Article III: On Civil Law

— I. Author. The author of civil law is now almost everywhere not one person, but the consent of several, which not rarely is composed of the votes of Parliament, i.e., generally, of the more popular assembly (Camera), whose authority is accustomed to prevail, and of the more select college, or Senate; and of the sanction of the king or president of the republic.

Besides, under the name of a decree of the king or president (decret, arrete) there comes that secondary form of human law of which we spoke above, n. 264.

II. Promulgation. Civil laws have customarily been promulgated by insertion in some official Commentary (Raccolta ufficiale, Journal officiel, Moniteur); and they are accustomed to be vacant for a few days, unless immediate force is established.

III. Subject: What concerning clerics. As regards the subject of law, "from the common and certain opinion, clerics and other exempt ecclesiastical persons are altogether obliged to observe those civil laws which have been made for the public utility of the republic in a matter common to clerics and laymen, and which are not opposed to the sacred canons and to the clerical state and its dignity and offices" ¹. The source of the obligation is the civil law itself, from which the Supreme Pontiff alone is exempt by divine right; but the others are exempt by canonical law as regards the coercive part alone. And in itself, since the person is not made wholly sacred, but truly remains a citizen, nothing prevents clerics from being held by civil laws. Moreover the mind of the Church is that clerics obey just civil laws which are not repugnant to their state. (There are some who derive the obligation of clerics from divine-natural law or from canonical law. To the universal canonical legislator there is indeed not lacking power of obliging clerics for the common good; but such a law is not demonstrated to be present.)

As regards the coercive force itself, the Church indeed assigns to her clerics a privileged forum; and, insofar as circumstances permit this, she prudently protects immunity from the lay forum, in order that she may conciliate and preserve for the ecclesiastical hierarchy the greater authority which is useful to the republic itself. Yet because today privileges are accustomed to be more odious and, in a society where all things are founded on equality, in part appear less necessary, the Church herself, in concordats, sometimes renounces the privileged forum for civil causes, and even for criminal causes of clerics who are not bishops; the Secretariat of State declared in 1911, for Germany, Belgium, and Holland, that by a contrary usage of more than a century derogation could be made from that same forum ¹; the Holy See warns bishops that they never deny permission to cite clerics before the civil forum or to judge them; concerning that often violated immunity of forum it is silent, and it generally endeavors to obtain this, that without the leave of the Holy See a bishop not be dragged before a lay judge. Therefore it is necessary that by excellent honesty and simple care of obeying the laws, clerics avoid civil lawsuits, especially penal ones. When cited, they will ask their Ordinary what they should do; when consulted by magistrates who have to judge a cleric accused of a delict, they will advise that they secure permission for themselves; when not asked, they will generally not disturb good faith.

But clerics themselves will not sue other clerics, especially Superiors, before a lay judge, unless they have obtained the due faculty.

IV. Use in the ecclesiastical forum. The use of civil law in the canonical forum was formerly admitted generally, when a proper canonical disposition was lacking; and the civil law itself was supplied in like manner by canonical law. Civil law of this kind was said to be canonized (Cf. c. 1, De novi operis nuntiatione, V, 32). But today no general disposition of law can be alleged which would permit us, when canon law is silent, to apply civil law to canonical matter. Indeed such a disposition can scarcely be hoped for, since the perfection of canonical laws less demands civil supplements, and civil law no longer deigns to imitate canon law. Wherefore, with Wernz, I, n. 195, and R. P. Maroto, op. c. n. 384, we deny that the contrary opinion of D'Annibale, I, n. 201, can be admitted, to which nevertheless the Sacred Rota adhered in its argumentation, in the Bituricensian cause, Location, n. 22 ¹. And rather c. 20 stands in the way, which, when canonical law is lacking, by no means refers to civil law. But in certain matters the Code itself has commanded the application of the civil law in force in the region. Thus, for the time of urging obligations of contracts, c. 33, § 2; for the matrimonial impediment of adoption, cc. 1059, 1080; for prescription, c. 1508 (but with moderation, cf. the following canons); and for contracts in general, c. 1529.

V. Concerning the obligation of civil law we have already treated above, n. 253.

VI. Character and present-day tendency. Concerning the character and present-day tendency of civil laws these things are to be observed. For a long time, especially after the French upheaval, civil laws strove so to take account of the liberty of individuals, both in acting and in contracting, that they neglected and almost ignored social relations below the rule of public power. And because "individual liberty" is diminished through social bonds, they were therefore rather hostile to societies of persons (associazioni di persone). That "individualistic" regard was already being objected to Roman law itself. But the excessively absolute manner in which the free use of right was permitted to individuals, even to the stronger and more powerful, generated oppression of the lowly and various excesses which won favor for the opposite error of Socialism, which immediately tends to this, that common possession and administration of several things be substituted in the place of private possession and individual effort. But the social cares of laws which, before the war, prudently and cautiously were trying to adapt society to new circumstances, after the fortunes of war are now drawn headlong to inducing a new order, where, on account of alleged more general utilities, free use and free disposition of private goods and rights are contained within stricter limits, and at the same time collegial associations begin even imperiously to rule individual citizens of the same class.

How far public power can legitimately limit the rights of private persons is often difficultly and dangerously defined. Yet for that reason it is not lawful for us to ignore the matter and abstain from action. But labor must be applied, so that each best man, according to his strength, may try both to favor common progress and to preserve Society itself from ruinous errors.

¹ Wernz, I, n. 108.

¹ Cf. Periodica, VI, 190.

¹ A. A. S. IX, 549.

— Obligation of human law. By authority communicated through Divine Law, human law truly is the principal cause of moral obligation.

II. Because the common good itself requires acts of all virtues, law can make those acts necessary, so that, when the law is violated, one sins against those virtues.

III. The gravity of matter is to be estimated either from relation to the common good which is to be protected, or from relation to the order of natural law which is mediately violated. Therefore the object of the precept and the proportion of the means to that object must be considered.

Matter in itself very light can become grave from the end; wherefore the same thing will be light in civil society, grave in ecclesiastical society. The legislator can by a grave precept or prohibition avert the danger of a plurality of acts which singly would not greatly bear upon the common good. In doubt concerning matter, one must defer to the judgment of the legislator.

For his end, the ecclesiastical legislator is presumed to urge under grave obligation grave matter: which will he manifests both by words and by penalties, and approved authors also hand it down to us. Nevertheless various statutes or constitutions of associations and religious institutes are only penal laws.

The civil legislator does not lack the power of directly binding conscience. Yet, as many will have it, he is not thought today to have done this except insofar as it is necessary for the common good, although now minds incline more toward asserting obligation of conscience. Hence, the gravity of penal compensation can be an indication of a merely penal law. Nevertheless not rarely there will be added an obligation of natural law. And again the authority of doctors is to be held in very high account.

Yet violation of law from formal contempt of law or authority would always be grave. And the observance of law, such as is practiced by upright men, is to be inculcated upon all.

IV. Those things alone can be prescribed which conduce to the common good and pertain to social communication. Such are not internal acts; but truly such are hidden acts and acts mixed in various ways.

V. The application of the rule concerning "non-retroactivity" is to be understood thus:

1. The milder penalty is applied to the accused.

2. Acts remain valid if the required conditions were fulfilled when the act was posited, unless perhaps it can easily be repeated.

3. Effects produced before the new law always subsist; but the future efficacy of a valid act or of a juridic condition is to be estimated according to the new law.

4. The effects of agreements must be computed from the law under which they were made.

5. Finally a new procedural order is applied even to old causes, because it is judged better than the preceding.

Authority of the people. I. The people, as such, is not, in a constituted perfect society, the legislator. Therefore what they can do in regard to law must be derived from the prudently demonstrated will of the legislator. Now:

1. Through epikeia, a law can be held as suspended, until a response is obtained to difficulties legitimately proposed, v.g. by bishops to the Holy See. Say the same during appeal to a Superior.

2. Laws are confirmed by morals, insofar as general non-observance, unless the legislator expressly contradicts it, dispenses all from observing the law.

3. The mandate of the Ordinary concerning the observance of certain general laws which change diocesan usages can also prudently be awaited.

4. Custom is the best interpreter of laws.

II. Custom, which, as it is a thing of fact, is said to be a frequent mode of acting and the inclination arising thence to act similarly, as a thing of law is defined: a right introduced by the long-standing morals of the people. And thus it differs from prescription, which begets a subjective right, but not a norm of law. Every right of custom supposes some consent of the legislator, at least given generally, to reasonable customs, whether beside or against the law (cc. 27, 28); a people, or community for which law can be made; morals of the people, or frequent, uniform, public, deliberate acts, begetting an inclination; a long time, which now is of forty continuous and completed years. Custom by connivance is prescribed by a shorter time; while centenary and immemorial customs require either one hundred years or that the origin has escaped memory. The morals of the people must be reasonable, and consequently not expressly reprobated, especially as a corruption.

Division. There is custom according to law, which confirms and explains law; beside law, which adds to law; against law, which derogates from law: a special custom can derogate even from a universal law. There is general custom, indeed most general custom, or of the whole Church, while custom of a province is general; special custom, or that of a lesser community. The style of the curia is referred to special custom. There is ordinary or privileged custom: centenary and immemorial, which practically are equated, except that a clause revoking centenary customs does not yet revoke immemorial customs.

Custom ceases intrinsically through a contrary custom or a contrary law. A particular law abrogates particular customs; a universal law permits these to subsist, unless it expressly says otherwise, through a derogatory clause.

The secondary forms of laws are an instruction, which rather explains the law and not rarely at the same time defines certain things, and decrees of a king or of the president of the republic. This kind is common to both. Since they are accessory, they neither prevail over the law nor survive an abrogated law.

But through general decrees of Congregations, true pontifical laws are sometimes made.

On ecclesiastical law. I. Names. Neither special solemnity nor written form is prescribed to be observed by the ecclesiastical legislator. According to varied form there are distinguished: an Apostolic Constitution, or more solemn law contained in a Bull, which is inscribed: Pius, Servant of the servants of God; a Brief, which is given under the ring of the Fisherman; Encyclical letters, which are directed to a certain universality of persons; the words Motu Proprio, which demonstrate a spontaneous origin. Decrees are both of Councils and of Roman Congregations. Through rescripts an outside petition is satisfied. Laws are issued by living voice in a consistorial allocution. If they are contained in some Code, individual laws are called canons. Statutes designate laws made by non-pontifical authority, or also ordinances of the internal government of a college or moral person, such as a chapter, confraternity.

II. Promulgation by the Holy See now takes place regularly by insertion in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis; no special form is prescribed for bishops, who not rarely pronounce laws in synod.

III. Vacancy. Disciplinary laws, but by no means laws concerning faith or morals or those declarative of divine law, regularly are vacant for three months from the day inscribed on the fascicle of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis by which they are promulgated.

IV. The extension of universal law is to all the faithful. Yet Orientals are regularly exempt from disciplinary pontifical laws. Particular laws are presumed territorial, and regularly do not oblige subjects outside the territory for which they have been given.

V. Force of laws. A law is not presumed to be invalidating; ignorance prevents the penalty but not the effect of invalidation. In doubt of law, even an invalidating law does not urge; and in doubt of fact, dispensation can be given by the Ordinary, if the Pontiff himself is accustomed to dispense in that law.

VI. Duration. Laws of themselves remain until they are revoked. But a general law of itself does not derogate from a special law of places or persons. Yet the Code has removed laws even particular laws opposed to itself, as also customs which are not centenary or immemorial.

VII. Author of law. 1. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, or series of persons who in various degree participate either the power of order or of jurisdiction, or both, is of divine origin in itself, yet not in the individual persons by whom it is participated. It is of divine origin in the Supreme Pontiff and generically in bishops.

2. The first grade is occupied by the Supreme Pontiff, who, for exercising his universal jurisdiction, uses the Sacred Congregations, Tribunals, and Offices of the Roman Curia, and various Delegates. He himself also constitutes abbots or prelates nullius and prelates of clerical religious institutes. An inadequately distinct subject is an ecumenical Council. The second grade is that of residential bishops (titular bishops, as such, have no jurisdiction), with perfect ordinary power. In their curia there occur the vicar general, who is also the Ordinary of the place, the chancellor, and the official of justice. The bishop is aided by the chapter of the cathedral church, or, where a chapter is lacking, by the assembly of consultors. Over the districts into which the diocese is divided there is placed a dean or vicar forane with some function of inspection. In the diocesan synod, which is to be convoked in each ten years, the bishop alone is legislator.

When the see is vacant, the ordinary jurisdiction of the bishop passes into the cathedral chapter, which must, within eight days, pour it all into the capitular vicar.

Several dioceses constitute an ecclesiastical province, over which presides, with limited jurisdiction, the Archbishop or Metropolitan, the judge of appeal, while the other bishops of the same province are called suffragans. The Metropolitan himself must once for all, with the Holy See approving, choose from among the suffragans a judge of appeal from his tribunal. The provincial Council, to be celebrated every twentieth year, is constituted especially of bishops of the province and archbishops or independent bishops, who must once for all choose for themselves the provincial council at which they assist. Patriarchs, who are merely honorific in the West, in the East are supreme pastors of some rite.

A plenary Council of several provinces is not gathered without the permission of the Holy See. The decrees both of a provincial Council and of a plenary Council cannot be promulgated unless after they have been approved by the Sacred Congregation of the Council.

3. Legislators in the Church are the Roman Pontiff, whether alone or in Council; whether by himself or through the Roman Congregations. Within the ambit of the power granted, the Roman Congregations and Pontifical Legates are legislators. Next are the plenary and provincial Council; Bishops and Prelates of similar jurisdiction; when the see is vacant, the cathedral chapter and then the capitular Vicar; the general Chapter of exempt clerical religious Orders; sometimes provincial chapters; rarely the General Superior himself.

Bishops, by their laws, further determine universal laws and apply them to the diocese.

VIII. Subject of law. Universal laws of the Church oblige of themselves all the baptized who habitually are masters of themselves, even heretics and schismatics, with a certain exception saved for marriage. Yet as regards laws which directly regard the sanctification of persons, not a few exempt non-Catholics who by birth itself belong to constituted sects; and certainly they can be left in their good faith. Those doubtfully baptized, in the external forum, if baptism has been probable, are subjected to the laws; in the internal forum, the principle can be applied: no one is held by an uncertain law. The habitually insane are not held by merely ecclesiastical laws, nor those who because of age do not possess sufficient use of reason or are not older than seven years, except for the precept of annual confession and paschal communion, and with delicts also excepted. Yet penalties latae sententiae are not incurred by the impubes; and from the law of fast the faithful before twenty-one completed years and after sixty begun years are exempt. Particular laws of a territory oblige inhabitants, i.e. those who have domicile there; sojourners, i.e. those who have quasi-domicile there; and transients. Pilgrims, i.e. those who are staying outside their domicile or quasi-domicile, are of themselves immune.

Domicile, or stable seat, is either necessary, which the law assigns to a wife, an insane person, and one less than twenty-one years old, or voluntary, which is acquired by dwelling in some place with the intention of perpetual residence, if nothing calls away; or by dwelling prolonged for ten continuous years. Quasi-domicile is gained by dwelling conjoined with the intention of remaining there for the greater part of a year or, in reality, prolonged beyond six months. Each can be had either in a diocese or in a parish; and, if it has been voluntary, it is lost by departure from the place with the intention of not returning.

Inhabitants and sojourners are held in the territory by the particular laws of the place; indeed also when absent, if the laws are personal or if their violation harms in the proper territory. Pilgrims are held by universal laws in places where they are in force; outside their own territory they are held of themselves neither by the proper laws of their own territory nor by the proper laws of the territory where they are, "except laws which provide for public order or determine the solemnities of acts."

There are also exempt places. The house of an exempt religious institute is not fully exempt, but only by reason of the religious.

IX. Authentic interpretation of law is made by law, sentence, or rescript. Insertion in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis proves authenticity, but not the force of universal law of rescripts which are inscribed as directed to definite persons or regions. A declaration outside the A. A. S. is juridically ignored. Rescripts emanate from various Congregations; nevertheless the authentic interpretation of the Canonical Code is reserved to the special Pontifical Commission. An authentic interpretation by way of law must be promulgated, if the law was doubtful.

X. Computation of time, saving liturgical laws. 1. An hour, consisting of sixty minutes, is to be estimated of itself from the common usage of the place, with the option nevertheless made, for various obligations, of true, mean, legal, or extraordinary time. 2. A day consists of twenty-four hours, to be computed from midnight. 3. A week indicates, unless the law establishes that the week is to be taken as in the calendar, seven intervals, even non-continuous, of twenty-four continuous hours. 4. A month and a year, if they are not taken as in the calendar, designate respectively thirty and three hundred sixty-five days. When designated by their proper name formally or equivalently, or when continuous time is assigned, they are taken as in the calendar. 5. If the terminus a quo is assigned neither explicitly nor implicitly, time is computed from moment to moment. If the time from which is assigned, with the special case excluded of acts which, like vows or an election, are renewed at stated times: either it coincides with the beginning of the day, and then the first day is computed, so that when the last day of the same number has begun the time is finished; or it does not coincide with the beginning of the day, and then the first day is not computed, so that the time is finished only when the last day of the same number has been completed. But the last day of a shorter month, v.g. 28 February, is held as the day of the same number as the final days of a month which has more days. If the time is shorter than a month, the day of the same number is that on which the number indicated by the very space is repeated: the eighth day in an octave. 6. If acts recur after stated intervals, the time is finished when the same day on which it began recurs, with consideration of the hour neglected. As regards obligations of contracts, civil rules have force of themselves.

Continuous time does not admit interruption; useful time does not run for one who is ignorant or impeded.

XI. Privileges, in order that they operate in the external forum, must be duly proved. Of themselves, they are judged perpetual; with the clause "at our good pleasure," or a similar one, they are extinguished when the right of the one granting is resolved. Habitual faculties (even for a certain number of cases) are reckoned among privileges beside the law, and pass to Ordinaries as successors. Personal privileges pass with the person, real and local privileges with the thing and place; local privileges revive if the place is restored within fifty years.

XII. Dispensations. I. Author. 1. The Supreme Pontiff dispenses in every ecclesiastical law, but in no divine law; yet, for a just cause, he can relax a bond supposed by law. 2. Ordinaries do not dispense from pontifical law unless dispensation is expressly granted to them, or unless recourse to the Holy See is difficult, there is danger in delay, and dispensation is customarily granted by the Pontiff. Express faculty is given to Ordinaries of places in doubt of fact, in sacred times, in non-reserved vows and oaths, in interstices, in banns, in impediments of marriage, in irregularities from delict, in penalties, in prohibited books, in the examination of parochs. They also obtain peculiar faculties from the Sacred Penitentiary, from Propaganda Fide, or from the Sacred Congregation of the Council or concerning the Sacraments. They can dispense in laws to which is added: unless dispensation is given; in laws of a plenary or provincial Council; in synodal statutes. 3. Major Superiors of exempt clerical religious institutes come under the name of Ordinaries, and, as such, participate the mentioned faculties, with the exception of banns, impediments of marriage, examination of a paroch, the benefit of the clause "unless dispensation is given," decrees of a plenary or provincial council, and synodal statutes. They have besides special faculties. 4. Parochs dispense in sacred times and impediments of marriage. 5. Superiors of an exempt clerical religious institute, in sacred times. 6. Confessors in the conditions of indulgences. In more urgent cases, they can suspend penalties and absolve from reserved censures; and they also have a certain power in impediments of marriage. Regular confessors have privileges proper to themselves. 7. The priest assisting at marriage dispenses in impediments of marriage by reason of a more urgent case.

Power given for individual cases permits a special concession and not beyond what the present necessity requires.

II. The subject of dispensation is subjects everywhere, and transients in the territory where they are staying. Pilgrims are also subjects, when there is question of sacred times, vows and oaths, and more urgent cases for marriage and censures. Penitents are those whose confessions can be heard. An inferior to whom a general faculty of dispensing has been given can dispense with himself, but not of itself a confessor. With the Superior agreeing, Regulars can be dispensed by the Ordinary of the place, at least in cases in which their own Ordinary lacks faculty.

III. The obtaining of a dispensation for another is valid; and it holds in doubt concerning a sufficient cause.

IV. The use of a personal dispensation is of itself permitted everywhere. Nor does a dispensation cease if the motivating cause subsists in part, or if the removal of the cause has been doubtful.

On Rescripts. I. A rescript, or a response given in writing at the instance of one requesting, is of justice or of grace. From the Pontiff or from an Ordinary all, with the exception of a few excommunicated, suspended, or personally interdicted persons, can obtain rescripts for themselves or for others, which have force even before acceptance.

II. Validity is subordinated only to the particles if, provided that, or equivalents, and to the general condition: if the petitions rest upon truth. This clause must be true at the moment either of the grace given without execution or of execution. The truth of one motivating cause is always required, even if the rescript is given Motu Proprio. Yet except dispensations in lesser impediments of marriage. Errors in the designation of person, place, or thing do not stand in the way of validity.

III. The executor must be notified by authority concerning his faculty; he cannot deny execution if execution alone has been entrusted to him; otherwise if the concession is committed to his judgment. He must make execution in the external forum in writing; he can correct an error in a new execution; nor is he of himself prohibited from substituting another for himself. A rescript to which either no executor or an executor distinct from the Ordinary is designated does not of itself have to be presented to the Ordinary.

IV. By the vacancy of the see of the one granting, only those rescripts cease which have this clause or, while the matter is entire, which contain a particular grace to be made to persons designated in the rescript.

V. Recourse from one Superior to another, when a prior rejection has not been manifested, is sometimes invalid, sometimes merely illicit.

On the Roman Curia. The Roman Curia, distinct from the Pontifical Court and from the Vicariate of the City, consists of the Sacred Congregations, Tribunals, and Offices.

For all these, norms are prescribed by the Supreme Pontiff; secrecy, more or less rigorous, is imposed. They must make known to the Supreme Pontiff whatever is grave or extraordinary; and, with special faculties and the sentences of tribunals excepted, submit graces and resolutions to him for approval. Special commissions of Cardinals settle controversies concerning competence.

I. The Sacred Congregations essentially consist of Cardinals, to whom are added a Secretary and Under-Secretary (one or more), Consultors, and minor Officials. Competence is defined either by matter or by territory.

In their province they give general decrees and instructions; authentic interpretations; dispensations and graces; finally they settle causes by the disciplinary and administrative way.

Today eleven Congregations are numbered: the Holy Office - the Consistorial - that Concerning the Discipline of the Sacraments - that of the Council - that Set over the Affairs of Religious Sodales - that of Propaganda Fide - that of Sacred Rites - the Ceremonial - that for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs - that concerning Seminaries and Universities - that for the Eastern Church.

There is also the Congregation of the Reverend Fabric of St. Peter, not named in the Code, which, with the Congregation of the Council, has a common faculty of reducing the burdens of Masses and of pious legacies.

II. There are three Tribunals. 1. The Sacred Penitentiary (to which all can have recourse), for matters of the internal forum. 2. The Sacred Rota: the ordinary tribunal of appeal. 3. The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which is as it were a Court of cassation.

III. The Offices are: 1. The Apostolic Chancery, for expediting bulls. 2. The Datary, for conferring non-consistorial benefices. 3. The Apostolic Camera, for caring for and administering the temporal goods and rights of the Holy See, especially when the See is vacant. 4. The Secretariat of State, which has three parts: concerning extraordinary affairs, concerning ordinary affairs, concerning the expedition of briefs. 5. The Secretariats of Briefs to Princes and of Latin letters, through which the Pontiff cares that his Latin acts be written.

On civil law. Civil laws today are made generally by the consent of a double Parliamentary assembly and by the sanction of the Prince or President of the republic. The Prince or President also makes decrees, which must always at the same time be countersigned by a minister, so that there be someone who answers for them.

Civil laws have customarily been promulgated by insertion in an official periodical, and are accustomed to be vacant for some days.

The Supreme Pontiff alone is divinely exempt from civil laws. Other clerics are exempt by canonical law alone and as regards the coercive part. Indeed the Holy See sometimes renounces by concordats the privileged forum for civil causes and for criminal causes of clerics lower than a bishop; or it admits contrary customs. Elsewhere it is silent and generally strives to obtain this, that without the authority of the Holy See a bishop not be dragged before a lay forum. Clerics will try to avoid penal lawsuits; when cited they will ask their Superiors; when magistrates ask, they will advise that the due permission be secured; they will not disturb the good faith of the many. But they themselves will not sue other clerics before a lay tribunal without permission.

No law today generally canonizes civil laws; yet in certain matters the application of civil law in the canonical forum has been commanded.

After the excessive individualism of the nineteenth century, civil laws now incline toward the opposite excess, by which the liberty of individuals is more and more circumscribed. It is difficult to define how far the liberty of individuals can be coerced.

— I. Common character of every law. Every true law is a principle of unity. For through every law, men are directed in a harmonious manner to a social or common end. Since this end is the good immediately of all under the common quality of members, and mediately of individuals - for Society itself, sooner or later, exists for physical persons - the law which effectively leads men to that end is also of itself for them a principle of perfection and happiness. Therefore they err greatly who conceive or present law as hateful or hostile to man.

II. On divine law. 1. Yet without divine law, human law cannot truly be for individuals a principle of beatitude. For those who preside over the republic are compelled, on account of the common good, to command many things by which, directly or indirectly, citizens are deprived of temporal goods and of life itself, without any compensation of human or earthly good. Divine law alone, since it remunerates according to merit the moral value of every good action, effects that in the higher order we recover what has been lost in the lower order, and thus magnificently repairs that unnatural divorce by which happiness is torn away from morally more excellent action.

2. There is no human action which is not touched by divine law, since in every human action that supreme law must be observed by which every deliberation of ours must be a movement toward the end, or God. Therefore divine law is universal in its extension.

3. Insofar as it is a means to the end, it also has this excellence, that not even in the smallest part does it fall short of its primary end, which is the glory of God. Whether men obey divine law or resist it, they cannot take His glory away from God.

4. Therefore also divine law, without any definitive detriment of order, can leave to man the whole psychological liberty of acting otherwise than it commands. Therefore no broader and purer tolerance of evil can be devised than the divine.

5. But insofar as it pursues the intrinsic good of men, divine law, both natural and supernatural in the economy of the New Testament, agrees with the inborn appetite of the human will, by which it requires God as natural end, by which it also desires Him as supernatural end, to be possessed in Himself, if only divine munificence deigns to supply the essential defect of our proportion to such an end.

Wherefore he who, by obeying divine law, does the divine will, at the same time more perfectly fulfills his own proper will, and perfects his internal unity: his particular choices correspond to its general and unconquerable intention.

6. The same law of the present economy helps us to act well, both by the external stimuli of the truths which it teaches, of the examples of Christ which it proposes to be imitated, and by the internal motions of the Holy Spirit by whom it is continually written in our hearts; and especially when we approach the sacraments which are fountains of graces. And thus, while it procures for man the faculty and facility of execution, it becomes for him the principle of an inestimable moral liberty.

III. On human law. In our present condition, human law is deficient in its extension, since it cannot affect even all external actions of men, and consequently cannot prohibit all evils. Thence it is deficient in its tolerance, since unwillingly it is compelled to bear evils which it does not know how to recall to a better order. It is deficient in its finality, since it procures the end of the common good only imperfectly. It is deficient in its sanction, which is only of penalties, and which many guilty persons escape. It is deficient in its disposition, which sometimes is altogether deceived, and cannot be adapted except to things as they generally are, so that it must necessarily suffer accidental "failings." To guard against harmful excesses, human law must impose limits upon our physical liberty. And since the proper ordinances of human law are not demanded by the very essences of things, they also accord less with the internal aspirations of subjects. Finally, as merely external, it can foster and promote the moral liberty of man far less than divine law can.

But by divine law, human law is wonderfully aided, since from it it borrows light for directing, efficacy for coercing, and sweetness for obtaining willing docility.

IV. Obedience of Catholics. Worshippers of the true religion find in that divine law motives of a more sublime, easier, and fuller docility for obeying even civil laws. Of a more sublime docility, by obeying powers as ministers of God ¹; of an easier docility, by obeying as ministers unto good (2); of a fuller docility, by obeying not only to the eye but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart (3); and thus "purifying their souls in the obedience of charity" (4).

But what is by no means to be passed over, these motives of a more perfect docility destroy no reason of obedience which can remain available to non-Catholics or unbelievers.

If, therefore, we probably opine that several civil laws are only penal, let the adversaries of Catholics not be scandalized from this, nor pretend that they are scandalized. For even then there remain for us Catholics all the reasons of obeying which alone explicitly suffice for our honest adversaries for obeying every law. Therefore for us a law, even a penal one, is fortified and surrounded by the supports by which alone every law is protected by our adversaries. Indeed even such a law is urged upon us by the supreme law of every action of ours, which we must preach after the Apostle saying: "Let all your things be done in charity" (I Cor. 16, 14).

¹ Cf. Rom. 13, 1. 6. - (2) Likewise 13, 4. - (3) Eph. 6, 6. - (4) 1 St. Pet. 1, 22.

I. Every law is a principle of social unity, and consequently of perfection and happiness, far from being hateful and hostile to man.

II. Divine law, by its remunerative sanction, removes or prevents the divorce of honesty and happiness; in its extension it is universal; in its primary end, the glory of God, it is never frustrated; without detriment of order it tolerates evil in the broadest manner; it prescribes those things which agree with our inborn appetite; it fosters and promotes our moral liberty.

III. Human law is imperfect, whether you consider its extension, or its finality, or its tolerance of evil, or its dispositions and sanctions, or the aids which it offers to moral liberty. It must restrict the psychological liberty of man; and it issues precepts which are less contained in our natural appetite. But it is wonderfully aided by divine law so that it may command prudently, effectively, and sweetly.

IV. Catholics find in true religion motives of a more sublime, easier, and fuller docility for observing even civil laws. Penal laws also are fortified by motives of obeying which, for unbelievers, alone surround all obedience of citizens to be rendered to laws. Indeed the observance of a penal law is urged also by the supreme law of charity.