A bull of excommunication

"I wonder what his archbishship is after. Perhaps he's delivering a bull of excommunication. In a gaudy gift wrapper of course."

-Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess

This was pronounced by the lover of Kenneth Toomey in the novel, on the morning of his eighty-first birthday. More about the context of the first chapter here. I was flicking through the pages of Earthly Powers and I thought this would be how I'd love to officially, formally severe any kind of link I have with the Catholic Church. Not requesting an act of apostasy or whatever document one has to request and pay for. A good old bull of excommunication.I guess it is fairly rare nowadays and I may not have been impious publicly enough. But that is being kicked off in style.