How to Get Excommunicated

A Maximum Orange Easter Special

After all the necromancy, Norse runes, Halloween parties, Dungeons & Dragons, eating meat on Fridays, living in air-conditioned homes, sleeping on a bed whose head points east, and gay sex, I know at this point I'm not exactly Catholic in the eyes of God, which is a good start, but what about God's insidious army, the Catholic Church? Legally, they still own my soul, which might sound like no big thing, but the prospect of transubstantial possession just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I've just seen one too many episodes of Quantum Leap.

So you want to get excommunicated? It's surprisingly difficult. I know, "It's the Catholic Church, shouldn't they hate me?" On paper, though, they hate what you do, believe in, live for, and will fight to defend, but they don't hate you specifically. Or, like, they don't hate your physical body. The numbers of people who are raised Catholic and then mature into sin are difficult to come by, and the Church is probably content to leave it that way, so that the religiously confused can feel even more alone and ostracized. The Church is banking on passionate changes of heart, and so are hesitant to sever ties with even the most wayward of lost souls. Reviewing Catechistic precedent, automatic excommunication becomes easier the higher up the Catholic hierarchy you get. Priests and bishops get the express aisle. For the rest of us, three major options are available.

Heresy - Speak up and let everyone know about your dark and various gods. Promote your blasphemy in a public forum and an official capacity, and according to Catholic law, you're out. But you can't just be joking, so atheists are out of luck. If in fact you have joined a cult, though, you're all set.

Desecration - If you have access to the Eucharist, consider it an in. Throw it in the garbage, feed it to ducks, serve it on a cheese platter, and if enough people see you, you are automatically excommunicated. Unfortunately you can't just steal the unsanctified wafers; those are just crackers. You have to wait until the crackers are imbued with the sweet essence of Christ, which would probably entail attending a mass. This is actually one of the easier methods, but you gotta be pretty fucking brazen.

Papal Harassment - Physically assaulting the Pope is by far the most secure way to get excommunicated, and sounds the funnest, but is inevitably the most difficult these days - thank you very much Mehmet Ali Agca - and may get you shot, or impaled on a Swiss Guard halberd.

The Australian Atheist Foundation advises those seeking excommunication to write letters to their local priests. This yields no results; priests lack the power to excommunicate and will not refer you to someone who can. They will instead reply that if you seek to be excommunicated, then you must recognize a power to the Church, and if you do, shouldn't you stay in it? And if you don't, then why bother excommunicating? They will hope you are guilty of the sin of sloth and appeal to your lethargy. You instead have to write your local bishop, probably several times. Your correspondence must verify your Catholicism with details of your baptism, demonstrate that you know what excommunication is and that you totally want it, as well as give an example of your apostasy, in both intent and action. You have to mean it, and something has to have happened, otherwise you're just a bad churchgoer. Fail on any of these grounds and your pleas will be ignored. Be polite. It's recommended you avoid getting into why you want to be excommunicated, as this can lead to appeals to your sensibilities, which even if they fail draw the process out longer and threatens to prey on your indifference. But persevere, and you will hopefully, eventually, be a free agent soon enough.

Mormons have it slightly easier. They just have to make sexy calendars. Which I don't endorse, but I do enjoy.