We Catholics think up lots of great stuff, we do.  For example, some nuns in Arkansas were just excommunicated for following the Army of Mary.   This here Army has attracted a whole lot of attention and keeps getting in trouble with Rome. 

Fascinating really.  I mean, from a religious perspective–this is all about authority and the idea that certain people control religious revelation, or, at least can gauged when that revelation is valid, and then, even when that revelation must be believed.   It’s a socioligist’s dream, really.

Excommunication bars the nuns from participating in the church liturgy and receiving the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, and other sacraments.

The diocese said the action was taken after the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration dated July 11 that the Army of Mary’s teachings were heretical and automatically excommunicated any who embraced the doctrine.

According to the Catholic News Service, the Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.

Dionne said she did not know if Giguere was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary but said she believed God communicated through the sect’s founder.

A spokesman for the Army of Mary called the excommunication of the nuns and the other members of the sect an injustice.

Father Eric Roy said Giguere had not claimed to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and the Quebec woman, he said, “receives graces” from the Virgin Mary and God.