An Excommunicated Cardinal?

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.

ED PETERS HAS.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

3 thoughts on “An Excommunicated Cardinal?”

  1. 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.

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