Is it time for Holy Mother Church to update her parenting skills?

As a parent, Holy Mother Church’s parenting technique of excommunication greatly confuses me.  My confusion stems from my experiences as an actual versus mystical mother: watching what does or doesn’t work in correcting real children’s behavior, what is or isn’t a socially acceptable technique, what harms or hurts a child.  Perhaps a real parent’s reflections have a valid place guiding and informing the pope and his entourage of other single childless fathers who determine Holy Mother Church’s parenting techniques?

Excommunication is supposed to correct inappropriate behavior and thought.  It involves withholding the Eucharist from and social isolation of the transgressor.  Sometimes it is dispensed using public shaming tactics as well.

A mother, who withholds food from her child until she approves of the child’s behavior, at best, would be considered a poor parent.  Sociologists would consider the mother committing an act of personal physical violence against the child by denying it sustenance based upon behavior (Galtung).  Likely, the mother would be arrested, prosecuted and convicted of child abuse for negligence and cruelty.  Not only would secular courts denounce such behavior, the church would consider it sinful. 

The church teaches that the Eucharist is the “bread of life”, nourishment required for eternal life.  Furthermore, it teaches that the faithful should be more concerned with eternal life than life on earth.  Thus the Eucharist becomes more important than normal food to believers because it sustains eternal versus mortal life.  However the church withholds or threatens to withhold this essential food from people unless their beliefs and behaviors align with Mother Church’s.  Noted sociologist Johan Galtung speaks of “structural violence” occurring when something is used to “threaten people into subordination”.  Is it then reasonable to infer that real and threatened excommunications are acts of structural violence?

Perhaps some consider excommunication an externally imposed fast that leads to spiritual growth.  How does indefinitely withholding food encourage growth in a child?  Starving children in impoverished parts of the world eat dirt to fill their stomachs with something.  Why would the church expect starving her children would inspire different responses?  For every child reformed through excommunication, how many instead find something else to countermand their gnawing hunger?

Some parents reward appropriate behavior with edible treats.  “If you behave at school, I’ll give you a cookie after school” is an example of this technique.  For various reasons, parents do not agree universally that this is a healthy, effective parenting technique.   Nonetheless this parenting tactic is at least not considered violently abusive. 

Regardless, I have difficulty drawing an analogy between excommunication and the “reward” oriented parenting technique because I cannot denigrate the Eucharist to being analogously similar to a candy bar or cookie.   It’s not a treat; it is the bread of life.  Therefore, it would be sacrilegious for someone to try justifying excommunication as analogous to reward-based parenting tactics.

Another parenting tactic that came into fashion over the last 20-30 years is a “timeout” wherein the misbehaving child is socially excluded for a period of time.  The guide is one minute of “timeout” per year of the child’s age.  Anything beyond that is considered abusive.   The idea is to give the child a moment to step outside the situation and re-collect and then re-enter the social setting with another chance.  This parenting tactic is accepted pretty much universally as non-abusive and fairly to highly effective.

I cannot liken excommunication to a “timeout”, though, for a couple of reasons: its duration, its tie to exclusion from other activities and organizations within the church’s social setting including the Eucharist, and its being dispensed with humiliation sometimes.  A prolonged, indefinite “timeout” would be considered child abuse.  A prolonged, indefinite “timeout” that included indefinitely withholding food would be considered extremely abusive.  An indefinite “timeout” that indefinitely withheld food and was dispensed using public humiliation would be considered abhorrent.

Maybe excommunication is supposed to parallel the very rare situation when a mother expels her child from the home.  That tactic is only used on adult children because a parent would not expel children incapable of providing for themselves.  Since Mother Church's children are not capable of obtaining the life sustaining Eucharist for themselves outside the church is it ever valid for her to kick her kids out of the house?  Occasionally differences between adult children and parents become so strained that children exclude themselves from family.  If excommunication is supposed to parallel those situations, then shouldn't the person rather than Mother Church get to say when the person severs ties?

I just wonder what the logic is behind Holy Mother Church using excommunication as a parenting technique.  What sociological and theological evidence suggests it produces more good than harm?  Is it time for Holy Mother Church to update her parenting skills?  Is it time for some real parents to help Holy Mother Church discern effective discipline approaches?

(Thanks to Nita and Aimee for the posting idea!)