Participating in non-Catholic services

[cathqat]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Jan 6 2005, 05:28 PM'] Thgis is pretty much accurate withthe acception that one can be expelled from the Church by a formal act
[/quote]
I didn't say "expelled from the Church," I said "leaves the Church." There is a difference between the two. In the case of the latter, the person himself is the subject of the action.

A Catholic can, according to canon law, leave or abandon the Church by formal defection. If he has formally defected, the canonical form of marriage is no longer required, as I said:
[quote]Canon 1117 The form prescribed above is to be observed if at least one of the parties contracting marriage was baptised in the catholic Church or received into it [i]and has not by a formal act defected from it[/i], without prejudice to the provisions of can. 1127 §2....
Canon 1124 Without the express permission of the competent authority, marriage is prohibited between two baptised persons, one of whom was baptised in the catholic Church or received into it after baptism [i]and has not defected from it by a formal act[/i], the other of whom belongs to a Church or ecclesial community not in full communion with the catholic Church.[/quote]

Other canons speak of the same formal abandonment or defection in different contexts. Canon 316.1 speaks, for example, of "One who has publicly rejected the Catholic Faith or abandoned ecclesiastical communion" (in this case the context is public associations). Canon 194.1.2 says that "one who has publicly defected from the catholic faith or from communion with the Church" is "removed from ecclesiastical office by virtue of the law itself." And so forth.

Failure to practice is not regarded as a formal act of defection. Publically renouncing the Catholic faith or joining a different religion, church, or Christian community, on the other hand, could be.