Is a Catholic woman excommunicated for having an abortion?
Cathy Caridi, J.C.L.
Q: Years ago, when I was a college student who had stopped practicing my faith, I had an abortion. Subsequently I returned to the Church, went to confession, and assumed that my sins were forgiven and my past actions were all behind me. But recently I met a Catholic sidewalk counselor who told me that women who have had abortions are excommunicated from the Catholic Church. I never heard this before. When I mentioned my abortion in the confessional, the priest didn’t say a word about this. Am I really under excommunication? And if I am, how can I undo it? --Kelly, Baltimore, MD
A: Excommunication is probably the most misunderstood concept in the entire Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church. Let’s first take a look at what excommunication actually is, and then at whether or not it applies in your case.
What is excommunication?
Canon 1331.1 states that an excommunicated person is forbidden to receive the sacraments. If he is a priest, he is also forbidden to celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments to others. This is an extremely grave punishment, reserved for a very small number of serious offenses, and it is not imposed lightly.
What few realize is that excommunication is what the code calls a “medicinal penalty” (c. 1312.1 n. 2). Medicine is given to a sick person not as a punishment, but in order to cure him—and excommunication serves the same purpose. It is intended as a sort of wake-up call to a Catholic who has, by his own actions, removed himself from the Body of Christ which is the Church. The very root of the word “excommunication” indicates that one has taken himself outside of communion with the Catholic Church; and the Church wants such people to amend their lives and return to full communion. Far from being some sort of fatal death stroke, excommunication is meant to warn a person of his error and encourage him to renounce it. When it is viewed in this light, excommunication may, in fact, be seen as an act of kindness! As Scripture says, “I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live” (Ezech. 33:11).
Is a woman excommunicated for having an abortion?
At first glance, it appears that the code’s answer is a definite yes. Canon 1398 states that one who procures an abortion, which is actually completed, does incur excommunication. (The qualifying phrase about the abortion being completed indicates that the penalty does not apply if a woman wants an abortion but is unable to find someone to perform it, or if she undergoes an abortion procedure which for whatever reason is unsuccessful.)
But before you conclude that you are excommunicated from the Church, take a look at canon 1323. It lists a whole series of conditions, ALL of which must be present for the application of such a penalty even to be possible. A person must, for example, be at least 16 years of age, and have full use of reason; he must have committed an excommunicable action with the full knowledge that it was an offense punishable by this sanction; he must have acted freely (without coercion) and deliberately (not by chance or accident), and without grave fear; and must not have been acting in self-defence.
You state that you yourself are a Catholic—regardless of whether you were a practicing Catholic at the time of the abortion or not—but it should be pointed out for the record that it’s impossible to excommunicate a non-Catholic, for both theological and canonical reasons. If excommunication implies that a person has taken himself outside of full communion with the Church, the implication is that he was in full communion in the first place! This is why the Church’s laws on sanctions apply to Catholics only (c. 11).
Now that we have seen exactly who can and cannot be excommunicated, let’s go back to your original question. You indicate that you were unaware that abortion was punishable by excommunication. That in itself is sufficient to indicate, in accord with c. 1323 n. 2, that you were not excommunicated. The priest who heard your confession no doubt realized that this sanction was not at issue in your case, which may be why he didn’t mention it to you—although even if you had been excommunicated, priests ordinarily possess the faculty to lift such an excommunication when absolving a penitent in the confessional.
The pro-lifer who misinformed you may perhaps have simply come across canon 1398 somewhere, and as a non-canonist, been unaware of the qualifications in canon 1323 that must also be applied. This is an unfortunate example of the risks involved in quoting church laws outside of their full context!
There is no practical way to compile any statistics on this question, but it seems fairly safe to say that nearly all women who have abortions do not in fact meet the criteria for excommunication found in canon 1323. Many, of course, are not Catholics. Some are under the age of 16, which instantly disqualifies them as well. Most, as in your case, are unaware through no fault of their own that abortion is punishable by excommunication, which in itself means that this sanction does not apply to them. And surely a large number are moved to seek abortion by force or fear, whether angry family members are pressuring them to abort, or they foresee an end to a career or a financial burden that appears overwhelming. Catholic moral theology teaches us that women who act under such pressures may not possess the total freedom necessary to make a decision, and this in turn lessens their culpability. Such factors never make the choice to have an abortion morally acceptable, of course, but they do prevent the applicability of a sanction like excommunication.
In short, taking oneself completely outside of the Church by being excommunicated is not an easy thing for a Catholic to do. And it is impossible under canon law for anyone to be “accidentally” excommunicated, by committing an offense while he is unaware that this sanction is attached to it. There is a running joke among canon lawyers that, because there are so many conditions that must be fulfilled for excommunication to take place, the only Catholics who may actually be excommunicated are...canon lawyers! That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it does make clear how extreme a penalty excommunication really is.
Women who have had abortions frequently bear a tremendous burden of guilt and regret for their past actions. But only in the rarest of cases is a canonical sanction part of that burden. The fact that abortion is technically punishable by excommunication is indicative of the Church’s teaching that abortion is never morally permissible. But the Church is also quick to forgive its members who repent, and it would be logically inconsistent for the Church to proffer absolution and excommunicate someone at the same time.
The author is a canon lawyer who practices law and teaches in the Washington, DC area. Her regular column on canonical questions that arise in the lives of everyday Catholics is distributed by Real Presence Communications (www.realpresence.org).
Seemingly innocent editorial changes may inadvertently affect legal accuracy. News organizations that wish to publish a column are therefore requested to print it in its entirety.
www.realpresence.org • © 2006 RPC