QUITO -- Bishop Luis Alberto Luna Tobar on Wednesday excommunicated the
 entire population of an indigenous community in the Andean province of Azuay,
 for their involvement in a lynching earlier this month.

 After Mass on Wednesday -- the last to be celebrated in the town for an indefinite
 time -- the parish faithful were told they would be deprived of all sacraments --
 from baptism to last rites. Luna Tobar acted in response to the violent, summary
 justice handed down on a man accused of murder. The townspeople reportedly
 burned him alive.

 ``I do it with immense pain and immense love,'' Luna Tobar said. ``. . . This taking
 of justice into one's own hands cannot be allowed to continue in this country.''