The secretary of Uruguay’s episcopal conference says that lawmakers
who recently voted to legalize abortion are automatically
excommunicated. “Automatic excommunication is for those who collaborate in the execution of an abortion in a direct way,” said Bishop Heriberto Bodeant Fernández of Melo.
“If a Catholic votes...with the manifest intention that he thinks the Church is wrong about this, he separates himself from the communion of the Church.”
“Excommunication means you are not in communion with the ecclesial community to which you openly claim to belong by doing something that puts you outside communion, and therefore you cannot participate in the Eucharist,” he added.