Excommunication and Shunning - Question

[Bashful]

If a member of the Catholic church is excommunicated from the church, does the church require the faithful (including the family of the excommunicated person) to shun and avoid any contact with that person? I did read that under excommunication vitandus.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

If a member of the Catholic church is excommunicated from the church, does the church require the faithful (including the family of the excommunicated person) to shun and avoid any contact with that person? I did read that under excommunication vitandus.

We don’t do the vitandus thing anymore. In any modern society, it simply wouldn’t work, nor have the desired effect — to shock the excommunicated person so profoundly, and make his life so miserable, that he would be brought face-to-face with the enormity of his offense and change his ways. And it would require “getting everyone on board” to honor the terms of the excommunication and do the shunning. That wouldn’t work either.

 

[lil_user]

excommunication vitandus

Since the coming into effect of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, this form of excommunication is no longer carried out.

Even the Code of 1917, now abrogated, stated this only applied for special cases in which the Apostolic See excommunicated him/her by name and has proclaimed the excommunication publicly and in the decree has stated expressly that he/she must be avoided. In other words, it was quite rare.

Of course, you relate in different ways towards someone under excommunication, bearing in mind the goal is to bring them back to Holy Mother Church, who loves them dearly and only as a medicinal remedy has excommunicated them for not repenting of a very, very grave sin. May your actions reflect that love, firm but charitable, that wishes them to walk with you on the way to heaven.

The same is true for non-Catholics, isn’t it? We want them to embrace the fullness of the Christian faith, experience the love of Christ, understand the danger of sin and evil and what remedies Christ and His Church gift us against them! May they see in us and in our faith something worth following!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Are you required to shun people who have never been catholic? I know catholics who have never shunned me for not being catholic.

No. Some Catholics are even happily married to non-Catholics or have many non-Catholics in their family. My husband, in-laws, and grandmother were not Catholic and we all got along fine. The vast majority of my friends are not Catholics either. None of this is a problem.

The concept of “shunning” basically doesn’t exist in Catholicism today.

The person who started this thread is referring to a very old, very specific practice from past centuries, that applied in only a very few cases, and that the Church did away with decades ago.

 

[1ke]

If a member of the Catholic church is excommunicated from the church, does the church require the faithful (including the family of the excommunicated person) to shun and avoid any contact with that person?

No.

I did read that under excommunication vitandus.

Historically there was such a thing for certain people who have been excommunicated for particularly grave causes. It is not included in the 1983 code of canon law.

Note, even when it was part of Church law it didn’t apply to everyone who was excommunicated, only certain cases for specifically named people.

The Pope himself could still make such a pronouncement, even though no longer in canon law, since he is the supreme legislator.

 

[1ke]

Are you required to shun people who have never been catholic?

No, dear. Catholics do not shun non-Catholics or other Catholics.