José Galat Noumer is 88 years old and apparently he's been excommunicated. How can it be that criticizing the pope gets someone excommunicated? - Fr. James Martin is a Catholic in good standing. - Cardinal Marx is a Catholic in good standing. - Mons. Vincenzo Paglia is a Catholic in good standing. - The founder of the Legionaries of Christ [Marcial Maciel] was officially a Catholic in good standing for most of his life. Although the truth about his wicked life became too hard to hide by the time he took to his deathbed, he was never excommunicated. - Fr. Hans Kung is a Catholic in good standing. You can be an open sinner and be petted and praised at the Vatican with no fear of any remote possibility of excommunication. You can be a politician and vote for abortion and be a Catholic in good standing. Ted Kennedy got the funeral of a saint and when Joe Biden rings his life's curtain down his bishop will give the family the cathedral for his funeral if they should so desire. So how is it that out of all the famous sinners in the world this particular very old man who is obviously closer to the end of his life than the start of it and who founded one of the biggest Catholic TV channels in the world get excommunicated? This doesn't seem like a sad judgment on an obstinate sinner. It seems like malice. It seems like vengeance. It seems like a mafioso warning to the rest of the "neighborhood" to shut up or else.