Recently a community of Poor Clare nuns in Spain announced their decision to leave the Catholic Church, thus committing the canonical crime of schism and incurring excommunication. Italian Archbishop ...

Canonist Marc Balestrieri reviews important issues that remain in play with respect to the Jesuit priest’s conviction in 2020 of violating the confessional by absolving a person with whom he had ...

Following the passage of the Reproductive Health Act in New York state, many Catholics have asked, “How can a Catholic lawmaker call him or herself a member of the Body of Christ and remove from law ...

Many people believe that excommunication is the Catholic Church's equivalent of capital punishment — the worst punishment that the church can impose on a believer. Some even see it as the earthly ...

A neatly framed announcement hanging above a bookcase in my study warns that anyone who takes or damages one of my books is subject to excommunication reserved to the Holy See. I purchased it in a ...

After having his previous excommunication lifted in 2009, Bishop Richard Williamson has again incurred the canonical penalty upon illicitly ordaining another priest as bishop on March 19. Bishop ...

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., listens to remarks at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Nov. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, ...

Every so often some Roman Catholic hierarch gets a bee in his beanie and makes noises about excommunicating some pro-choice policy maker. Ultra-orthodox Catholics are ecstatic, and even mainstream ...

The recent excommunication of a high-ranking leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was an unusual move that casts a light on the practice, historians and members of the Mormon ...