The following comes from a December 7 Voice of the Family post:

Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, has stirred controversy by suggesting that some criticisms of Pope Francis might result in automatic excommunication.

Archbishop Fisichella made his remarks while explaining how Pope Francis’s new “Missionaries of Mercy” will operate.

In reference to Canon 1370, which imposes automatic excommunication for “physical violence” against the Roman Pontiff, Archbishop Fisichella said:

“I would say that we need to understand well ‘physical violence,’ because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might think.”

Archbishop Fisichella’s comments will be interpreted by many as an attempt to silence faithful Catholics who are deeply concerned by the direction currently being taken by those who hold offices at the highest levels of the Church.

The following comes from a December 7 In the Light of the Law blog post responding to Archbishop Rino Fisichella’s comments:

Most words are not crimes

I am not sure what Archbishop Rino Fisichella meant when he said that “we need to understand well ‘physical violence’ [against the pope] because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might think.” I am guessing that Fisichella might be thinking that ‘harsh language’ against the pope is a canonical crime that makes one liable to excommunication. If so, he is mistaken.

Besides Canon 17 that requires canons to be understood in accord with the proper meaning of their words, and Canon 18 that requires penal canons to be read strictly (i.e., as narrowly as reasonably possible), and Canon 221 § 3 that protects the faithful against canonical penalties not authorized by law, the whole of Book Six of the 1983 Code is redolent with an emphasis (some might say, to an exaggerated degree) on benignity in the application of penalties in the Church.

Now, Canon 1370 criminalizes “vim physicam” against the pope, not “verba aspera” or variants thereon, and I know of no canonical commentary that includes “words” as a species of “physical force” in this context. Indeed, the CLSA New Commentary, the Exegetical Commentary, the Ancora Commentary, and the Urbaniana Commentary—at which point I stopped looking—expressly exclude ‘verbal violence’ from the range of actions penalized under Canon 1370.