Modern-Day Excommunication – New Podcast from the Pod Delusion

The new Pod Delusion podcast, episode 37, is out now. This time I’m talking about excommunication, in the light of the sad and infuriating case of Sister Margaret McBride. I also mention the awful case of the nine year old Brazilian girl who had been raped and was pregnant with twins – but apparently an abortion was beyond the pale. If you’re feeling studious, here’s the Catholic Encyclopedia on the subject.

One thing I didn’t go into was modern day, secular, forms of excommunication. This might involve not being photographed when you expected to be, or written about. On a smaller and more domestic scale, I can remember, if I’m honest, having transgressed group politics on more than one occasion, and found myself untexted, unemailed, and un-christmas-carded. But that was a long time ago, pre-social media. And the fallouts were over staggeringly petty things to do with who’d slept with who. Nowadays, someone would have had to have done something pretty awful to be mass-unfriended or unfollowed on Twitter and Facebook. Phew.

Here’s everything I’ve done for the Pod Delusion so far.