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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
Do not, he says, hastily cut them off, but carefully enquire into all the circumstances, and when thou hast thoroughly informed thyself, then proceed against the offender with rigor, that others may take warning. For as it is wrong to condemn hastily and rashly, so not to punish manifest offenses is to open the way to others, and embolden them to offend. "Rebuke," he says, to show that it is not to be done lightly, but with severity. For thus others will be deterred. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
That is, those who persist in sin and whom you find after thorough investigation, rebuke strongly and strictly, not to satisfy your own anger, but so that the rest may be instructed through fear. For a bishop must also be fearsome. For just as it is harmful to condemn thoughtlessly, so it is destructive not to rebuke the guilty, because through this the disease of sin spreads to many. But how then did the Lord say in the Gospel: "If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him between you and him alone" (Matt. 18:15)? …
Cyprian
That the sinner must be publicly reproved. In the first Epistle of Paul to Timothy: "Rebuke them that sin in the presence of all, that others also may be afraid."
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
What, then, is the path of duty, seeing that it often happens that if you inflict punishment on one he goes to destruction; whereas, if you leave him unpunished, another is destroyed? I confess that I make mistakes daily in regard to this, and that I know not when and how to observe the rule of Scripture: "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others may fear;" and that other rule, "Tell him his fault between thee and him alone;" and the rule, "Judge nothing before the time;" "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
Thomas Aquinas
Then when he says, reprove those who sin, he shows how they are to be punished, if proved guilty: first, he shows that they must be punished publicly; second, he adjures him to observe this, at I charge you, before God. He says, therefore: reprove those who sin, whether they be priests or not, before all. Why? So that the rest also may have fear. Yet the procedure in such cases is not the same as that in fraternal correction; because the judge is a public person. …
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