Canonist Marc Balestrieri reviews important issues that remain in play with respect to the Jesuit priest’s conviction in 2020 of violating the confessional by absolving a person with whom he had ...

Recently a community of Poor Clare nuns in Spain announced their decision to leave the Catholic Church, thus committing the canonical crime of schism and incurring excommunication. Italian Archbishop ...

The Servants of the Holy Family is a group that labels itself Catholic despite the Diocese of Colorado Springs’ declaration that the group is schismatic.

Following the passage of the Reproductive Health Act in New York state, many Catholics have asked, “How can a Catholic lawmaker call him or herself a member of the Body of Christ and remove from law ...

Many people believe that excommunication is the Catholic Church's equivalent of capital punishment — the worst punishment that the church can impose on a believer. Some even see it as the earthly ...

A neatly framed announcement hanging above a bookcase in my study warns that anyone who takes or damages one of my books is subject to excommunication reserved to the Holy See. I purchased it in a ...

The recent excommunication of a high-ranking leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was an unusual move that casts a light on the practice, historians and members of the Mormon ...

Every so often some Roman Catholic hierarch gets a bee in his beanie and makes noises about excommunicating some pro-choice policy maker. Ultra-orthodox Catholics are ecstatic, and even mainstream ...

(RNS) — I find excommunication to be not only a theologically barbaric practice but also one of dubious utility. It doesn’t come from the example of Jesus. It also doesn’t work. (RNS) — Natasha Helfer ...

Pope Francis used the e-word against the mob for the first time this weekend. The Holy Father was celebrating mass on Saturday in Calabria, a mob-heavy region in southern Italy, when he deviated from ...

Reporting from Salt Lake City — A Mormon who led a campaign criticizing the church’s practice of allowing closed-door, one-on-one interviews of youth by lay leaders that sometimes included sexual ...

(RNS) — Joseph Smith designed an innovative and humanitarian system of church discipline that protected the rights of the accused. So what happened? Two scholars explain. (RNS) — On Sunday, local ...