damned. Feeney criticized Cushing for, among other things, accepting the church's definition of “baptism of desire". Finally, in 1949, Cushing declared Feeney's St. Benedict's Center off-limits to Catholics. That same year Boston College and Boston College High School dismissed four of the Center's members from the theology faculty for spreading Feeney's views in the classroom. In light of his controversial behavior, his Jesuit superiors ordered him to leave the Center for a post at College of the Holy Cross, but he repeatedly refused, which led to his expulsion from the order. Cushing suspended Feeney's priestly faculties in April 1949; Feeney continued to celebrate the sacraments although he was no longer authorized to do so. On August 8, 1949, Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani of the Holy Office sent a protocol letter to Archbishop Cushing on the meaning of the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the church there is no salvation), which Feeney refused to accept. This protocol, approved by the Pope on July 28, 1949 stated "(T)his dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Saviour gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church." On October 25, 1952, Feeney received a letter from Cardinal Pizzardo, Secretary of the Holy Office, summoning the priest to Rome. Feeney replied to Cardinal Pizzardo requesting an explanation of the charges against him in order to prepare his defense as per canon 1723, but none was forthcoming. Petitions to Pope Pius XII went unanswered. After Feeney repeatedly refused to reply to a summons to Rome to explain himself, he was excommunicated on February 13, 1953 by the Holy See for persistent disobedience to legitimate church authority due to his refusal to comply. According to Cardinal John Wright, Pope Pius XII personally translated the edict into English. The decree of excommunication was later published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis in ANNUS XXXX V - SERIES II - VOL. XX, page 100. His followers said that his excommunication was invalid. Following his excommunication, Feeney set up a community called the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church in 1972 through the efforts of Boston Archbishop Humberto Cardinal Medeiros, but, given his age and health, was not required to retract or recant