Question XXI: On the penalties imposed on perjurers

THAT you may perceive the malice of Perjury, take the penalties imposed on it by the laws; these, once rightly known, will make you acknowledge its malice. Hence it pleases me to take up again the questions of D. Bonaventure 3. dist. 39., which I have not threshed out to the letter under their own titles, because as to those, they indeed seem easy, but they include very many questions graced with alien titles, which I have deferred: from these I will taste some of the omitted things, lest I leave anything untouched in the S. Doctor.

BY THE FIRST question he shows that Perjury is always infected with some falsehood: next, that it is always a sin against the honor of God; and finally, by its genus, mortal. See the S. Doctor.

FURTHER, that it is graver than homicide, because this tends to the life of man, but that to the honor of God, as S. Thomas teaches quodl. 1. quaest. 9. art. 2. Sotus lib. 3. de Iust. quaest. 2. art. 3. Azor tract. 1. lib. 11. cap. 12. quaestio 6. Sylvester V. Periur. quaest. 2. Tab. quaest. 4.

THE OPPOSITE, I confess, is proved by Richard 3. dist. 39. art. 4. quaest. 1. Gabriel quaest. 2. art. 3. dub. 4. Maior, Angelo V. Periur. Sylva de benefic. 3. part. quaest. 2. art. 3. Rebuf. de pacific. poss. num. 234. thus: What is punished more gravely is a graver crime: Homicide in every rightly ordered regime is punished more gravely than perjury: Therefore. The Major is held from cap. ult. de vita, et honest. cleric. cap. foelicis, §. Illud, ubi commonly the Doctors de poenis, lib. 6. cap. Nisi de offic. deleg. leg. Levia, ubi the Doctors ff. de accus. leg. Respiciendum, ff. de poenis, the Minor is plain, if the penalties of homicide, related Tract. de Iustitia, disp. de Hom. are compared with those which I recite as assigned to Perjuries, on which Fagundez in 2. praecept. cap. 51.

THE FIRST is the legal infamy of perjury solemnly proven in court, So Suarez tract. 2. de Relig. lib. 3. de Iur. cap. 19. Clarus lib. 5. scient. §. Periurium, indeed by CIVIL law. Canonical infamy is held from 6. quaest. 1. can. Si quis convictus fuerit, alios ad falsa testimonia, vel ad periuria attraxisse, vel quaecunque corruptione sollicitasse, ipse quidem usque ad exitum vitae non communicet: Hi vero, qui ei in periurio consensisse probantur, postea ab omni testimonio sunt removendi: et secundum legem infamia notabuntur. It is added by some: after private penance, 6. quaest. 1. with D. Bonavent. in confessionali, cap. 3. particula 33. He speaks, moreover, of one breaking a promissory oath, doubtless because it remains in his power to give truth to the oath itself, which does not happen in an assertory one. See Tanner quaest. 8. dub. 1.

THE MANY penances imposed for perjury by the sacred canons, the S. Doctor reports loco cit. particula 32. Sic 22. quaest 5. can. Si quis periurat pro vita corporis servanda, quia magis dilexit corpus, quam animam, ieiunet tres quadragesimas. Again Pope Pius there: Who, compelled by a lord, knowingly perjures himself, both are perjured, the soldier and the lord; the lord, because he commands; the soldier, because he loved the lord more than his soul; if he is free, let him do penance for forty days on bread and water, and for the seven following years: if he is the lord's slave, let him do penance three Lenten seasons and the legitimate ferias, and in the same place: Who perjures himself on the hand of a Bishop, or on a consecrated Cross, let him do penance three years. But who was compelled, and perjured himself in ignorance, and afterwards learns it, let him do penance three Lenten seasons. So relates S. Bonaventure loco cit. partic. 31.

HENCE you have from D. Bonavent. quaest. 2. ad 4. that he who perjures himself when driven by fear is not excused from the whole.

NOR let any necessity be alleged, because perjury is always evil, nor is it the same as taking another's goods in necessity, because then they begin to be common.

THIS canonical infamy is contracted, if the perjury is not occult, but public and evident, as Suarez notes tract. 2. de Relig. lib. 3. de Iurament. cap. 19. num. 13. See also Sanchez lib. 3. decal. cap. 3. But by civil law it is indeed more probable that it is also required that the oath be solemn, and that he be condemned of this in court. So Archid., whom Sylvester follows, V. Periurium, quaest. 5. Tab. V. Iur. quaest. 21. Sotus lib. 8. de Iust. quaest. 1. art. 10. Aragon. 2. 2. quaest. 89. art. 10. D. Anton. inclines 2. part. tit. 10. but Sanchez rather loco citato urges it.

BUT observe, canonical infamy is purged and erased by penance; but civil infamy is indelible, and is removed only by the rehabilitation of the Prince.

SECOND, they are barred from testifying; yet they are not barred ipso facto, but the laws say they are to be barred, as relates the S. Doctor above 22. quaest. 5. cap. Parenteli, where also the perjurer is to be barred from the oath of purgation of himself: but oaths, which are rather of burden, he shall give.

THIRD, an assertory oath is punished with the penalty of stellionate leg. ult ff. de crim. stellion. Hence he is exiled for a time. But a promissory one also pays the penalty of the contract, and loses every action and every advantage of the agreement.

MOREOVER, simple perjury inflicting injury and prejudice on a private man is punished by Pontifical law with the penalty of deposition from order, if he is a cleric cap. cum non ab homine, de iudic. But cap. si Episcop. d. 50. it is decreed, that if he be false in judgment, he be further confined to a monastery.

IF he is a lay perjurer, in a capital crime, he is to be punished with the same penalty by which a culprit convicted of such a crime would be punished. But if the crime is not capital, deportation, and the publication of all his goods, if he is free, is inflicted: but in a slave, the ultimate punishment.

FOURTH, the perjurer is to be deprived of a benefice, and a collation of a benefice made to a culprit of perjury is null by the law itself, because the perjurer is infamous. See Sayrus lib. 5. cap. 9. Sylvester V. Periur. num. 5. Sotus lib. 8. quaest. 2. art. 3. concl. 6. Caietanus quaest. 89. art. 2. Fillincius tract. 25. num. 12. Bassaeus V. Iuram. 5. num. 1.

HE IS NOT, however, deprived ipso facto of the benefice he possesses. See Fagundez cap. 51. num. 15. The reason is, because the laws do not say: ipso facto. But to bar him from a new benefice, canonical infamy suffices, if the offense is notorious, and cannot be denied by any tergiversation, nor concealed by any remedy of law.