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Abortion & Excommunication in
The Catechism and Canon Law
Glossary

ferendae sententiae used in reference to a form of penalty that is imposed by the judgement of a court or by the decree of a Superior, when a person has been found guilty of an offence.

latae sententiae used in reference to a form of penalty that is automatically incurred on committing an offence, without the intervention of a judge or Superior.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

2272: "Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. ‘A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,’ [CIC, can. 1398.] ‘by the very commission of the offense,’ [CIC, can. 1314.] and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. [Cf. CIC, cann. 1323-1324.] The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society." "Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. ‘A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,’ [CIC, can. 1398] ‘by the very commission of the offense,’ [CIC, can. 1314] and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. [Cf. CIC, cann. 1323-1324] The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society." "Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. ‘A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,’ [CIC, can. 1398] ‘by the very commission of the offense,’ [CIC, can. 1314] and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law [Cf. CIC, cann. 1323-1324]. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society."

2273: The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation: "The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority… As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights." [79 and 80] The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation: "The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority… As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights." [79 and 80] The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation: "The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority… As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights." [79 and 80]

2322: From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a "criminal" practice (GS 27 #3), gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life.

1983 Code of Canon Law

Can. 18 Laws which prescribe a penalty, or restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the law, are to be interpreted strictly. Laws which prescribe a penalty, or restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the law, are to be interpreted strictly.

Can. 209 §1 Christ's faithful are bound to preserve their communion with the Church at all times, even in their external actions.
§2 They are to carry out with great diligence their responsibilities towards both the universal Church and the particular Church to which by law they belong.

Can. 915 Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.

Can. 1329 §1 Where a number of persons conspire together to commit an offence, and accomplices are not expressly mentioned in the law or precept, if ferendae sententiae penalties were constituted for the principal offender, then the others are subject to the same penalties or to other penalties of the same or a lesser gravity.
§2 In the case of a latae sententiae penalty attached to an offence, accomplices, even though not mentioned in the law or precept, incur the same penalty if, without their assistance, the crime would not have been committed, and if the penalty is of such a nature as to be able to affect them; otherwise, they can be punished with ferendae sententiae penalties.

Can. 1330 §1 An offence which consists in a declaration or in some other manifestation of doctrine or knowledge, is not to be regarded as effected if no one actually perceives the declaration or manifestation.

Can. 1336 §1 Expiatory penalties can affect the offender either forever or for a determinate or an indeterminate period. Apart from others which the law may perhaps establish, these penalties are as follows:

1. a prohibition against residence, or an order to reside, in a certain place or territory;
2. deprivation of power, office, function, right, privilege, faculty, favour, title or insignia, even of a merely honorary nature;
3. a prohibition on the exercise of those things enumerated in n. 2, or a prohibition on their exercise inside or outside a certain place; such a prohibition is never under pain of nullity;
4. a penal transfer to another office;
5. dismissal from the clerical state.

§2 Only those expiatory penalties may be latae sententiae which are enumerated in §1, n. 3.

Can. 1339 §1 When someone is in a proximate occasion of committing an offence or when, after an investigation, there is a serious suspicion that an offence has been committed, the Ordinary either personally or through another can give that person warning.
§2 In the case of behaviour which gives rise to scandal or serious disturbance of public order, the Ordinary can also correct the person, in a way appropriate to the particular conditions of the person and of what has been done.
§3 The fact that there has been a warning or a correction must always be proven, at least from some document to be kept in the secret archive of the curia.

Can. 1369 A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.

Can. 1397 One who commits murder, or who by force or by fraud abducts, imprisons, mutilates or gravely wounds a person, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the offence, with the deprivations and prohibitions mentioned in can. 1336. In the case of the murder of one of those persons mentioned in can. 1370, the offender is punished with the penalties there prescribed.

Can. 1398 A person who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.

Can. 1399  Besides the cases prescribed in this or in other laws, the external violation of divine or canon law can be punished, and with a just penalty, only when the special gravity of the violation requires it and necessity demands that scandals be prevented or repaired.

 
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08/02/2004 05:06 PM