[muawiyah]

He was baptised.

I don't recall there being anything in the rules that allows a Catholic to excommunicate himself ~ it takes an official action by someone in the priesthood authorized to do that.

Absent evidence that Hitler was excommunicated, he died a Catholic (although technically not one who can be buried in a Catholic graveyard inasmuch as he commited suicide).

[Petronski]

That's a smear and you know it.

[Conservative til I die]

I don't recall there being anything in the rules that allows a Catholic to excommunicate himself ~ it takes an official action by someone in the priesthood authorized to do that.

That's only because of your ignorance of Catholicism. Those that engage in certain behavior automatically excommunicate themselves.

[livius]

People who don't accept the teachings of the Church (as Hitler did) automatically excommunicate themselves. They can return to the Church through confession and penance, something that Hitler never did.

The Church was one of his worst enemies, and he regarded Christianity as a "slave religion." He was very devoted to Gnosticism and the occult, what we would now call New Age; in fact, it was from the occult tradition (including the Freemasons) that he got the swastika that was his regime's symbol.

[MikefromOhio]

you aren't going to win this argument factually anytime soon....

[Antoninus]

I don't recall there being anything in the rules that allows a Catholic to excommunicate himself ~ it takes an official action by someone in the priesthood authorized to do that.

Sure there is. It's called latae sententiae--as in automatic. Heresy incurrs such a sentence, as does procuring an abortion.

[NickatNite2003]

Actually, excomminication is carried out by the
*congregation*.