You must be joking. The church's excommunication back in the day went far beyond that. For example, when the Catholic church excommunicated Martin Luther, "It

You must be joking. The church's excommunication back in the day went far beyond that. For example, when the Catholic church excommunicated Martin Luther, "It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther) Many excommunications were of the form "vitandus", where the excommunicated was to be shunned by fellow Catholics. That's a pretty severe penalty when _everyone_ was Catholic.