Catholic Politicians And Bishops

[eagle_eye222001]

Why have bishops not been excommunicating Catholic politicians if they have been advocates of abortion through their votes?

Thanks.

[cappie]

Canon lawyer Ed Peters has written on this topic:

[i]"Excommunication is a powerful and potentially effective response to certain offensive behaviors in the Church. Nevertheless, I think that calls to excommunicate pro-abortion politicians under Canon 1398 will fail, not because Church leaders lack the gumption to apply the canon, but because the canon cannot be applied that way in the first place. But here, rather than trying to recreate the substantive canonical arguments behind this assertion for a readership that brings vastly different backgrounds to this discussion, let me, even at the risk of coming across as making only an argument from authority this time, propose only this much: Those wishing to invoke Canon 1398 against pro-abortion politicians should, at the very least, be aware that there is little, and perhaps no, support for their position among credentialed canonical scholars around in the world." [/i]

[url="http://www.canonlaw.info/2007/05/case-for-applying-canon-1398-to.html"]FULL ARTICLE HERE[/url]