Can Protestants be excommunicated?

[cameron_lansing]

From JD: “From the Reformation perspective, justification was the crux of all the disputes. Doctrinal condemnations were put forward both in the Lutheran Confessions[3] and by the Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent. These condemnations are still valid today and thus have a church-dividing effect.” vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html

The Church must do nothing to condemn Protestant pastors. It is done ipso facto. The condemnations were originally called anathema which is a combination of excommunication and curse per Catholic Encyclopedia (for those who are interested and upset when sources are not listed).

If I am in fact wrong about this please accept my apology and I will ask a moderator to remove the inaccuracies in my posts.

Bless You,
John

Cstudent,

When referencing a document, I find it best to read it entirely, ponder it thoroughly, and to respect the integrity of the text.

Read the document again with greater precision and completeness.

The Joint Declaration is speaking of “doctrinal condemnations.” These condemnations regarded the positions put forth by the Lutheran confessions and the Council of Trent. Further, as the Joint Declaration says, “Developments have taken place which not only make possible, but also require the churches to examine the divisive questions and condemnations and see them in a new light.” (n. 7)

Doctrinal condemnation and excommunication are different in essence and should not be confused with each other. A condemnation of a doctrine is a theological statement. It is made independently of persons. An excommunication is a juridic statement about the status of a person in the Church. It cannot be made independently of persons.

The Joint Declaration also states, “Opposing interpretations and applications of the biblical message of justification were in the sixteenth century a principal cause of the division of the Western church and led as well to doctrinal condemnations. A common understanding of justification is therefore fundamental and indispensable to overcoming that division. By appropriating insights of recent biblical studies and drawing on modern investigations of the history of theology and dogma, the post-Vatican II ecumenical dialogue has led to a notable convergence concerning justification, with the result that this Joint Declaration is able to formulate a consensus on basic truths concerning the doctrine of justification.** In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to today’s partner.**” (n.13)

Thus even if you might confuse doctrinal condemnation with excommunication, the Joint Declaration establishes that Protestant pastors today are **not **ipso facto condemned by the Church.

So in summation,

1. By virtue of canon 11, those Protestant pastors are not bound to Catholic ecclesiastical laws regarding excommunication.
2. Doctrinal condemnation is not the same as excommunication.
3. Doctrinal condemnation of the 16th century does not operate today.

God bless.

 

[cstudent]

Once again I thank you for your response. What is happening here is that in the absence of any credible and authoritative commentary on these subjects we are reduced to inference. Which in itself is problematic. It’s difficult to understand why there isn’t more definitive teaching on these subject.

Cstudent,

When referencing a document, I find it best to read it entirely, ponder it thoroughly, and to respect the integrity of the text. Read the document again with greater precision and completeness.

Please don’t assume that because I reach a different conclusion than you that I haven’t read something in its entirety as well as with precision and trying to understand the context.

The Joint Declaration is speaking of “doctrinal condemnations.” These condemnations regarded the positions put forth by the Lutheran confessions and the Council of Trent. Further, as the Joint Declaration says, “Developments have taken place which not only make possible, but also require the churches to examine the divisive questions and condemnations and see them in a new light.” (n. 7)

The use of the term “Condemnation” seems to be watered down rhetoric. The condemnations are actually anathemas. Anathemas are part excommunication (per Catholic Encyclopedia) and part curse (per Aquinas in Summa).

What is being resolved in the declaration are the anathemas. Original position papers referred to the condemnations as anathema as do current commentators.

Cardinal Dulles: “Most importantly for our present purposes, the Catholic Response raises the question whether the Lutheran positions as explained in the Joint Declaration really escape the anathemas of the Council of Trent.”
firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3248

A most important question to answer here is if in fact Lutherans are not under the jurisdiction of canon law and therefore not subject to anathema, excommunication, etc why would it be questioned whether or not their positions explained in the JD really escape the anathemas of Trent. If they are exempt from the penal sanctions and or censure there is no need to escape them.

Cardinal Dulles: On at least one point, the continued sinfulness of the justified, the response asserted that the Joint Declaration could hardly escape the anathemas of the Council of Trent in its Decrees on Original Sin and on Justification.(6)
pcj.edu/journal/dulles9-1.htm

This statement indicates that on any point not resolved in the JD someone has not escaped anathemas and it’s probably not the Catholics.

 

[cstudent]

continuation:

Doctrinal condemnation and excommunication are different in essence and should not be confused with each other. A condemnation of a doctrine is a theological statement. It is made independently of persons. An excommunication is a juridic statement about the status of a person in the Church. It cannot be made independently of persons.

I’ll get back to this when my headache is gone.

The Joint Declaration also states, “Opposing interpretations and applications of the biblical message of justification were in the sixteenth century a principal cause of the division of the Western church and led as well to doctrinal condemnations. A common understanding of justification is therefore fundamental and indispensable to overcoming that division. By appropriating insights of recent biblical studies and drawing on modern investigations of the history of theology and dogma, the post-Vatican II ecumenical dialogue has led to a notable convergence concerning justification, with the result that this Joint Declaration is able to formulate a consensus on basic truths concerning the doctrine of justification.** In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to today’s partner.**” (n.13)

Correct. The corresponding condemnations (those resolved in the JD) no longer apply. All of the rest, likely a hundred and some, still do. And they lead to far more than simple doctrinal condemnation- the led to anathemas which were the gravest and most hostile wishes against one another (which included a curse/malediction which no one may ever understand the extent of as it likely transcends natural and human law and anything that can be known depending on who administers it- but that’s another topic entirely).

Thus even if you might confuse doctrinal condemnation with excommunication, the Joint Declaration establishes that Protestant pastors today are **not **ipso facto condemned by the Church.

From the following I can infer something different:

“Trent also hurled 125 anathemas (eternal damnation’s) against anyone * that denies the Catholic doctrine.”

“An anathema on an infallible statement can never be changed, and is always binding; otherwise the statement is not infallible.”

So if the condemnations stand, the anathemas stand- as the anathemas were a part of each doctrinal condemnation.

“Mr. Charles M. Wilson, an associate member of the Canon Law Society of America and president of the St. Joseph Foundation when asked if the Code of 1983 repealed the anathemas he stated, “I can find nothing in the Code now in force that explicitly or implicitly removes any anathemas of Trent.”
geocities.com/peterpaulmin/CoucilofTrent.html

So in summation,

1. By virtue of canon 11, those Protestant pastors are not bound to Catholic ecclesiastical laws regarding excommunication.

I would have to infer that and I’ve not seen evidence compelling enough for me to do so.

1. Doctrinal condemnation is not the same as excommunication.

I suppose they aren’t - exactly.

1. Doctrinal condemnation of the 16th century does not operate today.

Isn’t the fact that the condemnations do exist today precisely why the JD’s are written?

God bless.

And you also.*

 

[cameron_lansing]

Cstudent,

I believe that you have been provided with correct and reasonable explanation to your question,”Can Protestants be excommunicated?” on this thread to proceed with further personal study. Ultimately, you will have to determine what would be sufficient to satisfy you that the Church does not subject baptized non Catholics to merely ecclesiastical law in canon 11, and hence does not excommunicate them. I am only a Catholic canon lawyer trying to explain what is considered a settled legal point by experts and commentaries on the law.

I attribute good faith to your temperate investigation. This is refreshing since the topic of whether the Tridentine declarations possess continuing force on people alive today is something of a well trodden path taken by both anti Catholics (e.g., catholicconcerns.com/Trent.html or wayoflife.org/fbns/trent.htm) and ultra traditional Catholics who think that the ecumenical principles in the Second Vatican Council are heretical.

But use some sense here. The Catholic Church even permits its members through dispensation, when marrying a Protestant (even a Lutheran), to have a Protestant minister (even a Lutheran pastor) witness the marriage. Why on earth would it do that if we considered them excommunicated today by virtue of Trent?

However, I have only limited time to allocate to extended discussions. I cannot address each new quote or shift of argument, measure it to see if it took cognizance of the preceding response, or explain when there are problems in that regard. This is also the case in the immediately preceding posts, in which I do find some difficulties of notion, context, and application. (Do avoid citations from anonymous internet websites of self styled “lay apostolates” though. Since they lack the coloration of credibility and identification, they merit no response. If they quote someone, verify the context and the actual quote from the person who is said to have made it.)

If jurisdiction over baptized non Catholics is not asserted by the Church today in regard to the merely ecclesiastical laws of sanctions, it is a corollary that any historical sanctions are not effective on those living today. Since the jurisdiction of the Church ceases when a person dies, those Catholics who were sanctioned by Trent are far beyond the reach of merely ecclesiastical law today.

However, doctrinal condemnations are condemnations of points of doctrine and pertains to what the Church believes to be various truths and not some kind of personal condemnations a la excommunication. This is clear from the Response of the Catholic Church to the Joint Declaration of the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation on the Doctrine of Justification which you introduced: “If, moreover, it is true that in those truths on which a consensus has been reached the condemnations of the Council of Trent non longer apply, the divergencies [sic] on other points must, on the contrary, be overcome before we can affirm, as is done generically in n.41, that these points no longer incur the condemnations of the Council of Trent.” (vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_01081998_off-answer-catholic_en.html)

Points, not people, are matter under discussion.

Most simply, Vatican II’s addressed the Church’s self undererstanding not on the basis of the notion of Church as perfect society that suffused the Council of Trent (self contained so that it could exercise jurisdiction of governance over all the baptized). Instead it viewed the Church from the basis of its identity of a communio, a people of God in hierarchical communion (and consequently with jurisdiction of governance over its members).

Read those council documents and the Directory: vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm and
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/general-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19930325_directory_en.html

Understanding the ecclesiological and juridic principles involved, as well as the proper interpretation of Catholic Church law, do not strike me as easy tasks for anyone approaching this topic.

So again I do recommend the action of personal contact I recommended earlier to accomplish your investigation. Others can also lead you to significant documents issued by popes and the Roman curia recently on the topic of the Church’s self identity. The declaration Dominus Iesus would be among them: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html

But apart from what has already been provided on this matter, I do not think further comment from me on this will be of help to you.

Nevertheless I wish you every blessing of God. Keep at it.