Excommunication

[Xeno.of.athens]

Wikipedia says ...

Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in communion with other members of the congregation, and of receiving the sacraments.​

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It is practiced by all of the ancient churches (such as the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox churches and the Eastern Orthodox churches) as well as by other Christian denominations, but it is also used more generally to refer to similar types of institutional religious exclusionary practices and shunning among other religious groups. The Amish have also been known to excommunicate members that were either seen or known for breaking rules, or questioning the church, a practice known as shunning. Jehovah's Witnesses use the term disfellowship to refer to their form of excommunication.​

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The word excommunication means putting a specific individual or group out of communion. In some denominations, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group. Excommunication may involve banishment, shunning, and shaming, depending on the group, the offense that caused excommunication, or the rules or norms of the religious community. The grave act is often revoked in response to manifest repentance.​

The glossary at the back of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says ...

 

[NewLifeInChristJesus]

Is there a point you're trying to make?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Is there a point you're trying to make?

Yes.

 

[NewLifeInChristJesus]

Yes.

Do you mind sharing it?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Do you mind sharing it?

Specifically that excommunication is not shunning.

 

[NewLifeInChristJesus]

Oh, ok. I saw there were two threads. Now I understand.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Oh, ok. I saw there were two threads. Now I understand.

There's also a thread about Anathema, to show that an anathema is neither shunning nor excommunication but something in addition to both applicable to objects, ideas, and people. In the case of people, it is people who are already excommunicate.

 

[NewLifeInChristJesus]

Do you deal with these things often?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Do you deal with these things often?

No.

But some in CF think that the anathemas of Trent are aimed at them, specifically.

 

[FireDragon76]

Specifically that excommunication is not shunning.

Popular imagination conflates the two. Shunning is far more damaging, even abusive, but widespread among some fundamentalist and anabaptist Protestant sects.

There have been plenty of influential figures in western culture that have been excommunicated (often for reasons that now days would be considered embarrassing), but it didn't silence them. William of Occam (a medieval philosopher and theologian who was very important in the development of western science and political theory), George Tyrrell, and Nikos Kazantakis are three that come to mind. Tyrrell even received a catholic funeral from his friends, who felt he was being persecuted needlessly. And Nikos Kazantakis stories became well known (Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ).