8 Ways Catholics Can Automatically Excommunicate Themselves

[00:00:01][music] >> This is Father Jonathan Meyer. There has been a lot of conversation about the Society of Saint Pius X and the fact that they have excommunicated themselves.

[00:00:16]And I think it'd be interesting for us to talk about what other ways can individuals excommunicate themselves.

[00:00:22]Because everybody's talking about how there's excommunications taking place, but most people don't know that there are several ways that individuals can excommunicate themselves.

[00:00:35]Now, when we talk about someone excommunicating themselves, they have to willfully know that these acts are excommunicable.

[00:00:44]But there are actually eight ways that one can what's called latae sententiae when they automatically excommunicate themselves.

[00:00:55]So, I'm going to go through these.

[00:00:56]Uh the first one is apostasy, heresy, or schism. Apostasy, heresy, or schism.

[00:01:03]I'll go through those a little bit in in a second. Second is desecration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. This would be someone receiving Holy Communion and either destroying it, celebrating a black mass, uh keeping it for sacrilegious purposes.

[00:01:20]So, number three, physically attacking the Pope.

[00:01:25]Number four, violating the seal of confession.

[00:01:31]That's when a priest would directly reveal something that was said in a sacramental confession.

[00:01:37]Next is a priest or bishop absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin. So, if a priest were to commit fornication and then give absolution to the woman, that would be he would be excommunicated.

[00:01:57]And so would the individual.

[00:02:00]Next, attempting to ordain a woman.

[00:02:04]Excommunicable.

[00:02:06]So, if a priest attempts to ordain a woman, Sorry, if a if a bishop attempts to ordain a woman, a priest, he is excommunicated and so is the woman.

[00:02:17]Next, is the unauthorized ordination of a bishop. This is what has happened with Society of Saint Pius the X.

[00:02:24]They did not have permission from the pontiff, from the Pope.

[00:02:29]They didn't have the papal mandate necessary. So, that is an automatic excommunication and they knew what they were doing.

[00:02:35]As we know, the Pope wrote the letter on June 28th, 29th.

[00:02:40]Procuring a completed abortion.

[00:02:43]That is excommunicable.

[00:02:46]If someone if they know that that is a sin and they do it, most people do not know, by the way, that committing the sin of abortion is an excommunicable offense.

[00:02:55]But, because you are directly taking the life of an innocent person who has no ability to defend themselves and you're willfully doing that, that is excommunicable sin.

[00:03:06]And then, lastly, being an accomplice.

[00:03:09]Someone who assists in making these things happen would also then receive that penalty.

[00:03:16]So, once again, hos- hos- apostasy, heresy, or schism, desecration of blessed sacrament, physically attacking the Pope, violation of the seal of confession, absolving the accomplice of a sexual sin, an off- unauthorized ordination of a bishop, attempting to ordain a woman, and the procuring a completed abortion. Those would be the eight excommunicable sins. And I want to quickly go through heresy, schism, and apostasy. Heresy is an obstinate denial or doubt of a specific dogma. So, the a heretic is someone who obstinately they're obstinate.

[00:03:53]They deny a specific teaching of the Catholic faith. That person actually is if if it comes formal, that person ultimately automatically excommunicates themselves. Means excommunication. They are not in communion with the Catholic Church. If you willfully and blatantly deny one of the central doctrines, so either the Trinity, the resurrection, the real presence of the Eucharist, while still claiming to be a Christian.

[00:04:19]That is heresy.

[00:04:20]Schism is one one one refuses to the submission to the Pope and communion with the church itself.

[00:04:31]So, when one chooses to break away from the governance of the church, that is a schism.

[00:04:39]This would ultimately be a horrible thing.

[00:04:45]Third is apostasy.

[00:04:47]An apostasy is a total rejection of the Christian faith. What one chooses to be an atheist, an agnostic, um chooses to practice Islam or Buddhism, and they willfully choose to to to sever themselves off from uh their Christian upbringing and faith. So, heresy is about a disagreement and a rejection of a specific tenant or belief of the Catholic faith.

[00:05:13]Schism is a rejection of the governance and the papacy, and apostasy is a rejection of all of Christianity. Um so, those are latae sententiae. Just by doing those things, you automatically excommunicate yourself. And there could be different degrees on how that happens.

[00:05:29]Uh but I think it's important as we talk about what happened with the Society of Saint Pius uh the 10th, that we also realize that there are many ways that people uh can commit these grave actions of latae sententiae excommunications, that we know what they are, and that we keep a course away from them, and uh we don't have them become part of our lives because we want to be in full communion, full communion with the bride of Christ, which is the church which Christ himself founded. So, hopefully you found this to be interesting. Many of us Many people I I've found in my life have no idea that there's ways you can automatically excommunicate yourself and remove yourself, and well, now you know there's eight of them, and keep away from them.

[00:06:12]Don't do them.

[00:06:13]By the way, also interesting how many of these are actually are just about priests.

[00:06:17]Like the reality is is that um violating the seal of confession, absolving an accomplice to a sexual sin, unauthorized ordination of a bishop, attempting to ordain a woman. Four of these can only be done by clerics themselves.

[00:06:33]Which also says that because we had to write these down and do that that priests, bishops that throughout our history that this happens.

[00:06:41]But it's a grave offense.

[00:06:43]So, >> [music] >> pray for priests, pray for bishops, pray for the church. God bless you. Have a great day.