03-01# The Rule of our Holy Father Benedict. Chapter 24: What the Measure of Excommunication Should Be
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The degree of excommunication or punishment should be meted out according to the measure of the fault; and let the abbot adjudicate as to the comparative gravity of faults. If now any brother be found at fault in lesser degree let him merely be excluded from the common table: and for one excluded from the common table this shall be the rule: that in the oratory he does not intone psalm or antiphon, nor read a lesson, until satisfaction be made; and that he have his meal alone and after the brethren have had theirs, so that, for example, if the brethren eat at noon, that brother eat at three o’clock; if the brethren at three o’clock, he at six, until he obtain pardon by making due satisfaction.