Editing Pope Sixtus V (section)

===Contraception, abortion, and adultery===
Sixtus extended the penalty of excommunication relating to the Roman Catholic Church's teaching [[Christian views on birth control#Roman Catholicism|on contraception]] and [[Catholic Church and abortion|on abortion]]. While the Church taught that abortion and contraception were gravely sinful actions, it did not apply to all mortal sins the additional penalty of [[Excommunication in the Catholic Church|excommunication]].{{citation needed|date=June 2014}}

Some theologians argued that only after proof of the "quickening" (when the mother can feel the fetus's movement in her womb, usually about 20 weeks into gestation) that there was incontrovertible evidence that ensoulment had already occurred. Until Sixtus V, canon lawyers had applied the code from [[Gratian]] whereby excommunications were only given to abortions after the quickening. In 1588 the pope issued a papal bull, ''Effraenatam'' or ''Effrenatam'' ("Without Restraint"), which declared that the canonical penalty of excommunication would be levied for any form of contraception and for abortions at any stage in fetal development.<ref name="faculty.cua.edu">[http://faculty.cua.edu/Pennington/Law111/CatholicHistory.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218195040/http://faculty.cua.edu/Pennington/Law111/CatholicHistory.htm|date=18 February 2012}}</ref> The reasoning on the latter would be that the soul of the unborn child would be denied Heaven.<ref>{{cite web|title=Effraenatam in English|url=http://iteadjmj.com/aborto/eng-prn.html|quote=Who will not detest such an abhorrent and evil act, by which are lost not only the bodies but also the souls? (Popes believe in the limbo of the little ones) Who will not condemn to a most grave punishment the impiety of him who will exclude a soul created in the image of God and for which Our Lord Jesus Christ has shed His precious Blood, and which is capable of eternal happiness and is destined to be in the company of angels, from the blessed vision of God, and who has impeded as much as he could the filling up of heavenly mansions (left vacant by the fallen angels), and has taken away the service to God by His creature?}}</ref>

Sixtus also attempted in 1586 to introduce into the secular law in Rome the [[Old Testament]] penalty for [[adultery]], which is death. The measure ultimately failed.<ref>Diarmuid MacCulloch, ''Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700'' (London, 2008)</ref>