Excommunication

 BASIC R.C.BELIEF

A penalty by which one is excluded from the communion of the faithful. He is thereby deprived of all sacramental grace until he repents and receives absolution. Even though he is ex-communicated, he is still bound by the normal obligations of a Catholic (weekly Mass, fast laws, etc.).

This is to be distinguished from Interdict, which is an ecclesiastical censure imposed on persons or places for violations of Church Law. Interdict is not ex-communication; a person under interdict is still a bona fide Roman Catholic. An interdicted person may not take a part in certain services, and administer or receive certain sacraments. This applies to all residents of an interdicted locality. Interdict was a weapon used by the Pope when asserting his authority over the monarchs and people of Europe.

From FUNDAMENTALS OF CATHOLIC DOGMA, Ludwig Ott, page 5. "If a baptised person deliberately denies or doubts a dogma properly so-called, he is guilty of the sin of heresy and automatically becomes subject to the punishment of excommunication.

From AN EXPLANATION OF THE BALTIMORE CATECHISM, page 344. "If any Catholic goes to be married before a Protestant minister, he is, by the laws of the Church in the United States, excommunicated. You must know excommunication means cut off from the communion of the Church and the body of the faithful; cut off from the sacraments and from a share in all the holy Masses and public prayers offered by the Church throughout the world. It is a punishment the Church inflicts upon its disobedient children who will not repent but persist in wrong-doing. If they die willfully excommunicated, they die in mortal sin, and no Mass or funeral prayers can be publicly offered for them; nor can they be buried in consecrated ground."