Month: February 2007

There are press reports about an Austrian bishop saying that a business owner who rented shopping mall space to an abortion clinic has excommunicated himself.

HERE’S JOHN ALLEN’S VERSION OF THE STORY.

Allen goes a bit too far when he says:

It’s long been a subject of debate whether more remote forms of cooperation, such as the contractor who builds a clinic, also trigger automatic excommunication.

Not that I’m aware of. Not in serious canonical circles.

The canon that provides automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication for abortion is this:

Can. 1398 A
person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae
excommunication.

As phrased, that would strike only the person who has actually procured the abortion. However, canon 1329 also provides that:

§2. Accomplices who are not named in a law or
precept incur a latae sententiae penalty attached to a delict if without their
assistance the delict would not have been committed, and the penalty is of such
a nature that it can affect them; otherwise, they can be punished by ferendae
sententiae penalties.

The clause in blue allows not only the procurer of the abortion to be struck with automatic excommunication but also those directly involved in the abortion itself, such as the abortionist, the person who paid the money for the abortion, and possibly a few others (nurses, the person who drove the patient to the clinic). It does not apply to people whose cooperation is more remote and thus whose role might have been substituted for by someone else. At least, in the absence of an authentic interpretation to the contrary, it is doubtful whether the law applies to remote cooperators, which means that the following canon kicks in:

Can. 18 Laws which
establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an
exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation.

That means that in cases of doubt you have to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who would be struck by a penalty.

Since the cooperation of a person who rents space to a "sexual health clinic" that performs abortions is only remotely involved (like the people who supply electric power and gas and who stamp the legal forms at city hall and to handle the clinic’s money at the bank, and who provide cleaners, and who provide medical supplies), you can’t–as the law presently stands–say that these people are automatically excommunicated.

The green CLSA commentary on the Code concurs:

A properly strict interpretation means that the canon applies primarily to those directly participating in the abortion, not those removed from such participation [p. 1603, n. 308].

If a bishop with the proper jurisdiction over the shopping mall owner concludes that the owner is gravely at fault for renting space to the clinic (an extremely resonable conclusion) then he could declare an excommunication (ferendae sententiae), but it would not be an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication.

My sense on this is that the Austrian bishop (apparently an auxiliary of Cardinal Shonborn) simply misspoke, which is why Cardinal Schonborn hasn’t backed him up.

In any event, the press reports on this are a mess.

MORE FROM ED PETERS.