Excommunication and the Roman Catholic Church
Michael Novak notes at National Review that the Roman Catholic Church has disciplined only 12 people (plus followers of one) for heresy, broadly defined, in the past 27 years. I say “broadly defined” because the most prominent example is Archbishop Lefebvre, who was excommunicated with his followers for disobedience, which is important, but who disagreed with Church teaching on things like whether the Mass should be said in Latin, which nobody thinks is a central point in itself.
Moreover, of those 12, only 3 (including Lefebvre) were excommunicated. The rest were merely told that they couldn’t teach at Roman Catholic colleges. Most Roman Catholics are not allowed to either, though in 99.99% of cases the reason is lack of credentials rather than incorrect teaching , so that is not much of a punishment.
Mr. Novak and others are citing these facts as being favorable to the Church, but of course they are not. They show that the Church’s interest in correct doctrine is minimal, and they are willing to have Roman Catholic colleges teach heresy so long as it doesn’t get too public that they are doing so, and that members of the Church are free to believe– and to say publicly– pretty much anything they want.
Of course, minimal interest is more than no interest. Most churches will not expel members for any reason whatsoever.
April 29th, 2005 at 7:08 am
Archbishop Lefebvre was only excommunicated when he
consecrated another bishop. By doing this Lefebvre
gave immortality to his group. The vatican had been
playing a cat-and-mouse game with the bishop, hoping
he would die before consecrating a bishop for his
flock.
The episode points out that it is truly difficult to
deal with a recalcitrant bishop.
Although they were excommunicated, the group has
full apostolic succession and its liturgy, forgiveness
of sins, penance, etc. are all licit, in my opinion.
April 29th, 2005 at 7:22 am
That’s interesting. It sounds right, and I expect Rome would agree with Jim. Just because a bishop is excommunicated does not mean his previous actions are invalid. In fact, it might be the case that even the Archbishop’s present consecrations are valid, as per the orthodox position vs. the Donatist heresy.
Is there an analogy to contract and property law, *in personam* and *in rem*? A contract obligates a particular person to do something; a property covenant obligates anyone who owns a particular property to do something. That sounds a little like a person being excommunicated, but his office of bishop requiring separate treatment.