La nature et les conséquences de l’excommunication selon le Code de droit canonique de 1983

Excommunication is one of medicinal penalties in the Church. Censures deprive a punished person of access to various ecclesiastical goods. Excommunication can be either latae sententiae or ferendae sententiae. Canon 1331 § 1 defines consequences of excommunication latae sententiae. The excommunicated people are barred from participating in the liturgy in a ministerial capacity and from celebrating and receiving the Eucharist or other sacraments, but are not excluded from participation in these. They are also forbidden to exercise any ecclesiastical office or the like. Canon 1332 § 2 stipulates the imposed or declared excommunication’s results, which are: an obligation on others to prevent the excommunicated person from acting in a ministerial capacity in the liturgy or, if this proves impossible, to suspend the liturgical service; invalidity of acts of ecclesiastical governance; prohibition of benefits from privileges previously granted. Moreover excommunicated person cannot acquire validly a dignity, office, or other function in the Church; does not appropriate the benefits of a dignity, office, any function, or pension, which has in the Church