Chapter 23: Faults which deserve excommunication

If an individual in the community is defiant, disobedient, proud or given to murmuring or in any other way set in opposition to the holy Rule and contemptuous of traditions of the seniors, then we should follow the precept of our Lord. (From Ch. 23 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Excommunication has, for me, the horrible connotation of public shunning, or the punitive self-righteousness of institutions. But I think what Benedict's getting at, by looking at some of the problems he identifies (defiance, disobedience, pride, murmuring, opposition, contempt) is that the greatest faults one can have in community -- or in relationship -- are qualities that weaken the very body of the community. In that sense, it seems to me that excommunication (there has to be a better word for it -- maybe today we could think of it as "boundary setting", for instance) is a serious attempt to help someone realize what makes the community healthy and what makes it sick.