a consequence of mortal sins as determined by moral theology?

Is there a master list of actions for which one can be excommunicated, or is each bishop or priest allowed to formulate his own?

The answers to these three questions can help us understand better what excommunication means today and what it might mean tomorrow. Let’s see how.

A Medicinal Remedy

Admittedly the first question is sort of a trick question. The answer to whether excommunication is the most severe penalty the Church has, or whether it is a medicinal response intended to bring about personal repentance, is that excommunication is both. But because this double character of excommunication is precisely what so many people misunderstand about it, let’s talk more about it.

On the one hand, anyone who is excommunicated has ruptured the bonds of communion that should bind each believer to the community of the faithful. Excommunication blocks a person’s right to receive the sacraments and sacramentals, and it prohibits him or her from exercising leadership roles in the Church. Despite the bravado with which some excommunicated persons express their disdain for the penalty, there’s nothing pleasant about these kinds of consequences, and excommunicated people know that. History knows it, too.

At the same time, though, the Catholic Church makes it clear that excommunication is imposed with the express goal of motivating the person to cease the behavior that resulted in the excommunication in the first place.

Put another way, the Church is as loathe to impose excommunication as she is eager to lift it. Indeed, once an excommunicated person has a change of heart (known canonically as “withdrawal from contumacy”), he or she has the right to a prompt reconciliation with the Church and a speedy readmission to her sacramental life.

And why not? The excommunication fulfilled its purpose; it brought an errant sheep back to the fold. If someone remains in a state of excommunication for a long time, you can be sure it is because he or she, sadly, wants it that way, and not because Church officials are being vindictive.

Violation of Law or Immorality?

The question about whether excommunication should be viewed as a penalty for violating canon law or as a consequence of immoral behavior is not tricky, it’s downright tough. This is because excommunication operates precisely where law and morality come into the closest contact.

It’s a well-established principle that not every immoral action can or even should be made a crime. Therefore (notwithstanding some odd cases we might find in the yellowing pages of Church history), excommunication today is imposed only for actions that are, first, seriously sinful in themselves and, second, unable to be adequately addressed in any other way.

Before the canonical penalty of excommunication will be imposed, it must be clear that a person has offended against an important moral and doctrinal value. That explains why today we usually hear about excommunication only in regard to major public issues such as, say, heresy, abortion or faking the sacraments.

Even so, besides the requirement that the action itself must be seriously wrong for excommunication to be possible, the offense must also be one for which the Church sees no other adequate response except a canonical penalty.

Thus, even though, for example, embezzlement of Church property or adultery are serious wrongs (and need to be brought promptly to sacramental confession), the Church has other ways of responding publicly to them. For example, she may call in civil authorities for embezzlement cases or reiterate Church teaching on matrimonial morals and adultery. She does not resort first to the penalty of excommunication when faced with these sorts of serious wrongs. This makes good sense.

Unfortunately, though, some people point to the lack of excommunications for, say, anti-papal diatribes or even clergy sexual abuse of children and conclude that the Church does not take such offenses seriously. Such an accusation is unfair.

If the Church thinks that the most effective response to these wrongs is excommunication, she will take the steps necessary to impose it. But if there seems to be another way of dealing with them, she will try that first.

Experience, as always, is a good guide here, and certainly the list of excommunicable offenses has changed over time. Thus the list could change again, but as that point really brings us to our last question, let’s turn to it now.

A Master List?

For the first decade after the current Code of Canon Law took effect, the answer to our last question was rather clear: All excommunications could be found listed in the Code of Canon Law. It was, moreover, a rather short list.

But beginning in the 1990s, a few diocesan bishops began turning to excommunication as one way, among others, to respond to what they saw as serious affronts to the Faith in their dioceses.

Pope John Paul II enacted a special excommunication outside of the Code of Canon Law against those who would violate the secrecy of a papal conclave. And in just the last few years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith used its authority to apply legitimately an excommunication in some cases of attempted women’s “ordinations,” even though that penalty for the simulated conferral of holy orders is not expressly contained in the 1983 Code.

We can see, of course, that these more recent excommunications have been implemented only by those at the highest levels of diocesan or universal Church leadership. Thus if we hear of a parish priest threatening or imposing excommunications on his own authority, something somewhere is wrong.

Moreover, even though these examples seem few in number, they are enough to indicate that excommunication is an evolving institution that can and will be used in response to more serious threats against the teachings, life and mission of the Church.

The distinctions highlighted in answering these three questions should go a long way toward minimizing the current confusion about excommunication.

Dr. Edward Peters teaches canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. He is the author of “Excommunication and the Catholic Church”(Ascension Press, 2006). Dr. Peters’ canon law website and blog can be accessed at www.canonlaw.info.

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Church Teaching

Why Is Canon Law Needed?

Edward Peters

April 30, 2023 8:00 am April 30, 2023

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6 min read

Growing up American means growing up aware of how deeply society is influenced by laws. We know, without even having to think about it, that law has something to say…

Growing up American means growing up aware of how deeply society is influenced by laws. We know, without even having to think about it, that law has something to say about almost everything we do.

As children we’re taught about the various branches of government — legislative, executive, judicial — that pass, enforce and interpret the laws at various levels — federal, state and local. So we recognize how important it is to understand the different rules and regulations that affect so many daily activities.

Most of the time, of course, we carry on our activities without consciously thinking about how many laws impact us. We can do this, in part, because most of the civil laws we live under make sense and contribute to the smooth operation of society.

But in the back of our mind, especially when something goes significantly wrong, we are aware that, to one degree or another, civil law might have something to say. And we have at least a basic idea of where to turn for help in learning more about legal issues.

The Law of the Church

Growing up Catholic, on the other hand, means growing up with almost no appreciation of how extensively canon law, the internal legal system of the Catholic Church, affects our daily life of faith. It means not knowing that canon law lies behind many things that we as Catholics take for granted. And it means not knowing that, in too many cases, important ecclesiastical rights and obligations might be going unrecognized in our lives.

Occasionally a canon law issue comes directly into our personal world, as might happen, say, in an annulment case. Or canon law may gain our attention when it makes the headlines, as might happen, say, when a public figure is excommunicated.

But even then, most Catholics don’t realize that what they see is only a small part of a complete legal system, a legal system that goes back to the ancient Church — in short, a legal system about which they might want to, and need to, know more.

Like every large and complex society, the Catholic Church long ago discovered that reasonable, written rules were important for the smooth functioning of the disparate people and projects being under-taken in so many different lands and conditions. Over the centuries, the accumulated pastoral and administrative wisdom of Church leaders was recorded, organized, tested and commented upon by legal experts.

Over time, however, these collections of regulations and “canons,” as they were called to distinguish them from civil laws, became increasingly hard to use. (The word canon comes from a Greek term meaning “a rule.”) Rules that made sense in one context were sometimes mistakenly applied in other contexts. Norms that worked at one time in history might be misapplied in other historical periods.

Integrated Codes

To remedy these problems, in 1917 the Catholic Church published its first integrated Code of Canon Law. At last, in one place, clear provisions on the work of priests and bishops, administration of Church property, celebration of sacraments, issues in education and so on were set forth (albeit in Latin!) for the consultation of anyone in the Church.

This Pio-Benedictine Code (so-called because of the two pontiffs, Popes Pius X and Benedict XV, involved in its creation and promulgation) was immediately hailed as a juridical and pastoral work of genius.

But while Roman (Latin-rite) Catholics benefited enormously by having a single Code of Canon Law, Eastern Catholics still did not have their own code (although work toward one had been going on for several decades).

Moreover, as the 20th century unfolded, it became increasingly clear that many of the canons in the 1917 code would need updating. This became quite apparent after the Second Vatican Council, which helped the Church confront better an increasingly secular civil society.

After a long, worldwide consultation process, Pope John Paul II promulgated, in 1983, a revised Code of Canon Law for the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1990 he issued the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. These two documents, both of which are available in modern language translations, represent the primary current legislation of the Catholic Church.

Looking only at the 1983 code, its 1,752 canons are spread over seven chapters, or “books.” Book I offers general canonical definitions and sets out the ground rules for applying law in the Church. Book II presents the basic rights and obligations of various persons in the Church.

Book III contains the norms that apply to the Church’s teaching ministry. Book IV gives the most important rules on sacraments (though there are not as many rules on liturgy in the code as some might think).

Book V regulates Church property. Book VI deals with ecclesiastical offenses and penalties. And, finally, Book VII is a procedural book with rules for canonical trials.

Yes, you read that last line correctly: The Catholic Church conducts legal trials in courts (called tribunals), which in turn play an important role in the canonical system. For that matter, canon law has lawyers (called advocates), law schools to train its specialists (called pontifical faculties), law reviews and commentaries, and indeed, in one way or another, just about everything that we might expect to find in a modern legal system.

Civil Law vs. Canon Law

There are, however, some important differences between canon law and civil law. For starters, canon law does not take its “marching orders” from secular or political concerns, but rather from the theological principles of the Catholic Church.

Canon law, moreover, approaches many technical legal issues in a way that more resembles the “continental law” or “civil law” legal tradition. This approach differs in many ways from the “common law” process with which Americans and people in other nations legally influenced by England are familiar.

Also, there are far fewer canon lawyers than there are civil lawyers. So finding answers to canonical questions, whether they are simple or complex, can take a bit longer than some might wish.

More and more, though, dioceses and seminaries are offering survey courses in canon law to the wider public. Websites dedicated to canon law are beginning to appear, and affordable commentaries — that is, private explanations by experts — on canon law are available through Catholic and secular booksellers.

Best of all, the 1983 Code of Canon Law is available online and in hard copy. While canon law is, to be sure, a technical discipline, it was nevertheless meant to be read and applied by the faithful at all levels in the Church. There is no better way to begin acquiring some familiarity with our fascinating Catholic legal system than by simply picking up and reading passages of the current Code of Canon Law.

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Church Teaching

What are Indulgences?

Edward Peters

February 9, 2023 7:05 am February 9, 2023

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7 min read

Indulgences are making a welcome reappearance in the spiritual life of Catholics. After centuries of slow decline in their use, punctuated by decades of almost complete neglect after the Second…

Indulgences are making a welcome reappearance in the spiritual life of Catholics. After centuries of slow decline in their use, punctuated by decades of almost complete neglect after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the power of indulgences to enliven a sense of charity and to sharpen a healthy sorrow for sin is finally being rediscovered.

Three popes have led the way.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI (1962-1978) laid the foundations for this renewal by simplifying the rules on indulgences and redrafting the list of designated works and prayers. The pope’s aim was to help Catholics see indulgences not as some sort of special projects to be performed apart from their daily life, but rather as ways to foster charity and a sense of repentance throughout an ordinary day.

Pope Paul’s reorganization of indulgences left in place some of the older and more ambitious forms of indulgences, such as pilgrimages to shrines and participation in Eucharistic Congresses. But he also made it possible to share more deeply in the Church’s “treasury of merit” by doing simple things such as bearing patiently the inconveniences of daily life in reparation for sin.

Pope Paul reminded us that, because God works through the little things in our lives as well as the great, something as trivial as being stuck in rush-hour traffic can become an opportunity to move closer to God if we offer it up for love of Him.

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) oversaw two revisions of the “Enchiridion of Indulgences” and frequently extended indulgences to Catholics participating in special events in their local area.

In 1991 the Polish pope recognized the Akathist hymn of Eastern Catholics as an indulgenced prayer on par with the Marian Rosary prayed by Roman Catholics. Then, in 1998 he withstood strong criticism from some Protestant leaders when he announced that participation in millennial celebrations of the Catholic Church would be enriched by a plenary indulgence.

Finally, Pope Benedict XVI made several references to indulgences in his informal addresses. He granted a plenary indulgence to those participating in person or in spirit in the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions at Lourdes.

There seems, in short, little doubt that today indulgences are emerging from the pall under which they have labored since the Protestant reformer Martin Luther repudiated them early in the 16th century. As a better understanding of indulgences spreads among Catholics and other Christians, they seem set once again to contribute to the welfare of the whole Church.

An Ancient Practice

We can say “once again” because indulgences are, in fact, quite an ancient part of Christian life. The actual word “indulgence” was first used in its modern sense in the 11th century, when they were offered as a spiritual reward for soldiers volunteering to join the efforts to free the Holy Land from Muslim invaders. But the actual practice of indulgences, if not the name, can be traced back much earlier in Church history, indeed, back to the times of the ancient Roman persecutions.

In those dark days, a practice grew up in which Christians suffering in prisons for the faith would sometimes send a letter to a bishop on behalf of a given penitent. The letter would ask the bishop, in recognition of the willingly accepted tribulations of the letter writer, to lighten the penance of a confessed and sorrowful sinner.

These requests, known as libelli pacis, were a beautiful example of the faithful putting into practice one of St. Paul’s most famous admonitions: to share one another’s burdens (see Gal 6:2).

The context in which such letters were written and rewarded underscored the close connection the Church has always sensed between the sacrament of confession and indulgences. To this day, both the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Nos. 1471-1479) and the Code of Canon Law (Canons 992-997) explain indulgences immediately in the context of the Sacrament of Confession.

It’s ironic, then, that because the practice of sacramental confession evolved over the centuries, while the theology of indulgences was lagging, the disconnection between penances for sins and indulgences grew over time to the point where confusion set in. Here’s one example.

“Seven Years Indulgence”?

Older Catholics likely recall when the description of each indulgence in the Raccolta (forerunner of today’s Enchiridion) was followed by a specific indication of time, for example, “300 days indulgence” or “seven years indulgence.”

The problem was (and Pope Paul VI saw this) that no one could say for sure what those time periods meant. All sorts of theories grew up about them, but most folks guessed that the time period of an indulgence must indicate time off from purgatory.

This was not an unreasonable guess. If nothing else, it honored the real connection between indulgences and reparation for sin.

But it assumed much more detail about how purgatory works than the Church has ever declared. (Purgatory is probably not an experience in time, but even if it were somehow associated with time, we don’t know how time might be measured in the next life.)

The suggestion, then, that a given indulgence might free one from, say, 300 days in purgatory was never correct.

As it happened, the time designations associated with indulgences were originally based on the lengthy periods of penance that were imposed after sacramental confession many centuries ago. But as those very long penances disappeared, the reckoning of indulgences as some sort of equivalents to what would have been offered up during such lengthy penances made less and less sense, and, eventually, the connections were lost.

Today, indulgences are grouped into only two types, partial and plenary. The category depends on whether the indulgence in question applies to some or all of the punishment a given member of the faithful owes for sin.

Other Misconceptions

While the connection between indulgences and post-sacramental penances no longer applies, the fact that indulgences apply only to the punishment for sin, and not to the forgiveness of sin itself, should not be overlooked.

Indulgences are not, and never have been, ways to seek forgiveness for sins. Much less are they ways to get “permission” to sin in advance! The Church has never taught anything so ridiculous.

To tell the truth, however, some of the popular explanations of indulgences lent themselves to just these sorts of misunderstandings. By the late Middle Ages, the stage was set for indulgences themselves to be attacked by the Protestant reformers because of some faulty explanations of what they really were.

Today, however, the Church’s constant teaching should be clear: Indulgences can be applied only to the punishment that is due for sins already forgiven, either in sacramental confession (in the case of mortal or venial sins) or by personal expressions of sorrow (in the case of venial sins only).

Further study of the Church’s carefully developed doctrine on indulgences can be rewarding and should be encouraged. But we shouldn’t leave the impression that only those with a thorough understanding of indulgences can make use of them.

Any Christian who, in a spirit of penitence for sins, asks God for the deeper share in the infinite merits of Jesus Christ that indulgences offer can use them to move ever closer to God — who wants nothing else than for us to be happy with Him forever.

Edward N. Peters, J.C.D., holds the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, in Detroit, Mich. His book, “A Practical Guide to Indulgences,” is available from Liturgy Training Publications; call 800-933-1800.

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Sacraments

The Seal of Confession

Edward Peters

February 6, 2020 2:53 pm February 6, 2020

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7 min read

The seal of confession is in the news again. From New Hampshire to California, state legislatures and trial court judges are pressuring Catholic priests to disclose information (most recently, about clergy sexual abuse) that they might have gained during a sacramental confession. While some elected representatives and trial lawyers (many of whom are not Catholic) are using solid constitutional arguments to resist these encroachments on religion, the debate is far from over.

We should pray that the right answer is found quickly. The consequences of getting policies wrong in the area of the “priest-penitent privilege” could be very serious.

The confidentiality of the confessional is not just one of the most important canonical rights enjoyed by the faithful. Its protection is one of the glories of Church history. Over the centuries, powerful forces have often tried to crack the secrets of the confessional, only to be stopped by priests who accepted suspicion, ridicule, prison and occasionally even a martyr’s death, rather than violate the trust shown by those making use of Christ’s Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Today, Canon 983 of the Code of Canon Law absolutely forbids a confessor from betraying a penitent in any way for any reason. In more concrete terms, the seal of confession prohibits a priest from disclosing the identity of the penitent and the sin or sins that he or she has confessed. Canon 1388 provides teeth for this rule when it imposes canonical penalties, up to and including excommunication, for the violation of the sacramental seal.

We might wonder why a civil state would want to protect from disclosure, even in its own courts, certain types of conversations such as those occurring between priests and penitents, doctors and patients, or attorneys and clients. Basically, the explanation for all three privileges is the same: Society is better off in the long run when people know they can approach clergy, physicians or lawyers without the fear that what they talk about might be freely shared with others.

Still, some lines have to be drawn. Let’s take a closer look at when the seal of confession applies according to canon law. Perhaps a better understanding of this topic will contribute toward developing and affirming sound civil policies in this important area.

The Extent of the Seal

The obligation to respect the seal of confession applies whether the sins confessed are grave (such as abortion, blasphemy, unchastity) or minor (such as being carelessly late for Mass or rude to strangers). It applies even if the sacrament was interrupted or not completed, as might happen if a penitent becomes ill or admits a sin but refuses to express sorrow for it.

When we say, though, that the seal of confession applies even if the sacrament is not conferred, we must be careful not to assume that every “confidential” conversation with a priest – even conversations about spiritual matters – is protected by the seal of confession. Other obligations of confidentiality might apply in such cases, but only those exchanges in which the penitent is clearly seeking sacramental reconciliation are protected by the seal of confession.

Having said that, we must nevertheless note that the protection of the seal extends to other cases as well. It applies, for example, even if the fact of the sin is publicly known from other sources. For example, if an individual has widely announced that he or she has committed some crime and later confesses that crime to a priest, the priest cannot confirm that the individual confessed the same crime.

The seal of confession also applies to sins that are “particular” to that penitent (such as a deacon failing to pray the Liturgy of the Hours) even if such acts or omission would not be sinful for the rest of us. And the obligation of the seal applies as well to what are sometimes called “devotional confessions”- that is, confessions in which previously confessed and absolved sins are mentioned again as an aid to deepening one’s sorrow for them.

It’s important to note that the obligation to preserve the secrecy of the confessional applies to those who happen to come into knowledge of confessional matters, say, by overhearing (deliberately or accidentally) another’s confession or by having served as an interpreter for confession.

It’s true that there’s a canonical distinction in the type of obligation to secrecy that such persons bear. But there’s no doubt that those who repeat such confessional information as they might have acquired are subject to severe canonical penalties for disclosing what they have heard.

Some people are reluctant to go to confession for fear that, while the priest would never disclose their sins, he might use the information against them in other ways – say, by shunning the individual or by asking for his or her resignation from a parish position.

Church law, however, has already anticipated this problem and has taken steps to prevent it. Canon 984 expressly forbids a confessor from using any information gained from confession against the penitent even if all danger of disclosure is excluded.

Release from Obligation?

One current thought in canonical opinion would allow a penitent to release a confessor from the obligation of the seal under certain conditions. After all, so runs the argument, the seal of confession protects the penitent from the fear of being exposed, so if a penitent wishes to disclose his or her confession through the confessor, canon law should allow for that.

In my opinion, though, this argument overlooks the fact that the seal of confession protects penitents in ways they might not have even thought about; it protects the priests who must minister within it; and it defends the sacrament itself.

Think about it: If the seal of confession is absolutely unwaivable, penitents would be protected from being pressured by others to release their confessors in certain cases, priests would be protected from having to decipher vague or unclear purported releases from penitents, and all the faithful would be protected from having to wonder whether what certainly looks like a violation of the seal might have been something actually requested or at least agreed to by a penitent at some time or another.

Finally, even though there’s a danger of introducing a slippery slope here, most who write on canon law agree that a confessor may answer a legitimate question as to whether he is in fact asserting the seal of confession in regard to inquiries about a specific person. After all, a defendant on the stand is not permitted simply to refuse to answer legitimate questions; he or she must base the refusal on some sort of recognized privilege such as the Fifth Amendment.

Similarly, a priest who does not wish to disclose information he might have gained in confession must be able to confirm that he has concluded that the seal of confession prohibits him from answering a question.

Moreover, when we recall how little (indeed, how almost nothing) can be guessed about what kinds of things might have been discussed under the seal, there seems little danger of “betraying a penitent” merely by a priest’s stating that the answer to such-and-such a question is precluded by the seal of confession.

The current encroachments on the seal of confession are cause for concern. Yet we must always remember that, serving, as it does, one of the seven sacraments Christ gave His Church, the seal of confession shares in the protection that the Lord showers on His Church. Such protection shouldn’t cause us to slacken in our efforts to protect the priest-penitent privilege under civil law. But it does help us remember that God will have the final word.

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