Scholion I. On Dueling

(St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis, book III, nn. 399-401; Homo Apostolicus, tract 8, nn. 21-28.)

I. Notion. Dueling, in the canonical sense, is defined: a contest of two persons, or at least of a few, entered into by a prior agreement about place and time, and that with lethal weapons. It is said:

1. A contest of two persons, or at least of a few; these words are to be understood so that single and determined persons fight with single and determined persons.

2. By a prior agreement about a determined place and time. Therefore both the place and the time must be designated. Hence it would not suffice that they say: we shall fight wherever we first meet each other (St. Alphonsus, III, 401).

3. With lethal weapons. It is not required that the contest be entered into with grave danger of killing or grave wounding; rather, it suffices that the weapons with which the contest is carried on be lethal.

Corollary. To dueling accepted in the canonical sense there also pertain: 1. duels to first blood, as they are called;¹ 2. academic duels (Bestimmungsmensuren), that is, those which students are accustomed to enter into for the sake of display, with weapons indeed lethal, namely with a small knife, but with such cautions employed that danger of killing or grave wounding is morally removed.² But so-called American duels do not pertain here, that is, those by which both expose themselves to danger of death or grave harm, so that one falls by chance and the other by chance escapes unharmed; for example, if of two tablets one is harmless and the other is infected with poison, and both must consume one or the other.³ Such duels, I say, do not pertain here, because they exclude combat; hence they are not subject to the ecclesiastical penalties against duelists, although, as is clear, they are gravely illicit. Nor do fictitious duels seem to pertain here, that is, duels offered and accepted with the sole intention of simulating combat, in order to avoid the mark of timidity among uncultivated men; nevertheless these too are gravely illicit on account of scandal (St. Alphonsus, III, 399).

¹ Clement VIII, Constitution Illius vices, § 5 (1592).

² Sacred Congregation of the Council, June 13, 1926 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1926, p. 132).

³ Vermeersch, Theologia Moralis, II, 614.

II. Division. A duel is distinguished into public or solemn and private, according as it is entered into without or with certain ceremonies, for example with witnesses, whom they call seconds, and so forth.

III. Morality. 1. A duel entered into by public authority in place of war is lawful. For what authority can impose on many, it is also lawful to commit to a few; indeed, it is preferable that a few should fight in the name of the commonwealth in place of many (St. Alphonsus, III, 400).¹ Yet if the ranks are very unequal, the common good seems to require that the leader of the stronger rank, provided he is waging war justly, choose war, unless they prefer to choose unequal persons for single combat; but duels of this kind now have no place.

Corollary. I said that a duel entered into by public authority in place of war is lawful; for not even public authority is permitted to impose or permit a duel for displaying or increasing skill, for investigating truth or manifesting innocence,² for vindicating an injury, and so forth. It is illicit to permit these, both because a duel, unless it takes the place of war, is evil in itself, and because, if there is question of investigating truth, or manifesting innocence, or vindicating an injury, a duel is an unsuitable means to the intended end (St. Alphonsus, III, 399).

2. A duel entered into by private authority and with danger of killing or grave wounding is gravely illicit. For it is an attack upon the life or integrity of members of one's neighbor, done deliberately and by private authority; according to what was said in n. 741, this is altogether prohibited. There is added the malice of suicide, insofar as it involves consent to one's own killing or wounding. Add the ecclesiastical documents which altogether reprobate dueling;³ and especially note the propositions condemned by Benedict XIV in the Constitution Detestabilem,⁴ which are:

First: A military man who, unless he offers or accepts a duel, would be regarded as fearful, timid, abject, and unfit for military duties, and would thereby be deprived of the office by which he sustains himself and his own, or would have to lack forever the hope of promotion otherwise due and deserved by him, would be free from fault and penalty, whether he offers or accepts the duel.⁵

Second: Those who accept or provoke a duel for the sake of protecting honor or avoiding human contempt can also be excused, when they know certainly that the fight will not follow, as it is to be impeded by others.⁶

Third: The commander or military officer who accepts a duel from grave fear of loss of reputation or office does not incur the ecclesiastical penalties laid down by the Church against duelists.⁷

Fourth: In the natural state of man it is lawful to accept and offer a duel in order to preserve one's fortunes with honor, when the loss of them cannot be repelled by another remedy.⁸

Fifth: The asserted license for the natural state can also be applied to the state of a badly ordered city, namely one in which, either by the negligence or by the malice of the magistracy, justice is openly denied.⁹

Objection. It is lawful to place an act which has an evil effect, provided it also has a good effect. But a duel also has a good effect, namely honor to be restored.

Resp. Strictly speaking, a duel does not have a good effect, or it is not ordered to a good effect, that is, to honor to be restored; rather, once the duel has been posited, insulting men regard honor as restored. There is added that the good effect is obtained by means of an evil act.

3. Duels entered into without danger of killing or grave wounding are likewise gravely illicit; either because, according to what was said in n. 747, they pertain to dueling taken in the canonical sense, in which case they are prohibited by the Church under grave obligation; or because they bring grave scandal with them, as fictitious duels do; or because they expose persons to danger, even though they exclude combat, as American duels do.

Corollary I. "If a nobleman, or a soldier, is challenged to a duel, he can lawfully respond: I, as a Christian, cannot accept a duel; nevertheless I am prepared to defend myself against unjust aggressors" (St. Alphonsus, III, 400).

Corollary II. If someone challenges you to a duel, prepared to kill you in any way whatever, it is lawful to accept the fight and weapons, because then you are rather defending yourself against an unjust aggressor than accepting a duel (St. Alphonsus, III, 400).

¹ Cf. 1 Kings 17.

² Chapters 1 and 2, De purgatione vulgari.

³ Council of Trent, session 25, De reformatione, c. 19; Gregory XIII, Constitution Ad tollendam (1582); Clement VIII, Constitution Illius vices (1592); Leo XIII, letter given to the Bishops of Germany and Austria (September 22, 1891).

⁴ November 10, 1752.

⁵ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1491.

⁶ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1492.

⁷ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1493.

⁸ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1494.

⁹ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1495.

IV. Penalties against duelists. 1. The penalties established against a duel accepted in the canonical sense are:

a) Excommunication simply reserved to the Apostolic See (can. 2351, § 1), which is explained in the treatise on delicts and penalties.

b) Deprivation of ecclesiastical burial, according to the norm of can. 1240, § 1, which likewise is explained in the cited treatise.

c) Infamy of law, according to the norm of can. 2351, § 2.

d) Irregularity from delict, according to the norm of can. 985, 4° and 5°.

2. As regards remission of penalties, see the treatise on delicts and penalties.

V. Obligation of restitution which a duel can bring with it is explained in the treatise on the seventh precept.