This morning I found myself (for some reason) thinking about all the great thinkers that the Catholic Church has excommunicated over the centuries -- William of Occam, Roger Bacon, etc -- and I wondered if they'd ever got around to excommunicating Hitler. I found this article from Sept. 27:

Newsday.com - Mussolini Pushed Hitler Excommunication: ...The Vatican document describes an April 10, 1938, meeting between the go-between from the Holy See to Mussolini, the Rev. Pietro Tacchi Venturi, and Pope Pius XI. Tacchi Venturi told the pope about his private talks with Mussolini three days earlier. According to the document, Mussolini had advised the Vatican envoy 'that it would be worthwhile with Hitler to be more forceful, without half-measures; not right away, not immediately, but waiting for the most opportune moment to adopt more forceful measures, for example, excommunication.' Hitler was born into a Catholic family, but did not practice the faith.

Catholocism, wow! Here's another article:

...It is not clear if the Church ever seriously considered excommunicating Hitler. The Vatican archives relating to pre-war Germany were opened in a bid to counter charges that the Vatican did not do enough to prevent the Holocaust. [BBC]

Meanwhile, according to NewsMax, Senator Daschle and California Governor Gray Davis have both been threatened with excommunication because of their stances on abortion. Phil Brennan, the article's author, is supporting the view that Democrats are anti-Catholic because they are pro-Choice. By blocking judicial nominations on the basis of the political views of the appointees, they are in fact engaging in anti-Catholic discrimination. It seems this is unavoidable, though, since the Catholic church has so many political opinions. Brennan's article climaxes with a response to Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman:

[Quoting Goodman:]"There's no question the Vatican holds strong views against abortion," she wrote. "Thursday it urged politicians to oppose gay marriage. But the church has never excommunicated a politician who disagreed and never revoked the right to call yourself a Catholic." [Brennan replies:]Oh no? That would come as a big surprise to the numerous kings, nobles and commoners throughout history who got the papal boot. Read your church history, lady. And keep in mind the fact that Sen. Daschle was recently told by his bishop to stop receiving communion (that's excommunication, ma'am) and to cease calling himself Catholic. Talk about ignorance. Or is it just plain old liberal malice? And be patient, Ms. Goodman. Some of the bishops in the U.S. may be getting very close to issuing decrees of formal excommunication – largely a simple recognition of the fact that the renegades have already taken themselves out the ranks of the Church and gone into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and nothing but a lot of anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-tax cut, anti-Christian blather.

This makes total sense. After all, who the fuck am I, a non-Catholic American to suggest that the laws and judicial precedent of my country not be determined by the motherfucking Vatican? How anti-Christian I've been, resisting theocracy and such. NewsMax rocks.