ASK FATHER: Excommunication of lay people for attending women’s fake ordination?

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

A local Protestant affiliated hospital in my city hosted a so-called WomanPriest recently. She purported to confect the Eucharist in their chapel. This “event” received zero publicity (to my surprise). The usual small gaggle of grey haired unitarian-ish UCC/ELCA/Episcopalians were in attendance, I understand. She no more confected the body and blood of Our Lord than does the Episcopalian female priest on staff at that institution. (Of course this Roman Catholic WomanPriest is an excommunicate).

My question is: Are there canonical penalties for LAY Catholics who attended this, and received so-called communion?

(Yes, the local ordinary has been informed.)

In 2007 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, alerted the faithful to the fact that any woman claiming to get ordained and any bishop attempting to ordain a woman would be subject to the penalty of excommunication. The CDF, by this decree, elevated the attention of the Church to these sad instances, which are grave threats to the integrity of the priesthood and of the faith.

The attachment of a penalty of excommunication to the bishop who attempts to ordain and also the to the woman who attempts to get ordained makes it clear that this is serious matter. A priest or deacon who participates in these fiascoes open himself up to possible penalties.

The lay faithful, too, should stay far away from this nonsense.

While no specific penalty is declared for laity who attend, a wise and prudent bishop should consider the possibility of imposing censures should this become a particular problem in his diocese.

Apart from ecclesiastical penalties, simulating sacraments is a grave sin which certainly displease Our Lord.