Article II: On the Mutual Offices of Princes and Subjects

Office of the prince. Whoever conduct the highest affairs must procure the public good and contain themselves within the limits of their competence.

Office of subjects. Subjects are held by the obligation of subjection and reverence. 1. That subjection commands obedience to just laws, and forbids rebellion. But rebellion is properly had when an unjust overthrow of the existing regime is attempted. But injustice can be absent: a) if unjust vexations are such as give place to exercising the right of prudent defense, prudent, I say, and consequently with certain hope of a successful outcome; b) if the fundamental law itself has introduced a mutable regime. Yet unjust arts must always be avoided. Besides, the oath or sacrament of fidelity which has been made to a legitimate prince must be observed. Finally, piety and charity toward the fatherland also demand that, without manifest public utility, it not be disturbed by pursuits of revolutions even if not unjust.

2. Reverence imposes honor toward Princes and other officials according to their degree and condition. Against reverence one can sin gravely by interior contempt, if it affects the Superior, or the law as such. If it affects the person of the Superior insofar as he labors under such or such a defect or vice, the sin will depend on rashness of judgment. But by grave insult or detraction, by a denied sign of external honor when the Prince is to be honored publicly, if the denial, from the circumstances, is held as grave contempt, just as by formal contempt of the law, one will sin gravely.

Those offices, which are inculcated not once in Sacred Scripture, e.g. Rom. 13, 1; 1 Pet. 2, 13 ff., are very opportunely recalled to memory today. Yet today there are several, with attention to the form of regime, who, as individuals, possess no authority; to whom consequently, as individuals, much less observance is owed of itself.

The same worship and charity toward the fatherland which impels citizens to exercise piously the offices of observance, and not rarely religion itself also, will move the same citizens to discharge their political rights in due manner. (Cf. what was said, nn. 148, 149.)

And circumstances can be such that a legitimate and innocent Prince, from the same virtues of charity, piety, and legal justice, ought to abdicate power and remit the sacrament of fidelity. For the public good must be placed before personal dignity.

I. Notion: by the virtue of Observance, through virtue the excellence of another is honored. It helps good governance, according to the various order of which observance itself is distinguished specifically as political and religious.

II. Hired servants owe the faithful execution of promised service; on account of a denied just wage, hidden compensation can be cautiously and prudently permitted to them. Nor can they think themselves immune from every signification of observance.

Household servants besides, if minors by birth, participate in the rights and offices of quasi-piety; if greater by birth, they must at least reverence the domestic power of the master; they must also impede grave damage of the master, yet they are not bound from justice to watch over other servants or denounce those stealing, unless certain things have been expressly or tacitly committed to them. According to laws, usages, and circumstances, the offices of observance can be intensified or remitted.

III. Masters and Superiors are held by negative and positive offices of quasi-piety, besides the obligations of justice flowing from the contract. If they have adolescents or minors as servants, they must supply for parents.

IV. The master of works and the workman must observe justice in making and executing an agreement. Besides, the master from justice must preserve safe the person, or body and soul, as well as the honor and reputation of the workman; this, when there is question of adolescents, can be dispensed by no assent of parents.

Nor can the worker injure the things or reputation of the master. Strikes must be judged from end, from mode, and from effects, although they are to be numbered among social evils, as wars themselves; nor do they bring forward few difficult questions of cooperation.

Although according to various circumstances and customs these offices can be lesser or greater, nevertheless a bond of closer nearness, and a debt of quasi-piety in the one hiring works, and of observance in the hired workman, necessarily follow the contract, since from the agreement itself direction to the end of the work belongs to the master. But in the vows of nature there is a certain imitation of masterly society, by which hired workers approach household members.

V. Offices of princes. Whoever conduct the highest affairs must procure the public good and contain themselves within the limits of their power, even from justice.

Offices of subjects. They are held by subjection, which commands obedience and, excepting just defense, forbids rebellion; and by reverence, which exacts honor, and forbids contempt of the Superior as such, besides insult, detraction, and the denied external signification of honor. The sacrament of fidelity made to a legitimate Prince must also be observed.

Yet because not a few today, as individuals, can do nothing, they have title to much less observance.

Circumstances also can demand that a legitimate Prince, from piety itself toward the fatherland, ought to abdicate office and remit the sacrament of fidelity.