What is apostasy? A primer.

e find the def­i­n­i­tion for apos­ta­sy, as we do the def­i­n­i­tions of heresy and schism, in Canon 751. Apos­ta­sy is “the total repu­di­a­tion of the Chris­t­ian faith.” You can find the same def­i­n­i­tion in the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church, §2089. In this def­i­n­i­tion are three require­ments: It must be a “repu­di­a­tion”; it must be of the Chris­t­ian faith, and it must be “total.”

• Repu­di­a­tion. A repu­di­a­tion is an inten­tion­al act. One could not inad­ver­tent­ly fall into repu­di­a­tion. It is an act of the intel­lect and the will.

The Catholic Ency­clo­pe­dia calls it “vol­un­tary,” which it defines as “pro­ceed­ing from the will.”

It is req­ui­site that the thing be an effect of the will con­se­quent upon actu­al knowl­edge, either for­mal or vir­tu­al, in the ratio­nal agent.

“Vol­un­tary” comes from the Latin vol­un­tas, mean­ing “will.” It’s where we also get the word “voli­tion.” The one who repu­di­ates intends to, and the inten­tion is “con­se­quent upon actu­al knowl­edge.” They are ful­ly aware of what they are doing.

• of the Chris­t­ian faith. An apos­tate repu­di­ates Chris­tian­i­ty of itself.

Again, the Catholic Ency­clo­pe­dia explains that this could entail “embrac[ing] anoth­er reli­gion” or no reli­gion. An apos­tate could be a bap­tized Chris­t­ian who rejects the faith and becomes a Bud­dhist, or an athe­ist.

What an apos­tate is not is some­one who rejects some par­tic­u­lar the­o­log­i­cal school, or some sub­set of Chris­t­ian doc­trine. Nor is an apos­tate a bap­tized Catholic who leaves the Church to join a Protes­tant denom­i­na­tion. Protes­tants are still Chris­t­ian, they mere­ly dis­be­lieve many Catholic dis­tinc­tives.

• Total. An apos­tate rejects Chris­tian­i­ty alto­geth­er, not a doc­trine or two. A per­son who rejects the vir­gin birth is not an apos­tate. (They’re guilty of heresy, not apos­ta­sy.)

•••

The Catholic Ency­clo­pe­dia, fol­low­ing Pope Bene­dict XIV, notes that there are three types of apos­ta­sy. (Bene­dict XIV, who was pope from 1740–1758, is not to be con­fused with the recent­ly-deceased Bene­dict XVI. The 18th cen­tu­ry pope wrote a two-vol­ume the­o­log­i­cal trea­tise enti­tled De Syn­o­do Diœce­sana (DSD), or On the Dioce­san Syn­ods.) In XIII.xi.9 of DSD, Bene­dict XIV dis­tin­guished three types of apos­ta­sy:

• Apos­ta­sy a fide, or “from the faith.” This is the “com­plete and vol­un­tary aban­don­ment of the Chris­t­ian reli­gion.”
• Apos­ta­sy ab ordine, which is the aban­don­ment by priests of cler­i­cal dress.
• Apos­ta­sy a reli­gione, which is aban­don­ment of reli­gious life, say by a monk.

It is the first type, or apos­ta­sy a fide, that we need to be con­cerned with, since that is the sense most peo­ple mean when they speak of apostasy—whether they apply the term cor­rect­ly or not. It is used to refer to some­one who has aban­doned the faith.

Accord­ing to the (apoc­ryphal) sec­ond-cen­tu­ry text the Shep­herd of Her­mas, no for­give­ness is pos­si­ble for apos­ta­sy:

[T]hey whose branch­es were found with­ered and moth-eat­en are the apos­tates and trai­tors of the Church, who have blas­phemed the Lord in their sins, and have, more­over, been ashamed of the name of the Lord by which they were called. These, there­fore, at the end were lost unto God. And you see that not a sin­gle one of them repent­ed.

The author may have had in mind Heb. 6:4–6:

For it is impos­si­ble for those who were once enlight­ened, and have tast­ed of the heav­en­ly gift, and were made par­tak­ers of the Holy Ghost, and have tast­ed the good word of God, and the pow­ers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repen­tance; see­ing they cru­ci­fy to them­selves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

What­ev­er we under­stand Hebrews to mean, the Church itself made it clear, after the Decian per­se­cu­tion in the third cen­tu­ry, that it could for­give the sin of apos­ta­sy. Pope Cor­nelius con­firmed the deci­sion of the Syn­od of Carthage in this regard.

•••

Words mat­ter, and because words mat­ter, they must be used precisely—particularly when you are talk­ing about sins against the faith. Two years ago, Car­di­nal Burke false­ly claimed that Pres­i­dent Biden is an “apos­tate.” “Such a per­son,” Burke said,

who claims to be a Catholic and yet pro­motes in such an open, obdu­rate, and aggres­sive way a crime like pro­cured abor­tion is in the state, at least, of apos­ta­sy.

This was mad­ness, and it’s unfor­tu­nate because Car­di­nal Burke is a canon lawyer and ought to know bet­ter. Is it pos­si­ble to count the errors in these words?

• Biden does not “claim” to be Catholic; he is Catholic. Cer­tain­ly he dis­sents from Church teach­ing on abor­tion. But that dis­sent does not remove his bap­tism, and he has not been excom­mu­ni­cat­ed. (Even if he were, he would still be Catholic.)
• Biden’s sup­port for legal abor­tion does not even rise to the lev­el of heresy, let alone apos­ta­sy. A heresy, remem­ber, is a denial of a truth that the Church teach­es is divine­ly revealed. And the Church’s oppo­si­tion to abor­tion is not divine rev­e­la­tion. The Church has nev­er taught that it is.
• Sup­port for legal abor­tion, tak­en by itself, meets none of the cri­te­ria for apos­ta­sy in canon law.
• Burke’s claim—that Biden is “at least” in apostasy—makes no sense. What does he mean by “at least”? Is the car­di­nal aware of a the­o­log­i­cal crime greater than apos­ta­sy? If so, he should tell us what it is.

A prince of the Church, knowl­edgable in canon law, has no excuse to describe a case of dis­sent as though it is either heresy or apos­ta­sy. I get that Burke is upset by Biden’s sup­port for abor­tion, but that does­n’t give him the moral right to hyperbole—to exag­ger­ate the nature of the pres­i­den­t’s error. Dis­sent is dis­sent and noth­ing more. Giv­en how seri­ous charges of heresy and apos­ta­sy are, it is a grave sin to mis­use those terms. It’s a form of calum­ny. (See CCC 2477.) I’m sure a great many online Catholics who use them are igno­rant (though they need to edu­cate them­selves bet­ter), but Car­di­nal Burke does not have that excuse.

You can’t talk about the­o­log­i­cal ideas respon­si­bly until you’re first agreed to use your terms cor­rect­ly.