Why It pays to Have a Canon Lawyer for a Father.*

* So you can put a post on your blog & have him do most of the work of getting across the point you want to make.

The background: On Wed 14 March 2007 Kenneth J. Wolfe of The Remnant wrote an Be Our Guest column for The NY Daily News entitled How Giuliani's marriages could annul his '08 bid. In the article he talks about how Giuliani's current marriage is illicit in the eyes of the Catholic Church. The reason, Giuliani failed to get an annulment of his 2nd marriage to Donna Hanover. He got remarried to his current wife in a civil ceremony. Under Church discipline, this forbids his receiving the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. He goes on to say that Giuliani is excommunicated as a result of his circumstances.

The point: This isn't true. As Edward N. Peters, JD, JCD points out in a post on his blog: "Wolfe twice describes this barring from Communion as an "excommunication" as if Giuliani labored under the penalty described in 1983 CIC 1331.

As I have explained many times, barring one from Communion is not a canonical penalty, it is a sacramental disciplinary norm; excommunication, on the other hand, is a canonical penalty entailing, among other things, barring one from Communion. But the broader penalty of excommunication can arise only for specific behaviors expressly listed in canon law, and Giuliani has not committed any of them (well, that I know of, anyway). He just hasn't."

The Payoff: Being able to put up a post on your blog with minimal effort (Hold the Excommunication boat!), having your Dad do most of the work while making yourself look good in his eyes & thus being "dessert-qualified" (whatever that means, it is a Peters famiglia thing) with minimal time away from the work you need to do on your thesis.

Bonus payoff: Being able to indirectly plug your father's book on the subject of excommunication, as well as his Canon Law website & his blog. (As an aside, it was Dr. Peter's Canon Law website that enabled me to find an on-line version of the Code of canons of Oriental Churchs so that I could put a link to it on my website many moons ago.)

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The above being said, Dr. Peters puts the whole excommunication v being barred from receiving communion in its proper perspective. Too often even those of us who should know better forget that the 2 aren't synonymous.

Dr. Peters' post does a good job of explaining what was wrong with the Wolfe article. Also, his observations on that article for specialists was clear enough that even a non-specialist like me was able to understand the points he was making. (Although the fact that I do know a little about Canon Law may give me an advantage over the average Catholic.)

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I regular read Thomas Peters' American Papist blog. He is working on his MA in Theology at St. Mary's Major Seminary where is father is on the faculty. You can see the family resemblance when you compare their pictures (although Dr. Ed has the better picture). The blog often wanders into what I consider Holy Humor with its PPOTD Caption Contests, pictures of Papa Benedetto & other denisons of the Vatican, but with a caption that have a twist that is slightly irreverent. Given that Fr. Trigillio comes up with some of the best ones after Thom, they definitely play to my sense of humor & that we all have at least some Italiano in us, I think that that explains the whole THING. (& the fact that I firmly believe that us Italianos are truly God's chosen people doesn't mean that my opinion has any bias to it, or that I'm at all biased in that opinion.)