Choose a topic from Part 3 Suppl:

21. Excommunication

1. Excommunication means: (a) separation from the familyof the faithful; (b) loss of the right to share in the prayers andgeneral good works of the Church; (c) loss of the right to receivethe sacraments.

2. The Church imposes this stern penalty ofexcommunication only when the reasons demanding it are most grave.And the Church always hopes that her stern action will humble thepride of the person excommunicated, and so bring him to repentanceand amendment, and thus win him back to his place among herchildren. The Church hopes also, by imposing the censure ofexcommunication, to prevent or lessen the bad effect exercised onothers by the excommunicated person's evil example.

3. The reason for excommunication is always a grave sin,in which the sinner is obstinate. Sometimes even temporal thingscan enter into grave and stubbornly persistent sin; bodilyintegrity, for instance, or liberty, or valuable property. And soit is possible that a person may incur excommunication forinflicting even temporal harm.

4. Excommunication is effective; that is, it produces thesad effects mentioned in the first paragraph above. However, it isnot actually effective if it should be imposed by mistake orerror.

"The name of Jesus, pronounced with reverence and affection, has a kind of power to soften the heart. "
St Philip Neri

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"Try to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God. "
Thomas á Kempis

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"A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se."
St Philip Neri

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