Why Would the Catholic Church Excommunicate Someone?

0:00Welcome to the morning offering, your daily call to prayer. Pray with us every day, right here on the podcast and in your inbox. Learn more at morningoffering.com. Hey y'all, welcome to a morning offering. My name is Father Brad Doyle and today is September 7th, Monday of the 23rd week in ordinary time. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Through Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day. For all the intentions of your sacred heart and union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular the intentions of the Holy Father this month. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. For the next couple days we'll be going through parts of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, numero uno, the first one.

1:01And the bishop's going to bishop. He's being a bishop. You can't forget. These letters are written as a bishop who founded the church, right, and back to his former diocese. And he's addressing this particular situation. It is widely reported that there is immorality among you and immorality of a kind not found even among the pagans. Uh-oh. A man living with his father's wife. Okay. So his stepmom, a man living with his stepmom. Yeah, that's not allowed in the old covenant, not allowed in this covenant and our covenant. I'm not focused on that. I want to focus on what he says, his response. He says, uh, the one who did this deed should be expelled from your midst. I, from my part, although absent in body, but present in spirit, have already, as if

2:02present, pronounced judgment on the one who was committed this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you have gathered together and I'm with you in spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus, you were to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. What is that cryptic deliver this man to Satan? Uh, he's talking about excommunication. So it's excommunication. But the person will no longer be in communion and the purpose is important. He says so that his soul may be saved. We should remember that excommunication is a medicinal thing, right? It's not, it's not a matter of justice. It's, it's in order to heal the body, bring the person back and also to avoid scandal. I'll let the code of canon law tell us more distinctly our understanding of it now. You saw that it's rootedness and scripture and here's how we express it in 1983 code.

3:04The church has its own inherent right to constrain with penal sanctions, Christ faithful who commit offenses. So it was like, hey, we have authority. The one who is at the head of a church, so a bishop, must safeguard and promote the good of the community itself and of each of Christ's faithful through pastoral charity, examples of life, advice and exhortation. And if necessary, also through the imposition or declaration of penalties in accordance with the provisions of the law, which are always to be applied with canonical equity and having in mind the restoration of justice. So actually there is justice a part of it. This is all canonical penalties, so it's not just excommunication. The reform of the offender, that's the medicinal part and the repair of scandal. See, these are multiple. So penalties from the church, excommunications being the drastic one, are partly to avoid scandal.

4:05Whenever a bishop's cease to act, they might be putting other people in the scandal for not acting, not penalizing those, not calling those to repentance. It's like being a good dad, right? You can buy all the gifts in the world. You can have affection for your kids, but if you withhold the rod, you hate the child. And you hate your other children because that one child is aggravating the crap out of everybody. So if you ever get excommunicated, come back to the church, don't do what causes excommunication, but always know that if you hear about it, it's not the church being mean, hopefully. It is the church calling people back to the truth and to goodness and to beauty and protecting the rest of the flock. As St. Paul did. This has been your reflection for today. If it was helpful for you, go to morningoffering.com and sign up. We'll be in your inbox every morning.

5:05This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad, man. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to like, share and subscribe to our YouTube channel. The morning offering is a production of Good Catholic, the media division of the Catholic Company. For more faith-filled podcasts and videos, visit GoodCatholic.com.