Canon 915: Those to be refused communion and the perspective of Amoris Laetitia,

the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis

A. N. DACANAY, S.J.
___________________________________________________

This brief study is organized under the following headings: (a) Cc. 915 and 916; (b)
the status quaestionis; (c) the perspective of Amoris Laetitia of Pope Francis [2016]. 1

1. These two canons are to be read together for two reasons. The first is the
similarity of the matter they treat, dealing as they do with persons who should not
receive communion. The former, addressed to the minister of the Eucharist,
specifies those who should be refused communion; the latter, addressed to the
individual person, determines who should not approach the sacrament. Second,
the two canons use the term “grave sin” but, as subsequent clarification will make
clear, apparently in two substantially different senses. The authentic (official)
interpretation issued by the Pontifical Commission will make this clear.

2. The Status Quaestionis.

2.1 Canon 915 lists down the categories of persons to be refused communion: after
the penalty has been imposed [if penalty is ferendae sententiae] or declared [if
penalty is latae sententiae], an excommunicated or an interdicted person; others
who obstinately persist in manifestly grave sin. The canon is prescriptive; the law
does not leave the minister any latitude to make a prudential judgement. According
to the canon, those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has
been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave
sins, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. This provision of the law is
directed to the minister of communion who is enjoined not to admit them to the
Eucharist.

Re the first two groups of persons to be refused communion, the excommunicatus

and the interdictus after the penalty has been declared or imposed, the following

1
This author had written an article on Cc. 915 and 916, and the difficulties inherent especially
in the former canon. A. N. Dacanay, S.J., “Those to be Refused Communion: Comments on Cc. 915
and 916 and the Authentic Interpretation by the Hole See, “ MST Review 7, no. 1 (2005), 69-85.
observations must be made. It is quite obvious because these penalties, attached as
they are to certain extraordinarily grave sins, forbid the reception of the sacraments
[Cc. 1331 and 1332].2 As a rule, these are medicinal penalties, i.e., they are directed
towards the reform of the sinner. As medicinal penalties [also called censures],
their remission is determined by the reform of the sinner. If he is not sorry for his
sin, the sin cannot be forgiven and the penalty cannot be remitted; on the other
hand, if the sinner has repented [and all that that implies], then he must be
absolved and the penalty remitted--this is an obligation in justice incumbent upon
the competent church authority. Imposition or declaration means that a competent
church authority [the bishop, a judge of an ecclesiastical court, a superior with
respect to his subject though an extrajudicial or administrative act] has issued a
public instrument declaring that a penalty has been incurred or imposing the
penalty. This should be a relatively rare case; and rare as it is, it would also be highly
public and notorious. There should be no canonical or moral difficulties in the
application of the canon. If a penalty of excommunication or interdict has been
imposed or the person has been declared to be so, it means that an investigation
has been done, that the offense has been found to be grave, and the imputability to
be full.3

Theologically, the excommunicated and the interdicted are to be refused communion

because their objective condition signifies a rupture of their communion with the Body of Christ the
Church, or a wound inflicted on ecclesial communion. Cf. Manzanares’ comments on the Eucharist
in Manzanares, Mostaza, and Santos, Nuevo Derecho Parroquial (Madrid: BAC, 1988), 194.
3
Ex ista notione (delicti in C. 2195.1 of the Code of 1917) tria elementa deducebantur
essentialia ad constituendum delictum in jure canonico: elementum objectivum; elementum
subjectivum; elementum legale…Non sufficit tamen elementum objectivum. Elementum essential est
elementum subjectivum, id est imputabilitas quae praeprimis esse debet moralis. Imputabilitas est
proprietas actus qua ipse actus pertinent ad proprium dominum in quantum positus sit modo
humano, id est libere; ideo dominus respondere debet de proprio actu. Responsabilitas habetur
tantum ubi datur imputabilitas… (quae) fundatur in libertate agenda…ubi non habeatur peccatum
grave quaestio fieri non potest de delicto. V. de Paolis. De Sanctionibus in Ecclesia (Romae: Pontificia
Universitas Gregoriana, 1986), 41-42. It must also be noted that when such excommunicated or
interdicted persons, even when these penalties are declared or imposed, forbidden as they are to
receive communion, do approach communion, this fact does not give rise to the situation
contemplated by the first section of the second paragraph of C.1331 as well as C.1332 which require
that if the excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, the offender proposing to
have a ministerial participation in the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist or in any other
ceremony of public worship is to be removed or else the liturgical action is to be suspended.
Provided the excommunicated or interdicted person does not attempt to have a ministerial
participation in the Eucharist, the offender does not have to be removed or the liturgy does not have
to be suspended. In other words, while the priest should try as much as possible to clarify with the
excommunicatus or the interdictus their situation, their approaching the sacrament of the Eucharist
does not give rise to their being prevented from doing so or to the necessity of interrupting the
liturgical action. C.1331.2 forbids the ministerial participation in the celebration of the Eucharist or in
any ceremony of public worship. The mere attempt to receive communion does not constitute a
2.2 The description of the third category is bristling with qualifications: not ordinary
run-of-the-mill sinners but sinners who persist; they do not merely persist, they
obstinately persist; the sin is not only a grave sin, but one that is manifestly so. But
these persons have not been punished with excommunication or placed under
interdict. In general, it would seem that such a case would then be relatively rare,
and therefore one should not be too eager to find a case fulfilling all these stiff
requirements.

There are difficulties associated with this third category.4 There has been
disagreement and confusion as to the meaning of the third category [others
obstinately persevering in manifest grave sins] because a conventional acceptation
of this term would include eminently subjective elements which are certainly not
clearly accessible to the minister of communion who is obliged by this canon to
refuse such a person communion.5 Huels, for example, says that the state of one’s
conscience is a matter of the internal forum, yet this canon addresses ministers in
the external forum. He notes that a person may have repented of the sin and now
may be in the state of grace, but this fact may not be evident in the external forum.6

ministerial participation, and therefore such an attempt would not call for the drastic measures
called for by C. 1331.2.

4
The following have treated this matter at some length: P. Travers, “Reception of the Holy
Eucharist by Catholics Attempting Remarriage after Divorce and the 1983 Code of Canon Law”, Jurist
55 (1995), 187-217; P. Travers, “Holy Communion and Catholics who have Attempted Remarriage after
Divorce: A Revisitation”, Jurist 57 (1997), 517-540; Gramunt, “Non-Admission to Holy Communion:
Canon 915”, Studia Canonica 35 (2001), 175-190; J. Myers, “Divorce, Remarriage, and Reception of the
Holy Eucharist”, Jurist 57 (1997), 485-516; W. B. Smith, “Public Sinner?”, Homiletic and Pastoral Review
no.12 (2000), 72-74,

5
For example Travers understood “grave sin” in Cc.915 and 916 to be be a synonym for mortal
sin in which the gravely sinful matter must always be accompanied by a perfect knowledge of its
grave sinfulness and full consent or freedom on the part of the person. On this basis, he concluded
that the word manifesto in C.915 specifies a situation in which it is plain, not only that the object of
the person’s behavior constitutes gravely sinful matter, but also within the limits of the available
evidence, that the person has the full awareness and the deliberate consent that are necessary to
constitute a moral sin. He would also understand that the term “obstinate perseverans” in C.915
refers similarly to persons whose persistence in grave sin is accompanied by subjective attitudes of
willful stubbornness, and does not refer only to the objective temporal duration of that persistence.
Travers, “Reception of the Holy Eucharist by Catholics Attempting Remarriage After Divorce and the
1983 Code of Canon Law”, Jurist 55 (1995), 197-205.

6
Huels on the Eucharist in Beal, Coriden, and Green, eds., New Commentary on the Code of
Canon Law (New York, Paulist Press, 2000), 1110.
If these subjective elements were considered, and it seems that they should be
because of the conventional understanding of sin, Travers summarizes the
difficulty. From one point of view, a difficulty would arise from the term manifesto
gravi peccato obstinate perseverantes understood in the sense of mortal sin in the
conventional acceptation of the term. From another point of view, there would also
be the problem incumbent upon the minister of communion who must comply
with C.915.7 Such ministers cannot directly determine whether a person who lines
up to receive communion is in a state of mortal sin. In contrast with the person
who approaches communion, who has direct access to the state of his or her
conscience and can normally make the determination called for by C.916, the
minister of communion must rely on external and objective evidence as what a
person says and does, and the person’s general way of life. Even then, the minister
can never make that definitive determination as to whether the communicant is in a
state of grace, precisely because this is determined by the subjective factors of
knowledge and consent.8

2.3 The PCILT officially interpreted the meaning of the canon, especially with
reference to the faithful who have been divorced and have remarried. It adverts to
the difficulties mentioned above that since the canon speaks of a “grave sin”, it
would be necessary to establish the presence of all the conditions required for the
existence of mortal sin, including those which are subjective, necessitating a
judgement of a type that a minister of Communion could not make ab externo;
moreover, since the canon speaks of those who obstinately persist in that sin, it
would be necessary to verify an attitude of defiance on the part of an individual
who had received a legitimate warning from the Pastor.9

7
Travers, “Holy Communion and Catholics who have Attempted Remarriage after Divorce: A
Revisitation”, Jurist 57 (1997), 529.

8
This difficulty also arises from the provisions and the common understanding of C.855.2 of
the Code of 1917. All sinners are secret sinners whose sinfulness before God is not generally known
to the public. And they may be secret sinners in one place and public sinners in another; in the
place where their sinfulness is not publicly known, they are to be treated as in C.855.2 [that is they
should not be denied communion]. Abbo and Hannan, The Sacred Conons I, no.855, pp.855-856.
According to Jone: Scandalum oritur si fideles, quippe cum eis indignitas non sit nota, timore
afficiantur ne et ipsi infamentur si sacredos, ob vanam opinionem, inconsiderantiam, levitatem
animi, ignorantiam, errorem, etc. eos praetereat. Jone, Commentarium in Codicem Juris Canonici, I,
p.100. Cf. also. T. Rincon, in Manual de Derecho Canonico (Navarra, EUNSA, 1988), 456-457.

9
Divorced and Remarried are not to be Admitted to Holy Communion (PCILT of 24 June
2000), in Enchiridion Vaticanum 19 (2000), 516
2.3.1 The authentic interpretation clarified the following three main points. (a)
Grave sin is understood objectively so that the subjective imputability to the
“sinner” is not considered. This seems to mean that of the three elements that
constitute sin (grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent), only the first
element is considered. (b) The obstinate persistence means the existence of an
objective situation of sin that endures in time and which the will of the individual
does not bring to an end. No other requirement, such as attitude of defiance or
prior warning to ascertain defiance, is necessary to establish the fundamental
gravity of the person’s situation in the Church. (c) The official interpretation refers
to the manifest character of the situation of “grave habitual sin.”10 The obvious
example is of that of a divorced and remarried Catholic—they are living in sin
because they engage in those acts that are proper of married persons and they are
not.11

2.3.2 The crucial point that the interpretation makes is that the focus of the law is
the objectively grave sinful situation, rather than the mortal sin that Travers
considered to be its synonym in an earlier article, without reference to the
subjective elements of solid knowledge and full consent, which would be required
of a mortal sin.12 According to the authentic interpretation, the subjective
imputability to the sinner is not considered.13

The same official interpretation however proposes a sub-class under the class of the
divorced and remarried. The common advice of confessors and other spiritual

10

Interpretation of the PCILT dated 24 June 2000.

11
I imagine that a person who belongs to a private army engaged in eliminating the
opponents of his employer would belong to this same category: he belongs to a group engaged in
criminal activities; he might like to disengage but he could not because his life would be exposed to
the danger that opposing private armies might pose to his life. People engaged in indiscriminate
logging or other actions harmful to the environment who may not see the long term and perhaps
even irreversible effects of their particular acts would be similarly situated. These would be cases of
manifest grave sins.
12

Travers, “Reception of the Holy Eucharist by Catholics Attempting Remarriage After Divorce
and the 1983 Code of Canon Law”, Jurist 55 (1995), 198-200. Travers had proposed a revised
understanding of “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” in an article published before the
authentic interpretation, but an understanding that would be consistent with the subsequent
authentic interpretation. P. Travers, “Holy Communion and Catholics who have Attempted
Remarriage after Divorce: A Revisitation,” Jurist 57 (1997), 517-540.

13
The comments of the New American Commentary which share the tenor of the first Travers
interpretation would have been superseded by the authentic interpretation cited. Cf. pp.1101-1111.
directors would be for them to separate, thereby breaking the objective condition
of sin. But the official interpretation foresees the possibility that the divorced and
remarried Catholics may not be able, for serious motives—such as the upbringing
of the children--to satisfy the obligation of separation. Such couples, while they
may not be able to separate, provided they assume the task of living in full
continence, that is they must abstain from sexual relation with each other (ut frater
et soror, as brother and sister), would not fall under the category of those excluded
from the Eucharist. On the basis of that intention (of not engaging in the sexual act)
they are then sacramentally absolved in confession. They can now approach the
Eucharist under certain conditions. Given the fact that these Catholics are not
living more uxorio (as married persons but rather ut frater et soror) is per se occult
(it is not as a matter of fact publicly known) while their condition as persons who
are divorced and remarried is per se manifest, they will be allowed to receive the
Eucharist but only if it does not give rise to scandal.14

2.3.3 For this reason, “publicly unworthy” [publice indigni] the term used by C.855.1
of the Code of 1917 and C.712 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches would
have been preferable. The focus on the external element is explicit, and the term is
clearly different from that used by C.916 which clearly refers to integral concept of
mortal sin.

14
PCILT 2 (24 June 2000), in EV 19 (2000), 520.
2.3.4 This authentic interpretation of C. 915 is based on and takes into account some
important magisterial documents: (a) apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio15;
(b) the letter of the CDF [14 Sept 1994] which commented on the apostolic
exhortation Familiaris Consortio and applied it to the question of the reception of
the Eucharist by divorced and remarried Catholics16; (c) certain provisions of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church; and (d) the address of the Holy Father to the
plenary session of Pontifical Council on the Family [24 Jan 1997].

2.4 Reconciliation in the sacrament of penance, which would open the way to the
eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of
the covenant and fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to take a way of life that is no

15
The apostolic exhortation enumerates certain irregular situations: (a) the so-called trial
marriages [FC 80]; (b) de facto free unions without any publicly recognized constitutional bond [FC
81]; (c) Roman Catholics in civil marriages; (d) separated or divorced who have not remarried; (e) the
divorced who have remarried. In many ways, the fifth irregular situation is the most difficult because
it is the situation that is most difficult to get out of in itself (when the spouses have established
between themselves a stable and from all indications a happy, committed and fulfilling relationship)
but especially when they already have children for whom they are responsible. Regarding the fifth
irregular situation, the apostolic exhortation makes the following important statements. [i] The Holy
Father encourages pastors to discern the different situations in which the faithful may find
themselves in. There are persons who have sincerely tried to save the first marriage and were
unjustly abandoned. There are also those who through grave fault of their own have destroyed a
canonically valid marriage. There are also those who have entered a second union for the sake of the
children’s upbringing and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that the previous
and irreparably destroyed union was never valid. [ii] According to the Holy Father, pastors and the
community of the faithful should help the divorcee with care, they must make sure that they do not
consider themselves separated from the church for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must
share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, attend the mass, persevere
in prayer, contribute to works of charity, bring up their children in the Christian faith. “Let the
Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself as a merciful mother.” But the apostolic
exhortation continues. [iii] But the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based on SS, of not
admitting to Eucharistic communion divorced Catholics who have remarried. Their state and
condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is
signified and effected by the Eucharist. And there is also a pastoral consideration that if these
persons were to be admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led to error and confusion
regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage. [iv] Reconciliation in the
sacrament of penance which would open the way to the Eucharist can only be granted to those who,
repenting of having broken the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to
undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This
means in practice that when, for serious reasons—e.g., the children’s upbringing—a man and a
woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they take on themselves to live in complete
continence, that is, by abstinence from those acts proper to married couples.
16
The CDF document affirms the general exclusion from communion of Catholics who have
attempted remarriage after divorce with the sole exception of those who assume the duty to abstain
from sexual activity with their current partners. There is a reference in the document to various
“solutions” that have been proposed.
longer a contradiction of the indissolubility of marriage. In the concrete, this means
that when for serious reasons--such as for example the upbringing of the
children--a man and woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they take
upon themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is by abstinence
from the acts proper to married couples.17

These categorical statements notwithstanding, the Church leaves room for the
prudent discernment of the complex situation by pastors. Familiaris Consortio
reminds: pastors must know that, for the sake the truth, they are obliged to exercise
careful discernment of the situations, for there is a difference between those who
have sincerely tried to save the first marriage and have been justly abandoned, and
those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid
marriage. There are also those who have entered into a second union for the sake
of the children's upbringing and who are sometimes subjectively certain in
conscience that their previous and irreparably damaged marriage had never been
valid marriage.18

2. A Second Look at the Question from the Perspective of Amoris Laetitia.

17
Pope John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod of Bishops [25 Oct 1980], in AAS 72
(1980), 1082.

18
Familiaris Consortio 84.