CHAPTER VIII: ON THE CESSATION OF LAW

165. • Law can cease in various ways.

1° By abrogation or derogation, according as it is abolished altogether or only in part: for just as the Superior can make a law, so he can either remove or restrict the same. But each can happen in a threefold way. a) By revocation of the legislator or superior, which however, in order to be licit, requires a just cause. b) By legitimate desuetude or contrary custom, about which below. c) By a later universal law contrary to a prior law likewise universal, and insofar as it is contrary to the same. We have said: likewise universal; for it is established in law that a special law is not derogated by a general one, unless either specific mention of that law is made, or it is otherwise established that such is the mind of the legislator, or it is said: no custom standing in the way, n. 187. 1°.

2° By the cessation of the adequate motive cause, or of the total end, on account of which it was made, with respect to the whole community; for when the cause of the law ceases, the legislator cannot reasonably urge it any longer.

I say: 1) adequately, or the total end; wherefore if prayer has been commanded for obtaining peace, when peace has been obtained, you will abstain from reciting the prayer without any declaration of the Superior; but if prayer for whatever necessity was commanded both for obtaining peace and for driving away an epidemic, when peace has been obtained, but the epidemic is still raging, the obligation of reciting it will not cease.

I say: 2) with respect to the whole community; for it is otherwise if it ceases only in a particular case, or with respect to some persons; for then a distinction must be made. For either it ceases contrarily, namely it is rendered harmful or at least very difficult, as when on a fast day someone has only meats for eating, and it does not oblige; or it ceases only privatively, that is, for that particular case or that person it becomes useless, or no longer conduces to the end which it intends. And in this case to St. Alphonsus,¹ although he admits the opposite is held by many grave Doctors, the more common opinion is more pleasing, which denies that the law ordinarily ceases, since scarcely ever is there not present the danger of hallucination, by which each one in his own cause can easily be deceived. Hence then the law is equated to a law founded on a presumption of law, which always obliges (n. 129. 2°). Hence betrothed persons are not exempted from the proclamation of banns, even if they prudently judge that no impediment of marriage underlies.

I said: denies that law ORDINARILY ceases; for although rarely, yet sometimes, namely if this can be clearly gathered from the mind of the legislator, it will cease, even if the end of the law ceases only privatively.

If there is present a solitary probability (n. 52. 3°. n. 69. 2°) that the law has been abrogated or deleted by contrary custom, or that its end has adequately ceased, you will be able to resolve for liberty.²