It depends upon the situation. Some offenses incur automatic excommunication while others would be imposed by the bishop or the Holy See.
No.
I see 1Ke replied “no” but I think it is “yes”. The best man is nothing more than a witness (if I recall correctly) and does not have any part in the liturgy itself. Would it not be the same as having a muslim or jewish best man? What did I miss?
I think that if a couple were to have an excommunicated witness probably they would put themselves in a state of grave sin by bringing scandal. The witness in a marriage is just a secular rule, because form a religious point of view the priest is the witness to the marriage. The only canonical issue with an excommunicated person being a secular witness would be because of the possibility of scandal.
The Rite of Marriage is a liturgy of the Church and a person under excommunication may not participate in the liturgy.
The problem is that the witness is a secular norm and it is not really part of the liturgy. That it is why they usually sign the document at the end after the Mass and they do not have a real role in the ceremony.
Good point, but there would be nothing canonically preventing this, would there? How would the Priest even know? I have never known of one who asked anything about the best man/maid of honor in terms of what religion they were other than to ask that Catholics do the readings.
I think that your understanding is a little bit skewed. An article of the Code of Canon Law does not work by itself in a vacuum.You know what I am going to ask, right?Source please? I just looked through the canons on marriage and could not find anything about a witness needing to be Catholic, excommunicated or not.
The bottom line is that any person that knows can become culpable and God knows for sure and I would not mess with him. The Church has safeguards in place but it also relies on the good faith of the people, anyone that acts in a manner contrary to that is accountable to God.
That isn’t really accurate. The Church’s one code of canon law instructs that valid form requires a priest and two wtinesses.
It is not the canons on marriage that are relevant. It is the canons on canonical censures and penalties. An excommunicated person cannot participate in any cermonies of the Church-- sacraments or otherwise.You know what I am going to ask, right?
Excommunication:
Probably you are right about this, I haven’t looked at the CCL to see the instructions for a licit form of the marriage. However, excommunicated people have an obligation to participate to the liturgy (and that is active participation) but they have limitations on how they participate. I am not going to dig into the CCL to see the details, I have enough evidence that an excommunicated person should just sit in the pew and do nothing more than that.
What is “pretended celebration”?
Really? I always thought someone who was excommunicated wouldn’t be allowed to step foot in a church. Learn something new everyday…
You, a person who is not a priest, sitting in a confessional hearing confessions of unsuspecting penitents is an example.
Not under the current code of canon law.
If a person is excommunicated, I don’t think they can receive any of the Sacraments. That includes Reconciliation. Although I could be wrong.
Depending upon the offense, the person can in fact start with Reconciliation. Many priests have been given faculties to lift excommunication for certain offenses (for example abortion) from their bishop. So the penitent can be reconciled with the Church and excommunication lifted at the same time.
Of course. That is the whole purpose of excommunication-- to communicate the gravity of the offense and encourage repentance and conversion in the excommunicated party.