After the press reports of the cardinal who (may have) broken his oath of secrecy regarding the most recent conclave, a lot of folks have been wondering about what canonical penalty might apply to the cardinal.
The article I linked reports a reporter saying that he can’t name the cardinal because the penalty for breaking the oath is excommunication.
Since many folks know that some excommunications take effect immediately and some have to be imposed, I was a little surprised that nobody has yet e-mailed to ask whether this might be an automatic or an imposed excommuication–or whether excommunication is really in play or not.
I was writing in a hurry and so didn’t have time to go into the canonical question, figuring I’d do a follow-up post.
Fortunately, I don’t have to.
To be honest Jimmy, I never considered it, because I don’t for one minute believe a word of the reporter’s statement- I think he’s making it up out of whole cloth.
Thank you, Ed!
Dennis, I agree with you. I think the writer is an understudy of Dan Rather. ;=)