Article II. On the Subject of Law

91. Principles. - I. Every man is born and remains subject to natural law. For since natural law is the divine will itself prescribing things consonant with right reason, it is imprinted on the mind of every man with an indelible character. Therefore it happens per accidens ¹ that, reason being enveloped, it is not immediately recognized, or sometimes ceases to be known.

¹ These things must be said thus, because man is never considered exempt from natural law, but is only excused from guilt when, in violating it, the perfection of the act is lacking. Hence it also follows that he whose use of reason is impeded cannot be impelled to acts opposed to natural law; which happens otherwise if the discussion is of merely human laws.

II. All and only subjects habitually possessed of reason are subject to human law. - The reason for the first is that law cannot be made except for subjects. The reason for the second is that men habitually lacking the use of reason cannot be directed by laws.

III. Only men actually using reason can morally violate law; because, cognition being lacking, no one can sin, according to the things said in the Treatise on Human Acts, no. 4. - Hence those who lack reason for a brief time are said to be excused from fulfillment of the law, although they are subject to it.

92. Resolves. - 1. It is not licit to provoke infants and the insane to a thing intrinsically evil, for example to blasphemies, indecencies, etc.; because they, as having a rational nature, are obligated by the natural law in first act, or radically; and therefore they sin formally who provoke them to acts intrinsically evil. - Reuter, no. 167.

2. Infants and the perpetually insane are not subject to human law, as is clear from principle II. Therefore it is licit to give them flesh meat to be eaten on days on which it is prohibited by the Church, etc. ².

² Nevertheless this is not expedient with little children who before the seventh year begin to have some use of reason, although very imperfect. For it is of the greatest interest that from their little nails they become accustomed to bear the yoke of the Lord.

3. Yet the insane for a brief time, or those who have many lucid intervals, the drunk and the sleeping, are subject to law, because they are in a habitual state of the use of reason; nevertheless per accidens they are excused from it, if they are not actually possessed of reason. Hence it is not licit to give them flesh meat on prohibited days. - St. Lig., book 1, no. 155, etc.

4. Unbelievers, namely whoever have not been cleansed by Baptism, are not obligated by ecclesiastical laws; because they are not yet subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, although they are held to enter the Church ³.

³ Therefore marriages among them are valid, although they are contracted with some impediment of merely ecclesiastical law.

5. Heretics, schismatics, and any other baptized persons, even if not Catholics, are held per se by ecclesiastical laws; because although they are rebels, they do not cease to be subjects of the Church: nevertheless per accidens in practice they do not seem to sin; because they scarcely know that from their condition they are held to observe these laws, even if perhaps they already know the necessity and obligation of entering the Catholic Church.

6. For the same reason, excommunicates are bound by the laws of the Church, although they have been cast out of the Church; otherwise they would obtain a benefit from their own malice ⁴.

⁴ Except unless the excommunication itself forbids the exercise of those acts which otherwise are commanded, for example, to be present at Mass.

93. Questions. - QUESTION 1. Whether Clerics are held by civil laws?

I answer 1. Certainly they are not obligated by laws which are repugnant to ecclesiastical immunity still in force, or to their state, or to the sacred Canons. Thus commonly. - 2. Certainly they are obligated to all laws which immediately regard the common good. - 3. As to other laws, they seem to be held just like the rest, because they are part of the community, and the Church requires and commands this. - Thus more commonly. - Suarez. - Reuter, no. 168.

QUESTION 2. Whether children are held to ecclesiastical laws as soon as they have attained the use of reason, although they have not yet completed the seventh year?

I answer affirmatively as more probable. Because every man using reason is by that very fact subject to law, as is clear from principle II. - St. Lig., no. 155 (as more probable). - Nevertheless not a few probably deny, because, as they say, the Church is considered to attend to those things which happen commonly. - Thus Lacroix, no. 676 (as probable). - Reuter, no. 167. - St. Lig. (as probable), book 3, no. 270. - Elbel, no. 369.

94. • QUESTION 3. Whether travelers are held by the laws of their own territory?

I answer 1. Generally no, because law, which regards a community, is territorial, and does not affect persons except through territory. - Thus all.

I answer 2. If they depart with the intention of withdrawing themselves from the obligation of the law, it is disputed.

Concina, Collet, Antoine, and certain others affirm; because, as they say, one's own fraud ought to patronize no one.

But the Doctors more commonly and more probably deny; because one departing from the territory does not act in fraud of the law, but uses his own right. - St. Alph., book 1, no. 156. - Elbel, no. 370. - Lacroix, no. 683, etc. ⁵.

⁵ What is said of the laws of one's proper territory is valid also of the law of common right, when the traveler is staying where this is not in force. St. Ligorius, book 1, no. 156. Yet what is added, that it does no harm if someone leaves his territory with that intention, has no place if he leaves his territory in order to be absolved from reserved sins, or in order to celebrate matrimony clandestinely in a place where the decree of Trent concerning the necessary presence of the parish priest and two witnesses for the validity of matrimony is not in force.

QUESTION 4. Whether travelers are held by the laws of the place in which they are staying?

I answer 1. Affirmatively, if they have a quasi-domicile there ⁶, which is acquired by habitation and the intention of living somewhere for the greater part of the year. The reason is that through quasi-domicile they become truly subjects of that place. - Thus nearly all. - St. Lig., book 1, no. 156.

⁶ But now if they have a quasi-domicile there, they are no longer travelers. For a traveler is called whoever is staying somewhere, having neither domicile nor quasi-domicile.

I answer 2. All travelers and vagrants are held to the special laws of the place in which they are staying, 1. as to contracts, 2. as to things necessary for the common good. - Thus all.

I answer 3. As to other laws, there is a threefold probable sentence.

The first sentence, more probable, excuses them, scandal being excluded, because law does not oblige except subjects. - Thus St. Lig., book 1, no. 156, etc.

The second sentence obliges them to all laws, because he who feels the advantage ⁷ ought also to feel the burden. - Collet. - Antoine.

⁷ The traveler feels the advantage insofar as he is both exempted from observing the proper laws of his own territory, and enjoys the privileges of the place in which he travels.

The third sentence distinguishes thus: They are held to all laws if they have arrived at the end of the journey; but if they have not arrived, only they are held to negative laws. - Thus Suarez with certain others ⁸, who nevertheless concedes that the first sentence also is probable.

⁸ Suarez (On Religion, tr. 2, book 2, ch. 14, nos. 18 and 23) in reality contends that travelers, even those passing through, for the time in which they rest in some place, are held by its laws, and indeed not only negative, but also positive, unless they bring some harm or inconvenience; and therefore he judges that a traveler who remains there for the whole morning time of a feast day is obligated to hear Mass. Nevertheless, from the general canon the mere probability of this sentence is not sufficient to induce an obligation. Wherefore also void and of no value is that conclusion which Suarez deduces from this sentence of his, that a traveler is subject to the reservations of sins proper to the territory in which he travels.

95. From the things said concerning travelers you will resolve. - 1. If in your territory or parish there is a fast, and on the same day you go to a place where there is no fast, you can dine in the evening. - Thus commonly.

2. Probably you can also breakfast, if you are about to depart in the morning, as Busembaum, Lessius, Sanchez, etc., teach against others, and the Salmanticenses with Suarez judge probable, according to St. Lig., no. 157 ⁹. The reason is that fasting is something individual.

⁹ ** St. Alphonsus merely writes: The Salmanticenses, On Law, ch. 3, no. 70, judge it probable with Suarez. Yet in reality the Salmanticenses (On Law, ch. 3, no. 68), and after them St. Alphonsus, here gratuitously allege Suarez, who in the place alleged by the Salmanticenses (On Law, book 3, ch. 32, no. 3) has nothing concerning this question. Besides, the Salmanticenses (ibid., no. 70) preferred to proceed by another way, namely establishing that account must be had of the territory in which someone stays for the greater part of the day. And indeed this opinion also pleased Laymann, who nevertheless (book 4, tr. 4, ch. 11, no. 7), no otherwise than the Salmanticenses, judges the Author's sentence probable.

3. Being in the morning in a place where there is no fast, you can eat flesh meat, even if around midday you are going to return home, where there is a fast. At home, however, you are certainly held to abstain from flesh meat. - St. Lig., no. 158.

4. If in your territory or parish there is a special feast, and you are about to set out to another place where there is no feast, you are not held to hear Mass before departure, provided you are going to arrive outside the place where the precept is in force before the time of obligation ceases. The reason is that the precept does not oblige you to wait. - St. Lig., book 1, no. 157. - Salmanticenses, no. 66, against Antoine, etc.

5. Travelers are held to all common laws in force in that place, even if in their own territory they were abrogated, or through dispensation did not oblige here and now. The reason is that they are subject to the common legislator, and while absent they do not enjoy the privilege of their own territory. Thus a Frenchman outside his homeland is held to Mass on the day of Epiphany, etc.; a Spaniard to abstinence on Saturday, etc. - St. Lig., Apostolic Man, no. 39.

6. Probably travelers are not held to observe the particular law of some place, even if the same particular law is in force in their own territory: the reason is that they are neither held by the laws of their homeland, because they are absent; nor by the laws of the place in which they are staying, because as travelers they are not subject to them. - Reuter, no. 479. - Lacroix, no. 686, against St. Lig., book 1, no. 156.

7. If someone has already satisfied a common law in his homeland or his territory, more probably he is not held to satisfy it again when he arrives in a place where it urges later. Thus an Italian or Spaniard, who fasted in his homeland on the vigil of St. Peter, is not held to fast again in France, where this fast is transferred to the following Saturday. The reason is that there is no obligation of fulfilling the same precept again, since it has already been fulfilled in its own time: for where a determinate debt has already been paid, it is not to be paid again. - See Cases, no. 79 and following.