THE CATHOLIC "UNTOUCHABLES"
The Church believes in using the vitandus excommunication. This form requires
that the excommunicated person be treated as invisible and non-existent except
when in serious danger of death. It requires that the family cut the person off.
The vitandus excommunication is not bothered with today. The reason is not that
the Church has repudiated it - the Bible and Jesus themselves decreed that it
must be used. The reason is that in today's society it is not workable. In other
words, the Church does not bother with it for attempts to enforce it will only
be met with defiance and howls of laughter. It is a splendid example of
disobedience being rewarded. Why not allow contraception when hardly anybody
believes the Church teaching that it is wrong? Nobody has the right to call
themselves a Catholic if they don't believe in God and the Church's authority to
issue a vitandus excommunication. The Church should have the honesty to tell
them they are Protestants not Catholics.
The Roman Catholic Church says its laws of excommunication and Church rules only
apply to Catholics. But Protestants are treated even worse than excommunicated
Catholics. Protestants are barred from the Catholic sacraments except marriage
and the anointing of the sick under strict conditions. The Protestants might not
have got a decree putting them outside the Church but they are essentially
excommunicated nevertheless. They are treated as if they are excommunicate. The
Church works harder to get excommunicated Catholics back to the fold and
encourages them than it does Protestants. Protestants are subject to prejudice
as well.
Jesus Christ gave instructions for the disfellowshipping of obstinate sinners
in Matthew 18. Sinners who did not repent after a warning by the Church were to
be treated like tax collectors or Gentiles - cast out and ignored. He then added
that whatever the Church binds on earth is bound in Heaven. This has to mean
that he and the saints and God and the angels will ignore and ostracise the
sinner as well. Otherwise why not just say, "I will respect what you bind on
earth but that does not mean I will necessarily approve".
Matthew 18 says nothing about personal sin against you. It simply speaks about
what you do if a brother sins. Whether the sin is or is not against you is
beside the point. Matthew 18 requires the person to be spoken to by the Church
meaning the leaders if he proves stubborn. Does that really sound like personal
sin is meant? How does this fit Luke 17 where Jesus seems to command
unconditional forgiveness? The difference is that you forgive personal sins all
the time when the person repents but if they won't obey the Church you ostracise
them.
2 John 7-11 states on apostolic authority that many deceivers have gone out to
the world who do not believe Jesus came in the flesh. He warned that the people
must not become so progressive that they are no longer rooted in the teaching of
Jesus. So whoever does this loses God (verse 9). He said that if anybody comes
who does not bring the teaching of Christ, that person must not be accepted into
the house or greeted for whoever greets him shares in the evil he is teaching.
The note on this command in the New American Bible page 276 states that the
command is about the life and death struggle between Christianity and Docetism
(the doctrine that Jesus was not a man but a phantom acting like a man). There
was a danger Docetism would win so the Church found it necessary to have nothing
at all to do with the Docetists. But the epistles of John are confident that the
Holy Spirit is the best teacher and so powerful (1 John 2:20). The Church never
indicates that the struggle was the reason for the command. Indeed, a plan would
have been set up so that missionaries and ministers of the Church could
counteract the Docetists and to inoculate believers against their claims. The
New Testament expected all believers to be missionaries. So the Church went out
of its way then to keep believers from listening to Docetists or having any
contact with them. But if we read the letter we see that Docetists were
condemned first and then it was anybody who was so progressive in Christianity
that they started corrupting the teaching of Christ by adding to it or changing
it who were condemned. Then the letter bans associating with such and even
greeting such. It is the progressives more than the Docetists that the apostle
is worried about. The letter then plainly indicates that you are not to welcome
or associate with or greet any believer who wishes to add to or change the
gospel of Christ.
Some insist that the ban on greeting reflects the social custom of the times
that greeting took a long time. They think that to greet the heretics was a bad
idea for since greetings were long and personal it meant the heretic would have
to try and inspire you with their heresies. This is rubbish. The Christians and
pagans would have greeted each other all the time. Also the letters were written
to people in Ephesus. They didn't use the long greeting custom. Christians were
missionaries so greetings being long would be a reason to greet! The apostle
banned Christians speaking to heretics. Wishing a heretic well on a mission to a
Christian would mean, "I hope you see the light and come back safe". It would
not imply disloyalty to Christianity. Christians and probably Christian heretics
used the custom of greeting with a "holy kiss".
WHEN CRITICS ASK, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, Victor Books, Illinois ,1992
page 544, 545 tells us that the epistle is banning believers from giving food
and shelter to heretical preachers for that helps them to do their job of
drawing people from the faith. Others say the epistle means a church greeting by
greeting. None of that is even hinted at in the letter. They have nothing to do
with interpreting it. Besides the heretics who were Docetists and libertines
would have been very welcome among the pagans anyway so the Christians giving
them food and shelter would hardly have registered on the Christian issues
scale. Most heresy back then was about Christians trying to mix their religion
with pagan ideas.
The apostle is forbidding one to speak to any heretics at all - friendliness
towards them is forbidden. He simply says greeting is banned and the one who
greets shares in the evil of the heretic. He means people feel good when people
are friendly to them so greeting the heretics is helping to make the heretics
more devoted and happier in what they do. This is the simplest and therefore the
correct interpretation.
Christian scholars are puzzled how the apostle could ban greeting and say that
being nice to the heretic is encouraging their evil when the apostle writes so
much about love. He writes only about loving your brethren in the Church - he
never mentions loving outsiders. He says as well that if people truly belong to
the Church they will never leave it meaning those who adopt forbidden beliefs do
so in bad faith (1 John 2:19). One cannot lose or change one's authentic
Christian faith without sin. Such an attitude does not bode well for those who
wish the apostle to teach that we must love everybody! Anyway, it is possible
that the apostle sees the not speaking to heretics as tough love. But we must
remember 1 John chapter 5:16. It says that you should pray for sinners but not
for sinners who you see committing a deadly sin - meaning there is no point in
praying for them. The letter wants them abandoned to the Devil. It is thought to
mean suicide, dying without turning to God or apostasy - leaving the faith or
any number of these sins. The context is about praying and winning sinners back
so it probably means apostasy.
The vitandus has fell into disuse today mainly because the Church knows the people would ignore it and the media would have a field day. But in principle it is still honoured.
