Should Catholics ignore Hebrews 13:3 if a Prisoner is excommunicated?
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After researching "Excommunication", I discovered this publication regarding the Catholic Church :
The Catholic Church cannot, nor does it wish to, oppose any obstacle to the internal relations of the soul with God; it even implores God to give the grace of repentance to the excommunicated. The rites of the church, nevertheless, are the providential and regular channel through which divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclusion from such rites, especially from the sacraments, entails the privation of this grace, to whose sources the excommunicated person no longer has access.
In the papal bull "Exsurge Domine" (May 16, 1520), Pope Leo X condemned Luther's twenty-third proposition according to which "excommunications are merely external punishments, nor do they deprive a man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church". Pope Pius VI in "Auctorem Fidei" (August 28, 1794) condemned the notion which maintained that the effect of excommunication is only exterior because of its own nature it excludes only from exterior communion with the Church, as if, said the pope, excommunication were not a spiritual penalty binding in heaven and affecting souls.[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication_(Catholic_Church)] * The term "binding" in relation to people reminded me of Hebrews 13:3. **Hebrews 13:3**
Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%2013:3&version=KJV] * The phrase "as being yourselves also **in the body**" made me rethink what Excommunication entails for prisoners. * If people are not excommunicated from the Catholic Church, then does their status remain "in the body"? **If a prisoner has been excommunicated, Then do Catholics feel the need to observe Hebrews 13:3?** * Does excommunication block Prisoners from prison ministry?
Asked by user50490
Nov 13, 2020, 05:17 PM
Last activity: Nov 13, 2020, 08:54 PM
Last activity: Nov 13, 2020, 08:54 PM