[Petronski]

Don't be sophomoric. Excommunication is the procedure to FORCE an exit of the Church. People are free to leave at any time, and lots of people do. They become Protestants and agnostics and atheists and even Jews and Muslims.

If they've departed and no longer consider themselves Catholic and no longer believe Catholic teachings and no longer avail themselves of Catholic sacraments, they're NOT Catholic.

I can't tell if your error is an innocent mistake or an effort to smear the Catholic Church with all things Nazi, as though Nazism were somehow consistent with Catholic teaching and the Church approved of genocide and wars of conquest as practiced by Nazi Germany. Throw the Hitler tarbaby at the Church all you want, it won't stick and you'll only come out looking shabby.

[Ostlandr]

To set things straight re: Hitler and Religion-
Legend has it that Hitler was backed in his early political career by a group called the Thule Society. As I understand it, "Thule" is an Aryan version of Zion (as in Zionism.) Before those nasty Americans interfered in Germany's internal affairs, Herr Hitler was well on his way to creating a State Religion, with himself as both Head of State and High Priest. Read up on the goings-on at the SS Castle sometime.
Question: Is it a coincidence that the three groups most persecuted by the Nazis- Jews, Gypsies and Catholics- all had traditions of what could be called 'defense against the Dark Arts?'

[muawiyah]

Touchy, touchy. No one is trying to smear the Catholic church. The point was about Hitler's church membership, and what part that would have played in any action on his part to send Catholic German troops to Italy to tear up the Vatican.

Noting that the Italians had cheered on Catholic Italian troops tearing up comparable institutions in Ethiopia, I merely suggested this would have been done to the cheers of the Italian fascists and Italian communists if their prior behavior meant anything in particular.

The smear is of the Italian fascists and communists ~ if such a smear were possible.

Your response is rather like that of the commedic routine that ends "don't say nothin' 'bout the brother."

Better for you to read the logic than to search for insults.

Now, getting beyond the hypotheticals of church law, do you have a cite to any specific action taken at any time by any religious organization to disaffiliate Adolph Hitler? Doesn't mean they had to do so, just WAS IT DONE?