Support for abortion is heresy

It's [un]official!

CDF's undersecretary Fr. Augustine DiNoia, OP, asked a fellow Dominican to respond unofficially to some dubia canonist Marc Balestrieri submitted in August. Fr. Basil Cole, an associate professor at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington answered Marc's questions as follows (I'll translate and summarize):

1. Is the doctrine that 'directly procured abortion is a grave sin' a dogma of divine and Catholic faith, in the sense that the opposing error is to be considered a heresy?
Answer: Affirmative.

2. Is the doctrine that 'a law for directly procured abortion is gravely illicit' at least implicitly or even directly among the dogmas of divine and Catholic faith, in the sense that the opposing error is to be considered a heresy?
Answer: Affirmative.

He concludes:

if a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code.

And unless that Catholic proves himself to have been ignorant of the Church's teaching or the penalty, or otherwise not to be held responsible:

one is automatically excommunicated according to Can. 1364.

All this is marvelously clear, and just the sort of statement pro-life Catholics here in Massachusetts and elsewhere have hoped for in their efforts to fight the moral errors spread by some Catholics.

However, it's not an official statement of CDF. Does anyone know whether it is customary for a questioner to CDF to receive an unofficial reply from an expert rather than one from the Congregation? Would one expect it to be followed by an official response? Perhaps a response about such a weighty matter of public importance would have to go through the Congregation's procedures for review and approval. I hope that this letter hasn't been sent in place of an official response.

Update: CWN's weighed in on the story (two days later, not that there's any competition going on), adding an explanation about the form the response took: it's apparently standard procedure for CDF to refer laymen's questions to its consultors. But there is some dispute on the net about whether Fr. Cole is a consultor.

Postscript: Of all things! John Kerry, a dissenter on abortion legislation, may have a case in his favor, if Marc B.'s heresy complaint against him ever leads to a trial. Ignorance of the penalty can be a mitigating factor, and Kerry can credibly argue that he didn't know that support for abortion qualifies as a heresy. After all, the bishops don't seem to speak of it in those terms.