As a person who has been excommunicated (as a Mormon, not as a Catholic) for cause, and agreed with the reasons[1], I feel competant to answer this one.
Imprimus, I agree that many times excommunication is used incorrectly and often arbitrarily (example: excommunicating only one of a couple involved in adultery, where they were both complicit). It's easy to misuse, and certainly has been for 'political' purposes many times.
However, the principle of excommunication is basically none other than the right of any club to expel people who don't keep the rules of that club. If a member behaves in such a way as to show that they do not actually believe, then put them outside the rules. Some of them will then recant because their desire to be in the 'club' is greater than their desire to do what they want, others will go their own way (which is what I did) instead.
In the case of (say) the Catholic church, if a member decides to go up against the Pope or important doctrines publically then there may well be no way of dealing with that except to say publically "this person is not a member of the church". This happened recently with the Holocaust denier (a cardinal? something fairly high anyway), the church had to distance itself from his views and make clear that this person was not acceptable to them.
I see it that if a person has their own personal relationship with their deity, no one can take that away. Excommunication can't work, because it can't affect their personal practices. Only when a person delegates that relationship to another (a priest, for instance), and accepts that other person as being the only route to the deity can that relationship be taken away, and in that case the believer has already stated that they believe that what the church does is correct.
Of course, when the organisation is the only club in town (as in mediaeval times) and has all the power then you're stuck. That's a problem with the monopoly, though, not with excommunication per se.
[1] I'm not going to comment on the reasons in public (if anyone wants to know, they can ask me privately sometime). But I actually felt liberated when they made it official and bear them no malice at all for it.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 01:20 pm (UTC)Imprimus, I agree that many times excommunication is used incorrectly and often arbitrarily (example: excommunicating only one of a couple involved in adultery, where they were both complicit). It's easy to misuse, and certainly has been for 'political' purposes many times.
However, the principle of excommunication is basically none other than the right of any club to expel people who don't keep the rules of that club. If a member behaves in such a way as to show that they do not actually believe, then put them outside the rules. Some of them will then recant because their desire to be in the 'club' is greater than their desire to do what they want, others will go their own way (which is what I did) instead.
In the case of (say) the Catholic church, if a member decides to go up against the Pope or important doctrines publically then there may well be no way of dealing with that except to say publically "this person is not a member of the church". This happened recently with the Holocaust denier (a cardinal? something fairly high anyway), the church had to distance itself from his views and make clear that this person was not acceptable to them.
I see it that if a person has their own personal relationship with their deity, no one can take that away. Excommunication can't work, because it can't affect their personal practices. Only when a person delegates that relationship to another (a priest, for instance), and accepts that other person as being the only route to the deity can that relationship be taken away, and in that case the believer has already stated that they believe that what the church does is correct.
Of course, when the organisation is the only club in town (as in mediaeval times) and has all the power then you're stuck. That's a problem with the monopoly, though, not with excommunication per se.
[1] I'm not going to comment on the reasons in public (if anyone wants to know, they can ask me privately sometime). But I actually felt liberated when they made it official and bear them no malice at all for it.