Excommunication – being summarily cut off from the sacraments of the Catholic Church – was the logical, if extreme, expression of Ultramontanism, and of the paternal metaphor enshrined at its heart. It was the ultimate weapon in the Church’s battle with critics who sought to undercut or challenge its chosen role as privileged mediator between the state apparatus and the people, whether this came in the form of open rebellion against said state, or in the demand for individual intellectual freedom, or both. Studying the infamous cases of nineteenth-century excommunicates, Joseph Guibord and Louis Riel (together with their predecessors, the ill–fated Patriotes) yields important insights into the nature of excommunication, both when it “worked” (from the perspective of those who imposed it) and, just as crucially, when it did not.
