Why don't bishops excommunicate politicians who support abortion?

Q: In all the discussion over the years of whether or not pro-abortion politicians should be denied Holy Communion, I've always wondered: Why couldn't their bishops just excommunicate them? Then at least everything would be clear-cut, public knowledge and therefore probably less controversial in the media. (Wisconsin)

A: The short answer to your question is that excommunication is specifically a punishment for canonical crimes. And although political support for pro-choice policies is morally problematic, it is not a canonical crime in and of itself.

For context, usually when we speak of pro-choice politicians being denied Holy Communion, the relevant citation is Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law. Canon 915 tells us that those who are "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion."

Canon 915 gives ministers of Holy Communion and pastoral authority figures (namely, bishops and pastors of parishes) some objective criteria with respect to whether a particular Catholic should be denied Holy Communion. This is important, because the church's default position is to make the sacraments as accessible as possible on the principle that the faithful have a fundamental right to the sacraments.

The central criterion in Canon 915 is that the sinfulness in question be "grave," or extremely serious -- and actively promoting government policies in favor of the destruction of innocent human life would certainly qualify.

The sin must also be "manifest," or readily known to the public or otherwise outwardly observable. And broadly speaking, politicians' platforms, positions on hot-button issues, and voting records are matters of public record. Finally, the person must be "obstinately persevering" in their sin, meaning that they are committing the sin in an ongoing way, even after they have been warned by an appropriate pastoral authority about the grave sinfulness of their actions.

Even though these considerations might seem very legalistic and may suggest the person is somehow "on trial," this canon is part of the Code of Canon Law's section on sacraments and is not actually related to the church's penal law. That is, Canon 915 and its neighboring canons are meant to protect the dignity of the sacrament as a primary "goal"; it is not meant as a direct punishment for canonical crimes. And the church sees the application of Canon 915 as a matter of person-to-person pastoral dialogue and admonishment, rather than the result of an ecclesiastical criminal trial or juridical process.

In contrast, the church's criminal law is meant to identify and punish crimes. This is both for the good of the offenders themselves, when punished with "medicinal" penalties; as well as for the good of the wider ecclesial community, when offenders are punished with "expiatory" penalties.

Excommunication is an example of a medicinal penalty, since it is meant as a sort of "wake up call" that the offender is on the wrong path, and it can be lifted relatively easily if and when the offender repents. Examples of expiatory penalties include things like loss of the clerical state, where a priest convicted of a canonical crime is essentially kicked out of the priesthood.

The church's law requires that "laws which prescribe a penalty…are to be interpreted strictly" (Canon 18). This means that canonical penalties cannot be liberally applied to every bad behavior the church might want to curb. Rather, a canonical penalty can only be imposed for things that are specifically listed as crimes in canon law.

While the act of directly causing an abortion is a canonical crime that is punished with an automatic excommunication, (see Canon 1397, 2) this only applies in scenarios where a particular individual actually brought about an abortion personally -- and not in situations where a person promoted abortion in a more abstract way.

In light of this, it would be neither possible nor pastorally appropriate to try to use the penalty of excommunication as a way to avoid the awkward conversations sometimes associated with Canon 915.