EXCOMMUNICATION
679
EXCOMMUNICATION
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 pubHc penance and the
well-defined separation between those things apper-
taining to the jorum internum, or tribunal of con-
science, and the forum externum, or public ecclesias-
tical tribunal; nevertheless, the admission of a sinner
to the performance of jjublic penance was consequent
on a previous genuine excommunication. On the
other hand, formal exclusion from reception of the Eu-
charist and the other sacraments was only mitigated
excommunication and identical with minor excom-
munication (see below). At any rate, in the first cen-
turies excommunication is not regarded as a simple
external measure; it reaches the soul and the con-
science. It is not merely the severing of the outward
bond which hokls the individual to his place in the
Church; it severs also the internal bond, and the sen-
tence pronounced on earth is ratified in heaven. It is
the spiritual sword, the heaviest penalty that the
Cimrch 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, 1.520)
Leo X justly condemned Luther's twenty-third prop-
osition according to which "excommunications are
merely external punisliments, 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-Sjmod
of Pistoia, which maintained that the effect of excom-
munication 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 bintling in heaven and affecting
souls. The aforesaid proposition was therefore con-
demned as false, pernicious, already reprobated in the
twenty-third proposition of Luther, and, to say the
least, erroneous. Undouljtedly the Church cannot
(nor does it wish to) oppose any obstacle to the inter-
nal relations of the soul with Ciod; slie even implores
God to give the grace of repentance to the excommuni-
cated. The rites of the Cliurch, nevertheless, are al-
ways the providential and regular channel through
which Divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclu-
sion 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 oj Excommunication. — While excommunica- tion ranks first among ecclesiastical censures, it ex- isted 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 lay- men ; for guilty clerics the first punisliment was depo- sition from their office, i. e. reduction to the ranks of the laity. Subsequently, when ecclesiastical disci- pline allowed clerics more easily to resume their min- istry, the ancient deposition became suspension; thenceforth even clerics were subject to excommuni- cation, by which they lost at once their rights as Chris- tians and as clerics. Both laymen and clerics were henceforth threatened or punished with excommuni- cation for offences that became daily more definite and numerous, particularly for refusing oljedience either to special ecclesiastical precepts or the general laws of the Church. Once the jorum externum, or pulalic eccle- siastical triliunal, was distinctly separated from the jorum sacramentnlc, or tribunal of sacramental pen- ance, say from the ninth century on, excommunica- tion liecame gradually an ever more powerful means of spiritual government, a sort of coercive measure ensur- ing the exact accomplishment of the laws of the Church and the precepts of her prelates. Excommuni- cation was eitlicr threatened or inflicted in order to secure the observance of f.asfs 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 impedi-
ments and other information.
Abuse. — This extension of the use of excommunica- tion led to abuses. The infliction of so grave a pen- alty for offences of a less grievous kind and most frequently impossible to verify Ijefore the public eccle- siastical 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 Ls the very sinews of ecclesiastical discipline, and very salutary for keeping the people to the ob.servance 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, ex- cept on account of some uncommon circumstance which moves the bishop there im to, 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 recom- mendation 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 excom- munications was excessively multiplied, which fact, coupled with their frequent desuetude, made it diffi- cult to know whether many among them were always in force. The difficulty was greater as a large number of these excomraimications were reserved, for which reason theologians with much ingenuity construed favourably said reservation and permitted the major- ity of the faithful to obtain absolution without pre- senting themselves in Rome, or indeed even writing thither. In recent times the number of excommuni- cations in force has been greatly diminished, and a new method of absolving from them has been inaugu- rated ; it will doubtless find a place in the newcodifica- cation of the canon law that is being prepared. Thus, without change of nature, excommunication in foro externa has become an exceptional penalty, reserved for very grievous offences detrimental to Christian society; in joro interna it has been diminished and mitigated, at least in regard to the conditions for ab- solution 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.
Rejusal oj 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 refiusal by a bishop to commimicate in sacris with another bishop and his cluirch, 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 puni.shed) the bishops of Asia in the paschal controversy (Euse- bius. Hist. Eccl., V, xxiv); it was certainly the meas- ure to which St. Martin of Tours hatl recourse when he refused to communicate with the Spanish bishops who cau.sed Emperor Maximinus to condemn to death the heretic Priscillian with some of his adherents (Sulpi- cius Severus, Dial., iii, 1.5). Moreover, a similar pri-
