[r9etb]

The point is, excommunication was a political tool and was used against people regardless of whether they were part of the church or not, and regardless of whether they were the intended victim or someone that might help them.

There is no comparison between an Elizabethan excommunication and what should/shouldn't have happened in the case of Hitler.

The position of the Catholic Church in England was very much an open issue at the time. Queen Mary was an avid Catholic, and there were Catholic kings and queens following Elizabeth. The excommunication of Elizabeth was thus a political act, but it was also something more than political.

A primary feature of the Church of England is that it is established: IOW, the King/Queen have the right and responsibility of appointing bishops. Thus the Catholic church also had a canonical interest in the matter which wasn't finally resolved for decades after Elizabeth's death.

None of that applies to Hitler.

[RobbyS]

You might add that people have called Pius V a "holy idiot" for issuing the excommunication, since the immediate effect was to make Catholic Englishmen subject to choose between arrest and taking an oath to support Elizabeth.