I wonder if murder itself “incurs an automatic excommunication.” Perhaps sj could enlighten us?

If the persons involved wanted to get married by the Catholic rite, then I am to assume that they agree with the rules that govern Catholics – or else it is just a discrepancy in beliefs.

However, my impression of the case is different. The prohibition to get married was not regarding abortion, but simulation. When the groom promised to marry this woman, he was having sex with somebody else, and so was unfaithful and false.

Huh? Does the same rule apply in the case of murder?

I love this one – excommunication for giving someone a lift. Next time I’ll tell her to take the bus.

Canon 1398 provides that, “a person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication.” This means that at the very moment that the abortion is successfully accomplished, the woman and all formal conspirators are excommunicated. Conspirators who incur the excommunication can be those who make access to the abortion possible, including doctors and nurses who actually do it, husbands, family and others whose counsel and encouragement made it morally possible for the woman, and those whose direct practical support made it possible (financially, driving to the clinic etc.). It alson means that until that excomunication is lifted by the competent authority, one cannot participate in sacramental life.

Anorak time (sorry!) …

The quote is:

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Men, beware.

In a secular state, it is up to religious entities to decide whether to be idiotic or not, precisely because this is not Saudi Arabia. I suspect the bride-to-be refused to go ahead with a civil marriage because, as Daphne said, she was peeved with the secrecy involved.