Mt 18, 15-18 The office of binding and loosing

(Mt 18, 15-18) The office of binding and loosing

[15] "If your brother sins (against you), go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. [16] If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that 'every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' [17] If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. [18] Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

(CCC 2472) The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known (Cf. Mt 18:16). All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation (AG 11). (CCC 1444) In imparting to his apostles his own power to forgive sins the Lord also gives them the authority to reconcile sinners with the Church. This ecclesial dimension of their task is expressed most notably in Christ's solemn words to Simon Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Mt 16:19; cf. Mt 18:18; 28:16-20). "The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of the apostles united to its head" (LG 22 § 2). (CCC 1445) The words bind and loose mean: whomever you exclude from your communion, will be excluded from communion with God; whomever you receive anew into your communion, God will welcome back into his. Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.