The Excommunication of Communists is the popular name for a decree from the Congregation of the Holy Office published on July 1, 1949. Approved by Pope Pius XII, the decree declared, according to the Congregation, membership in the Italian Communist Party, as well as any form of support for it, to be illicit. The Congregation also declared that those who professed communist doctrine were to be considered apostates and therefore incur excommunication.
