“Kick them out”: Voted off the island.

October 9, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

On this day in 1635 Colonial American Separatist Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for preaching that civil government had no right to interfere in religious affairs. Williams was seeking to establish freedom of worship through the separation of church and state.

(As important an issue as “separation of church and state” is, it’s not what caught my eye here. We’ll come back another time to the Americans United issues.)

Roger Williams stands in the company of those who have been excommunicated. “Kick them out” seems to be the answer for just about everything in our world, especially among Christians (no matter which end of the spectrum they’re on).

A couple of weeks back, the news carried the story of six Catholic nuns in Little Rock, Arkansas excommunicated by the Vatican because they tenacious hold on to their affiliation with a Canadian order of nuns (now described as a sect and also known as “the Army of Mary”). Its founder claims to have had regular visions of the Virgin Mary.  Her order, the Community of the Lady of All Nations, claims that the 86-year-old founder, Marie Paule Giguere is the reincarnation of St. Mary herself.

To which the Vatican’s firm answer is “Kick them out. Kick them all out.” For the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, no one has been excommunicated in 165 years of history. Apparently sticking by your sisters is a really terrible offense.

According to the Catholic News Service, the now-excommunicated Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.

Catholics don’t have a corner on this market. How many Methodist clergy, like the couageous Jimmy Creech have been disciplined or removed from their pulpits merely for solemnizing a relationship between two lovers of the same sex? “Kick them out.” Playwright and actor Steven Fales, in Confessions of a Mormon Boy, recounts the solemn and cruel manner in which he was excommunicated from the Latter Day Saints because he admitted he was failing in his sincere efforts to become heterosexual.

Excommunication is a rare and drastic act on the part of a community. When the Lutherans kicked Pastor Bradley Schmeling off its Clergy Roster for “ministering while gay,” they didn’t go so far as to excommunicate him. So apparently being gay is a less serious offense to Lutherans than receiving heavenly visions is to Roman Catholics.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says this of excommunication:

The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian, since his baptism can never be effaced; he can, however, be considered as an exile from Christian society and as non-existent, for a time at least, in the sight of ecclesiastical authority. But such exile can have an end (and the Church desires it), as soon as the offender has given suitable satisfaction. Meanwhile, his status before the Church is that of a stranger. He may not participate in public worship nor receive the Body of Christ or any of the sacraments. Moreover, if he be a cleric, he is forbidden to administer a sacred rite or to exercise an act of spiritual authority. [emphasis added]

The Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (published in 1987) is the only source I’ve ever seen for ritualizing Excommunication. I suppose other Christian groups have such a rite, or their regional offices would come up with one if needed. The Vatican, of course, has a well-developed rationale, and a code of law which governs everything.  Catholic theologians will gladly explain even the rules for having a heavenly vision.

And even though Roman Catholics revere Mother Mary and officially acknowledge the validity of “private visions”, something must be terribly wrong with Sr. Marie Paule Giguere that wasn’t wrong with St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and the visionaries and pilgrims to Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, etc. According to Zephyr, St. Mary has been popping back into this world ever since Saragossa, Spain around 40 a.d. These are just a few of the recognized appearances (sightings?):  Rome, Italy (ca. 352 AD), Walsingham, England (ca. 1061) Prouille, France (1208), Aylesford, England (1251), Czestochowa, Poland (1382), Guadalupe, Mexico (1531), Le Laus (1664), Lavang (1798), Paris, France (1830), Salette (1851), Lourdes (1858), Pontemaine 1870, Knock, Ireland (1879), Fatima (1917), and Medjugore (1981).

Confused? The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops explains it all to you here.

I suspect the reason people are rarely excommunicated from Protestant circles is that an individual tends to eliminate him or herself before the community or group is ready to kick that person out. The Vatican investigated Giguere for six years before she was excommunicated!  Who would sit still for that?

In the Reformed Church rite, there are three formal public Announcements which must be made first, witnessing to prior prayer and admonition of the offender. Then the Excommunication rite consists of a formal announcement, prayer, declaration and exhortation, concluding with another appropriate prayer.   I can tell when I’m not welcome; I don’t think I would be there for that closing prayer.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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