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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (19534)	7/28/2001 12:29:28 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Karen, it's a little odd that the local Catholic representatives made a big thing about a (presumably mostly secular) high school commencement exercise but didn't have a more general position on school prayer and all the other public displays of the time. Excommunication is a pretty severe threat, though it was probably also a pretty idle threat in the case you mention, I'd guess you'd have to go up to the bishop's level at least to get the authority. Some verification from an apparently authoritative source: WHO CAN EXCOMMUNICATE? Excommunication is an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the rules of which it follows. Hence the general principle: whoever has jurisdiction in the forum externum, properly so called, can excommunicate, but only his own subjects. Therefore, whether excommunications be a jure (by the law) or ab homine (under form of sentence or precept), they may come from the pope alone or a general council for the entire Church; from the provincial council for an ecclesiastical province; from the bishop for his diocese; from the prelate nullius for quasi-diocesan territories; and from regular prelates for religious orders. Moreover, anyone can excommunicate who, by virtue of his office, even when delegated, has contentious jurisdiction in the forum externum; for instance, papal legates, vicars capitular, and vicars-general. But a parish priest cannot inflict this penalty nor even declare that it is incurred, i. e. he cannot do so in an official and judicial manner. The subjects of these various authorities are those who come under their jurisdiction chiefly on account of domicile or quasi-domicile in their territory; then by reason of the offence committed while on such territory; and finally by reason of personal right, as in the case of regulars. newadvent.org On a semi-related note, for a nostalgic view of the church's clumsy authoritarianism in that era, you might want to check out the current Atlantic monthly print edition. There's r an amusing story on Graham Greene's little episode with the church censors after the publication of The Power and the Glory. It's not online but here's a blurb. Following its publication, in 1940, Graham Greene's novel The Power and the Glory came under the scrutiny of Vatican censors. Peter Godman ("Graham Greene's Vatican Dossier") has excavated their previously undisclosed discussions from the archives of the Holy See, providing a rare glimpse into the Vatican's secret deliberations on matters of art, artists, and belief. Godman is a professor of medieval and Renaissance Latin at the University of Tübingen, in Germany. He is at work on the first full-scale biography of Giulio Antonio Santori, the Roman Grand Inquisitor of the late sixteenth century. His article in this issue is drawn from Die geheime Inquisition, published this year by Paul List Verlag (Munich) theatlantic.com Ok, so the author is from Tübingen, a hotbed of apostasy, but it turns out Greene did have a friend in high places.