The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-03-17
Till RARAL SYLLABUS
With Recitation Of the Errors Which It Condemns
Translated from the Italian of LFacou1.
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Twenty-fourth Error-'The churcl
has not the right to employ force, no
does she possess any temporal author
ity, either direct or Indirect
REPUTATION.
The church founded by Christ in vir
tue of the power given Him by Hi
Father in Heaven. was constituted {
perfect society and provided with al
the means necessary for its defence
preservation and continued well-being
Hence the power to make and sane
ton laws; to judge and punish the
guilty. In the earliest days of the
church we see the Apostles taking into
consideration the question as to the
necessity of observing the Mosaic law
discussing it. and then making DEGREES
and promulgating them to the new
Christians ''visum est Spiritui Sancto
ct nobis." We see St Paul instructing
Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, and Titus
Bishop Of Crete, prescribing to them
the manner in which they should be-
have towards the clergy and the laity
under their charge, and commanding
them not to admit to the dignity of the
Episcopacy from the church at Alex
andria. Philetus and Hymeneus, who
! had made shipwreck concerning the
| faith, delivering the incestuous man Of
Corinth to Satan for the destruction Of
! the flesh that the spirit may be saved;
and in his second epistle to the Cor
-, 70, To
them that sinned before and to all the
rest and to punish them according to
the power which the lord had given
him, and thus, Throughout the ages of
her existence the Church has never
ceased to assert and exercise her right
to punish delinquents or criminals. The
srtictness with which she exacted ODE
dience even in the first centuries of
Christianity is amply attested by the
Apostolic constitutions and the peni-
tential canOns. 1t would be ridiculous
to assume that she was authorized to
make her laws and I'd inflict corporal
punishment either by the synagogue or
by the Caesars, who persistently OPP
posed her authority AMI endeavored to
practical utility in the maintenance of
order and the enforcement of obedience
would be the power to make laws and
to pass sentences if the church had
not the authority to sanction them and
to impose upon delinquents and Grim
inals a degree of punishment proper
tionate to their guilt? The highest pen
alties known to Church are the eccle-
siastical censures; chief among these is
the penalty of accommodation, which
corresponds with capital punishment
under the civil code, and by which she
cuts off rotten members from her COM
munion. Besides these higher penalties,
the Church has lesser ones designed
for the punishment of minor offences:
I'm promptu habentes ulcisci Omnem
inobedientiam. If these minor penal
ties fail of effect, she has recourse to
all the terrors of her anathema; for
the reason that, being a perfect society
she has, and must employ efficaciOus
means for the preservation of order
and for the due chastisement of any
at its violation. And that the
church has received these means from /
the civil power is truth which Bas-
nagius Protestant though he was, has |!
and confessed. In language I
which cannot be mistaken, he says: I,
I'VE readily admit that the tribunal .
of the church was instituted by the ex-
press authority of God. Tribunal Ec-
clesia. quod jubente Dec, erectum
fuisse facile Iargimur." The
Council of Trent, too, recognizes and
confirms in. ecclesiastical judges the
authority to infict corporal punishment
The Church has, therefore, the right
o employ force against the guilty. and,
Is consequence, is in possession of
emporal power received directly from
Christ and transmitted by the Apostles;
or, although the Church is a spiritual
ociety as regards the end for which she
vas instituted, that is, to conduct men
o eternal life, she is also a visible So {
fety vested with jurisdiction over ]
nan, who is not pure spirit, but a /
,eing composed of a body and a soul, s
nd who must, therefore, be governed {
nd conducted to his last end by SEN {
ible means. In the same way civic {
ociety commands obedience not from {
he body alone, but from the whole /
nan; and in order to avoid a collision &
etween the two societies, it only re- S
Mains for the less noble to subordinate S
-self to the more noble, or, in other t
lords, to that society which is clothed /
nth the duty of directing men to the