Can You Be Excommunicated For Stupidity?

Prepare thyself for the stupidest thing you will read today!

Ron Modras, professor of theological studies at St. Louis University and author of Ignatian Humanism, writes at the National Catholic Reporter about the rash of excommunications. It is so singularly stupid that I don't know if I should be outraged or sorry.

A commenter responded:

This article is riddled with flaws. The virtue of excommunication does not have anything to do with its practical effects. In other words, excommunications are not levied to bring about some practical end. An excommunication simply signals that a rupture has occurred in the Body of Christ, either through a member's grave sin or through a violation of the Church's disciplinary norms. As numerous theologians have pointed out, then, it's not really precise to talk about a Bishop excommunicating someone, as if the Bishop had arbitrarily made the decision on his own. More precisely, members of the Church automatically excommunicate themselves through actions that violate existing norms. Building on this point, the validity of said norms does not depend on whether or not a certain number of Catholics honor them. In all ages of the Church, there have been and will be a large number of the baptized who live in unrepentant sin or who willfully live in discord with Church teaching. The Church's task is to faithfully transmit and teach the totality of revelation. She cannot guarantee that a certain percentage of her children will follow this teaching, any more than a parent can guarantee that her children will never rebel after they reach an age of maturity.

And yet another commenter warned that even reading NC Reporter that a Catholic may incur latae sententiae excommunication.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I haven't the time right now to point out all the flaws in the piece, but feel free to do so...

Read the entire blog post at CMR