Catholics and Abortion: Moral Evil and Punishment
Catholics and Abortion: Moral Evil and Punishment
(Number 4 in a series)
In a prevous post I described the Catholic Church's position that abortion is a grave moral evil.
Notice: This post contains information about excommunication. Readers have asked for more information about the Catholic Church and excommunication. I am planning a post specifically about excommunication (not limited to just the abortion issue) and also about reception of the sacrament of Eucharist/Communion. That will be posted about middle to late March, 2006. If you have a specific interest or concern please add a comment below or send me an e-mail.
The Catholic Church considers a moral evil as an evil or wrong that is caused by a human choice. A physical evil is the Church's term for natural events such as hurricanes, lightning, or disease.
A grave moral evil (also called a mortal sin) is a complete turning away from God through an act done by human choice.
By Catholic definition, a grave moral evil (or mortal sin) requires full knowledge and complete consent. It requires that the person performing the act knows that the act is evil and knows that the evil is opposed to God. Though ignorance can diminish the graveness of an evil act but no one is considered ignorant of the principles of moral law. Murder is consided so basic in moral law that no amount of ignorance would be a total excuse.
Since the Catholic Church considers abortion to be an act of murder, abortion is therefore considered to be a gravely moral evil act.
So, what authority does the Catholic Church have over people who participate in abortions? Though it considers all who participate in abortion to have committed a grave moral evil, the Church really only has authority over its own members and punishments can only involve church related sanctions.
The Catholic Church has an internal set of laws called the Code of Canon Law. The individual laws are called canons. The canons have evolved through the centuries, last totally revised in 1983. The canons are numbered 1 through 1752.
Canon 1398 states, "A person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication."
The Latin term "latae sententiae" means that the punishment takes effect automatically because it is stated in the law. The Church also has a system of courts and trials, which for other offenses can impose lesser punishments or even excommunication for serious offenses.
Excommunication is the Church's most severe penalty (or censure) which removes a person from membership in the Church and prescribes that a person may not participate in any Church activities or sacraments.
What about people who assist in abortions such as doctors, nurses, clinic staff, friends who assist the woman in any way to achieve an abortion? Canon 1329 says that such accomplices, though not named in the law, are subject to the same automatic penalty attached to the offense, thus excommunication.
But who accomplices are can be difficult to determine. If a person contributes money to an organization that provides abortions is that person an accomplice? That determination would be based on the intention of the person and of their knowledge of the facts (an issue that I will address below). For example, if a person contributes money to Planned Parenthood would they be automatically excommunicated. It would depend on the intention. Planned Parenthood does other thing besides provide access to abortions. If the intention of the contribution was to support their other efforts then excommunication for abortion would not apply. (Though contributions to Planned Parenthood to support their contraceptive efforts might qualify as an accomplice in another area that the Church has rules against, those rules do not automatically incur excommunication.)
Another Church canon, number 1323, lists several reasons by which someone would not be "subject to a penalty when they have violated a law." Some of those reasons are: a person under 16 years old, a person who was forced into an act, a person who was unaware of violating a law. That last one is important: for a penalty such as excommunication to apply, the person, at the time of the act of offense, must have known that they were violating a Church law.
Can the penalty of excommunication be forgiven or remitted? Yes. The penalty of excommunication for abortion is not reserved to the Pope, so it can be forgiven or remitted by the bishop where the offense took place or the bishop where the person lives. Also, if a person is in danger of death then any priest can absolve any censure (Canon 976).
Your comments and questions are welcome.
Please feel free to contact me via e-mail if you would like to make private comments or ask about anything.