The writer waits until nearly 2/3 of the way through the article before it's revealed that Janine is a lesbian. Lesson learned = you can be a "longtime" lesbian and still get a "church funeral", but once you try to become a priest, you lose.
Mortal sin (gravely wrong action, freely and knowingly done) is not the same as excommunication. Homosexual acts are mortal sins, as is, for instance, "rash judgment." If unrepented, acts of distorted sex, acts of distorted judgment, and any other grave sin, can lead to the soul's eternal woe.
But there are seven actions which result in automatic excommunication (latae sentenciae) under the present Canon Law --- which does not, as I say, mean simply mortal sin. Those actions are:
Why are these automatically excommunicatable? Not because they are "uniquely" sinful, but usually because the person who commits them is deemed to need an especially solemn warning about the gravity of what they've done. Typically because in these sins the person is seriously self-deluded and urgently needs good spiritual counsel.
So excommunication is what's known as a "medicinal" penalty. The point of such penalties is to move the sinner to repentance. It does not mean you are damned. There are several canonized saint (the two that come to mind are St. Joan of Arc and St. Hildegard of Bingen) who was under an unjust sentence of excommunication when they died--obviously the matter was review after their deaths, and they were found not only "not guilty," but very virtuous.
Looking at her picture told me all I needed to know about her sexual lifestyle.