Talk:List of people excommunicated by the Catholic Church

excommunication of Dr. Gregorio Chil y Naranjo

It says he was excommunicated but the source cited is "A history of warfare between science and theology" which is well known to be mostly propoganda and not true history since it exaggerates and misinterprets many things.Ilikerabbits! (talk) 14:55, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

SSPX in Lincoln

The following was removed as not a neutral point of view:

By attempting to excommunicate the faithful who attended Masses at the Society of St. Pius X the bishop acted outside his authority and contrary to a ruling by then Cardinal Ratzinger. Ratzinger, as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had determined in 1993 by a decree that six lay faithful who attended Mass at a SSPX chapel in Hawaii were not committing a schismatical act and therefore a 1991 excommunication by the bishop of Honolulu was invalid.

That the members of the group excommunicated object to being excommunicated and claim it was invalid is interesting, but unsurprising. The Catholic Church did not rule the excommunication was invalid, the SSPX did. And they were the ones excommunicated. The case in Hawaii does not affect the case in Nebraska - different jurisdictions, different reasons for excommunication. Unless someone can provide a document from the CDF or the diocese that lifts or invalidates the action, the Church certainly sees it as valid and binding. Not that they needed to be excommunicated, as they are already in schism by their own action. Protoclete (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

References

Posthumous Excommunications

Elizium23, Many statements mentioned in the article appear to be contradictory to the reality. Does Catholic Church endorse or validates posthumous excommunications? If so please provide sources before reverting edits. Br Ibrahim john (talk) 14:13, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Church Councils of the middle ages and late roman empire did name people as excommunicated who had died before the council took place. I suggest that you could look up the original text of those councils and see for yourself if you think this is something unsourced. Not only this, but posthumous lifting of excommunications has also occurred; for example the 1054 excommunication of eastern Patriarch was lifted by the Vatican in the 20th century. I don't know what the modern 21st century Catholic church says about the topic of posthumous excommunications, but if you have sources relevant to that topic, I think you could post them here for others to look at as well as whatever suggestions you have regarding how to change the article in accordance with them. Reesorville (talk) 09:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Celestius vs Caelistius

The page mentions below the listing for Arius an excommunicated individual named Celestius, who is claimed to be a fellow leader of Arianism. However the page it links to is about a Caelestius, who was a student of Pelagius and linked to Pelagianism. I know enough to recognize the distinct nature of these two topics, so it looks like an error in some form or another (either as a mistaken link or a case of mistaken identity by the author). As I’m no editor (or have any experience how to otherwise mark issues), I thought I’d draw attention to it for someone else to reconcile. 50.109.115.221 (talk) 04:04, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Fidel Castro

There is no evidence Fidel Castro was ever excommunicated, it is an internet myth, whose only semi-serious proponent is a single article by the far-right Spanish paper (of very dubious reliability) ABC. Here are two Catholic sources discussing this 1, 2

The idea that he could have been excommunicated with the only trace of this being in an article from a far-right paper from Spain 50 years later is absurd. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:28, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

English source here Italian here and here Boynamedsue (talk) 06:50, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

The third source is also an opinion article, and these seem to be obscure references. They are not good sources, as you say. --NoonIcarus (talk) 20:31, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) While ABC's editorial line is conservative, it is one of the main newspapers in Spain and calling it "far-right" is a long shot, and knowing the media landscape there it is arguably the only exceptional claim being done here that would requite further explanation. The first source that you offer to dispute this is an opinion article, while the second is a primary source.

I have added three other sources backing this claim, all of which attribute EFE as the source, and not ABC, which is even more neutral than ABC. The fact that this is disputed is already included in the section, per WP:NPOV. --NoonIcarus (talk) 07:03, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I stand by what I said about ABC. There are 5 good sources stating he was never excommunicated, if you wish to include it in the list, it should be contextualised and opinions stating he was excommunicated should be attributed to their sources alongside opinions that he wasn't. Boynamedsue (talk) 11:12, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it can be included in the article of Castro as a neutral sidenote. I agree with Boynamedsue that it shouldn't be included in this list with other factual cases (there's no chapter for disputed happenings). If several sources, including the personal secretary of the pope Loris Francesco Capovilla, state it's a myth, that's enough for reasonable doubt. Myths can spread over the net, sometimes then also copied from allowed sources. I don't see at least why Capovilla would extra say the pope was unhappy with, but didn't excommunicate, Castro if an excommunication (then provable) actually happened. --Casra (talk) 19:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

If it is a popular and plausible myth, which seems to be the case, then it deserves mention in this article, if only to dispel the myth or at least "teach the controversy" on why some sources insist that it happened. Elizium23 (talk) 19:18, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Casra and Elizium23. There is a note on the Religious views of Fidel Castro page describing the situation, I'd have no problem including it on the main Castro page too. Either of your solutions seem reasonable, I would lean towards leaving it out of this page though, as it is a list of those upon whom excommunication has been pronounced a pope or bishop. The sources describing his excommunication often rely on the general excommunication of communists or on a religious scholar who argued Castro had been automatically excommunicated by his actions, rather than a proclamation by the pontiff or a bishop.--Boynamedsue (talk) 20:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for the input. I want to leave clear that the fact that I agree that the fact that this report has been disputed should be included. Neutrality precisely consists in adequate inclusion for all point of views, particularly when there is significant coverage around it. I'll leave the included sources as reference for future editors: () Per WP:BRD, the last stable version should be restored, which includes the content. I have placed a Missing information maintenance tag in the meantime. --NoonIcarus (talk) 20:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

You really should wait until consensus is reached before editing the article, whether to include Castro on the list or not isn't decided. The missing information tag you placed suggested to the casual reader that Castro had been excommunicated, when we can be fairly certain that wasn't the case. Anyway, I have neutralised the language there. I'll look carefully at the language used in the articles you linked. If they relate to a supposed automatic excommunication, then Castro doesn't fall within the scope of the article.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:20, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Please remind that since the last version already included Fidel Castro and you were the one to first propose its removal, the onus is on you to get consensus as I mentioned above, and not the other way around, particularly when it is evident that other editors agree that there should be inclusion in some form. --NoonIcarus (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I think an automatic excommunication should be included if it is explicitly stated to exist by a bishop. In effect, I think the scope of the article is to show people who have been explicitly named excommunicated by the church, and if a church authority explicitly names someone as having incurred automatic excommunication, then it still belongs here. There is already a precedent on this page with some others who fall under that category (eg. Marcel Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated incurred automatic excommunications). If there is a dispute about whether or not church authorities did explicitly name him, I think it still belongs on the page with both sides of the dispute being mentioned. Reesorville (talk) 22:52, 21 September 2022 (UTC)