Definition of EXCOMMUNICATION

Examples of excommunication in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

While not a lifelong ban, excommunication is a rare move that amounts to the harshest punishment available for a church member. — Brady Mccombs, Fox News, "Mormon fighting to end youth interviews ousted from faith," 16 Sep. 2018 While not a lifelong ban, excommunication is a rare move that amounts to the harshest punishment available for a church member. — Brady Mccombs, Fox News, "Mormon fighting to end youth interviews ousted from faith," 16 Sep. 2018 Breaking it for any reason is a grave sin punishable by excommunication. — Rob Taylor And, WSJ, "New Laws Require Priests to Break the ‘Seal of Confession’," 3 Aug. 2018 While not a lifelong ban, excommunication is a rare move that amounts to the harshest punishment available for a church member. — Brady Mccombs, The Seattle Times, "Mormon man opposing youth interviews says ouster likely," 10 Sep. 2018 The church holds the seal of confession to be inviolable, on pain of excommunication, and Holy See officials have urged the church in Australia to oppose legal changes targeting the confessional seal. — Rob Taylor, WSJ, "Australian Bishops Reject Reporting Sexual Abuse Revealed in Confession," 31 Aug. 2018 In 2008, the Vatican issued a decree stating that anyone trying to ordain a woman as a priest and any woman who attempted to receive the ordination would incur automatic excommunication. — BostonGlobe.com, "This day in history," 29 May 2018 By the time the two women escaped and reunited weeks later with Ms. Jesmin’s husband in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, the excommunication had begun. — New York Times, "When a Baby Is an Everyday Reminder of Rohingya Horror," 7 July 2018 That kind of excommunication seems impossible today, even surreal. — Chris Richards, chicagotribune.com, "The 5 hardest questions in pop music," 3 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'excommunication.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.