Joseph Francis Delany

“ Aggressor, Unjust.—According to the accepted teaching of theologians, it is lawful, in the defence of life or limb, of property of some importance, and of chastity, to repel violence with violence, even to the extent of killing an unjust assailant. ”

“ Material complicity is held to be justified when it is brought about by an action which is in itself either morally good or at any rate indifferent, and when there is a sufficient reason for permitting on the part of another the sin which is a consequence of the action. ”

“ In the court of conscience such an affirmation is not held to have the standing of an oath for the cardinal and obvious reason that the intention to swear, i.e. to call God to witness, is formally excluded. ”

“ By adjunction, when one's labour and material have been so united with the property of another that they cannot be separated. The resultant then belongs to him who has contributed the more important component. ”

“ At the age of reason a person is juridically considered eligible to act as witness to a marriage, as sponsor at baptism or confirmation, and as a party to the formal contract of betrothal; at this age one is considered capable of receiving extreme unction, of being promoted to first tonsure and minor orders, of being the incumbent of a simple benefice (beneficium simplex) if the founder of it should have so provided ”

“ All are bound to reparation who in any way are accounted to be the actual efficient causes of the injury wrought, or who, being obliged by contract, express or implied, to prevent it, have not done so. There are circumstances in which fellowship in the working of damage to another makes the accomplice liable to restitution in solidum ”

“ On the contrary, to materially co-operate in another's crime is to participate in the action so far as its physical entity is concerned, but not in so far as it is motived by the malice of the principal in the case. ”

“ It is to be observed that, when damage has been done to a third person, the question is raised not only of the lawfulness of the co-operation, but also of restitution to be made for the violation of a strict right. ”

“ That is, only that degree of violence may be employed which is necessary adequately to protect one from the attack. For example, if it were enough in the circumstances to maim an enemy it would be unlawful to kill him. It is likewise lawful to aid another to the same extent and within the same limits as are permissible for self-defence. ”

“ For example, to persuade another to absent himself without reason from Mass on Sunday would be an instance of formal co-operation. To sell a person in an ordinary business transaction a revolver which he presently uses to kill himself is a case of material co-operation. ”

“ Thus, the offspring of a female animal is the property of her owner, even though it be the result of intercourse with a male belonging to someone else. The axiom applies in the case that partus sequitur ventrem. The Louisiana Code, in accordance with the Roman law, provided that the issue of slaves though born during the temporary use or hiring of their mothers, belonged not to the hirer but to the permanent owner. But the offspring of a slave born during a tenancy for life belonged to the tenant for life. In the same division is the species of accession due to alluvion. ”

“ Those who take their elevation to a church dignity for granted, and, before receiving the requisite formal enabling notice of it, by some overt act demean themselves as if their election were an accomplished fact, are held to be ineligible. ”

“ In general, however, the following considerations will be of value in discerning whether in an instance of material co-operation the reason avowed is valid or not. The necessity for a more and more powerful reason is accentuated in proportion as there is (1) a greater likelihood that the sin would not be committed without the act of material co-operation ”

“ A man may permit himself to forget that the thing or things, whatever they may be, which are thought to deserve the testimony of others, are not his in fee simple, but God's, and that the credit therefore belongs primarily to God. ”

“ It provides that a priest who has been the accomplice of any person in a sin against the Sixth Commandment is rendered incapable of absolving validly that person from that sin, except in danger of death, and then only if there be no other priest obtainable. ”

“ In the present discipline, however, persons do not incur these penalties until they reach the age of puberty, unless explicitly included in the decree imposing them. The only censure surely applicable to persons of this age is for the violation of the clausura of nuns, while that for the maltreatment, suadente diabolo, of clerics is probably so. ”