Not So Damned

". . . We deprive . . . him . . . and all his accomplices and abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, ... we separate him from the society of all Christians, ... we declare him excommunicated and anathematized, ... we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the Day of Judgment. . . . Fiat, fiat, fiat!"

Such, in excerpt, are the authentic words wherewith a Christian may be thoroughly damned by the Roman Catholic Church. But not every Catholic who is excommunicated is damned so wholeheartedly. There are degrees. For example, M. Maurice Pujo, famed Managing Editor of the French Royalist newspaper L'Action Franc,aise (TIME, July 4, 1927 and Dec. 19), was permitted to be married at Paris last week, in the vestry of a Roman Catholic Church, although not long ago he was excommunicated (TIME, April 9).

Lest the damned bridegroom should trespass into the church itself, it was roped off. But ropes were quickly lowered to facilitate the exit from the Church of a Most Catholic wedding guest, Her Royal Highness, Marguerite de MacMahon, Duchesse de Magenta, nee Princesse d'Orleans, sister of the Pretender to the Throne of France. Apparently the Princess had blundered into the Church, looking for the wedding, which she later attended in the Vestry.