On Excommunication and Its Distinction

In connection with the episcopal consecrations of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), there is frequent talk of excommunication and schism. Often, however, these terms are used imprecisely or even incorrectly. 

A clarification.

By Don Michael Gurtner*

In recent days surrounding the events of Écône it seems that the cudgel of excommunication is being wielded with the aim of frightening those who still take the Catholic faith truly seriously and want to be sincerely Catholic. It appears intended to trigger scruples in the faithful to discourage them and prevent them from receiving the Holy Sacraments from the Society of St. Pius X and participating in its activities.

It is striking how imprecisely commentators and even clergymen use the term excommunication. Furthermore, almost no distinction is made between the different types of excommunication. Whether this happens out of ignorance or by calculation will vary from case to case.

Therefore, it appears to be a work of justice toward the bishops, priests, and faithful of the SSPX to point out a few things regarding excommunication in general and in particular. In many media reports and commentaries, they are portrayed as schismatics standing outside the Church with whom, in contrast to Protestants and Muslims, any contact should best be avoided. This portrayal even comes from people who, by virtue of their office, ought to know better.

To correctly grasp and contextualize excommunication in general, we must first make a few ecclesiological preliminary remarks.

Ecclesiological Foundation

In God's plan of salvation, the Church was already laid out and prepared in Genesis. It is a single and indivisible Church, and provisionally still a Church in a broader sense, so to speak, which prepares the Church as a visible societas perfecta (perfect society). It encompasses all who belong to God, such as the righteous of the Old Covenant and the angels of heaven.

Christ added a new aspect to this one and only Church: He made it visible, instituted by His will and founded by His actions. The actual beginning of the "visible Church" lies in the side wound of Jesus, from which flowed blood and water (connoting Baptism and the Eucharist, or the redemptive sacrifice), and at Pentecost, she is finally revealed.

It is always the one, self-same, and unique Church, which henceforth has two aspects.

• The first aspect, the invisible dimension of the Church, concerns invisible realities: the interior reality of grace, the supernatural life of the soul with God, and the Holy Spirit as the "soul" of the Church by which she is animated.
• The second aspect, which comes through Christ, bestows upon the Church a "visible body," so to speak: the sacraments, the hierarchy, the profession of the true Catholic doctrine, and the visible belonging to the community of her individual members.

Thus, we have a single Church that has, as it were, a body and a soul, two aspects, whereby the visible aspect ultimately does nothing other than externalize the invisible aspect.

Church Means Belonging to God

With Christ, the Church in the sense of belonging to God is externally manifested. This communio sanctorum, the communion of saints who themselves stand in communion with God, is mirrored in the communion of the faithful with one another, and this in turn in communion with the hierarchy, at whose head stands the Pope.

Christ Himself instructed us on what is necessary for salvation: baptism and the right faith (Mk 16:16). Through baptism, one goes from being a creature of God to a child of God, entering the state of grace and being incorporated into the visible Church. Yet the right faith is also a prerequisite for being a member of the Church. It is not enough simply to have just any faith; rather, it requires the profession of the one true faith, that faith which was revealed to us by the Father through the Son.

Therefore, he belongs to the Catholic Church who is baptized and professes the right, true Catholic faith, thereby also becoming an external participant in a communion embodied by the Pope as the visible head of the Church within this world.

Two Types of Excommunication

From this, it follows that there are circumstances which, automatically and by virtue of the facts, cause one to "fall out" of the Church, so to speak, and cease to be its member. These are, first of all, matters concerning the faith:

• Heresy concerns individual truths of faith that are denied.
• Apostasy concerns the faith as such: in the case of apostasy, the faith is rejected as a whole, not merely partially as in heresy.

These are objective facts that lead to exclusion from the Church not as a punishment, but because they are incompatible with the very definition of Church membership. For this reason, no ecclesiastical authority could grant Church membership to a heretic or an apostate. Were this to happen, he would be granted the rights and privileges that Church members enjoy, but on an ontological level, he would still not be what is claimed. He would be treated as a Catholic, but that alone would not ontologically make him a Catholic, even if there were a consensus about it.

Conversely, the same applies: if a majority accuses someone of heresy, for example, without that person actually denying a truth of God, that person would still not have "fallen out" of the Church despite such a flawed judgment.

Furthermore, there is schism. This consists in a willful separation from the Church. One can be completely orthodox but nonetheless schismatic, for example, by believing everything that is Catholic but not wanting to be part of the ecclesiastical community that forms out of the communion of faith. Schism behaves just like heresy and apostasy: it is determined solely by objective facts, not by opinion, polemics, or assertions. A schism cannot possibly arise where the will for unity exists.

Exclusion from the Church community through schism, apostasy, and heresy affects membership in the Church as a whole and as such: not merely the communion of the visible Church, but the Church also regarding the interior life of grace. It refers to the invisible, supernatural aspect of the Church. One is no longer part of the Church because one has fallen out of communion with God, so the state of grace has been extinguished.

"Excommunication" in this sense is therefore not understood as a punishment, but denotes a fact that has objectively occurred through external circumstances because these circumstances oppose the essential, internally necessary prerequisites of Church membership. This is independent of whether it has been externally established or not; an external declaration is not a prerequisite for falling out of supernatural Church membership, but merely establishes this fact after the fact, whereby others must also apply the external consequences to the person concerned.

For this reason, even a Pope could not validly lift an excommunication concerning these three scenarios, as it would still not restore supernatural Church membership. The Church no longer has jurisdictional power over such excommunicated persons, since heretics, apostates, and schismatics are no longer members of the Church. For the Church only has legal authority over those who are actually members of the Church.

Distinguished from this is another form of excommunication, namely excommunication in the sense of an ecclesiastically imposed medicinal penalty (Beugestrafe). This is a completely different kind of excommunication of a different nature: it does not concern leaving the communion with God, i.e., it does not inherently mean falling out of the invisible aspects of the Church, but rather exclusion from the natural community of the faithful. The person excommunicated in this manner is forbidden access to the Church's means of salvation, as well as access to offices and functions. However, he remains a member of the Church, which is why the Church still has jurisdictional power over him. This is the case, for example, when the Church imposes excommunication as a medicinal penalty due to perceived or actual misconduct.

In summary, it must be noted that there is a supernatural Church membership, which concerns the supernatural belonging to God, and a natural Church membership, which concerns belonging to the community of the faithful with one another. The first can only be recognized and declared by the Church, whereas the second is imposed.

On the Case of the Society of St. Pius X

These preliminary remarks, and particularly these distinctions, are important to better contextualize the excommunication of the bishops, priests, and faithful of the Society of St. Pius X.

First, it should be highlighted positively that the Holy See distinguishes the "double excommunication" more clearly than it did in 1988: on one side stand episcopal consecrations without a papal mandate as a ground for excommunication, and on the other side stands the accusation of schism as an independent ground for excommunication. In this context, the accusation of schism is derived from the unauthorized episcopal consecrations; however, both are formally and materially distinct.

Regarding the accusation of schism, the excommunication only takes effect if a schism actually exists. Excommunication based on a schism affects the supernatural, invisible aspect of the Church, as we have seen above. This is bound to objective facts and is not based on ecclesiastical laws; rather, a schism results from a fundamental attitude toward the Church. It must therefore not be confused with disobedience, for example.

An episcopal consecration without a mandate is not a certain, sufficient, and inherently unambiguous sign that a schism necessarily exists. For a schism, to be such, requires knowingly and willfully severing oneself from the Church, no longer understanding oneself as part of the Catholic Church, and therefore rejecting any ecclesiastical authority, specifically that of the Pope, per se and generally. Where this is not present, one can argue depending on the specific case whether it constitutes disobedience; but one certainly cannot speak of a schism.

It is entirely conceivable that someone is a member of the Church and wishes to remain so, recognizes the papal primacy and any ecclesiastical authority generally, but nevertheless disregards individual prohibitions or commands for certain well-founded motives and, for example, consecrates bishops. If the will to separate from the Church is lacking and ecclesiastical authority is generally recognized, no schism can exist, and thus no excommunication either. For excommunication based on a schism is not a simple medicinal penalty, but arises entirely on its own from the fact of having severed oneself from the Church.

Although the Church can and should establish this in such a case, she does so after the fact based on realities that essentially oppose Church membership. A schism does not occur because the Church claims it has occurred; rather, it occurs when certain objective facts are present that cannot be arbitrarily determined, but are dogmatically predefined and can merely be established by the Church when they actually exist.

Now, as far as the Society of St. Pius X is concerned, the situation was unambiguously assessed incorrectly: through word and deed, it has consistently proven, and continues to do so, that it does not sever itself from the Church, but on the contrary sees itself as part of it and also recognizes the hierarchy, especially the Pope, as such. Since, despite claims to the contrary, no schism exists and episcopal consecrations without a mandate are not automatically schismatic, the priests and the faithful of the Society of St. Pius X cannot be excommunicated either. As we stated at the outset, a flawed assessment does not affect supernatural Church membership.

Their situation is comparable to that of a good child who does not carry out the unjust or harmful command of his father, by which the father would inflict severe damage upon himself and his child. The child nevertheless recognizes his father as such, and also recognizes his authority, but uses his God-given intellect to avert great harm.

On the other hand, regarding the episcopal consecrations without a mandate, it must first be considered that the Church fundamentally evaluates this as a criminal offense. Therefore, she provides for excommunication as a medicinal penalty for the consecrating and consecrated bishops (and only for these) as a punishment, that is, which affects the visible aspect of the Church and still views the punished person as part of the Church.

It should only be mentioned in passing that this alone is a contradiction to excommunication based on a schism; for a schismatical person is no longer part of the Church, and thus the Church no longer has jurisdiction over him, rendering a medicinal penalty obsolete. Imposing a medicinal penalty implies that the punished person is a member of the Church and therefore cannot be a schismatic.

But apart from that, in the case of the Society of St. Pius X, those canons of canon law (1323 and 1324) are not applied which clearly and distinctly reduce or even exclude the penalty of excommunication if the persons concerned act on the basis of a real or perceived state of necessity (Notstand), even if this should turn out to be an error.

The Society of St. Pius X is therefore still Catholic; it is a part of the Church, and its priests and faithful are as well. The accusation of schism is based on the false assumption that episcopal consecrations without a mandate, or internal or external assent to them, are ipso facto a certain sign of a schism. Since this is not the case, no schism exists, and since no schism exists, they are still Catholic and not excommunicated, even if they are treated as such externally.

But how many of those who wrongfully claim that the priests and, more recently, also the faithful of the SSPX are schismatic and therefore no longer part of the Catholic Church are in reality themselves no longer part of it because they reject dogmas of the Catholic faith?

*Mag. Don Michael Gurtner is a diocesan priest originally from Austria who resisted the public ban on Masses during the Corona era, thereby earning great merit for the salvation of souls. He is the author of several theological books. In 2023/24, he published the series "On the Situation of the Church" on Katholisches.info, which has also appeared in book form.

Image: FSSPX (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG