2382. The Morality of Vengeance.—(a) Vengeance is lawful, since it pertains to justice, and Our Lord declares that it is found in the just and is approved by God (Luke, xviii. 7). It is, moreover, a special virtue, for it regulates the special natural inclination which moves man to attack what is harmful and injurious and has its own distinctive ends (see 2381). It is closely related to fortitude and zeal, which prepare the way for it; zeal, being a fervent love of God and man, inspires indignation against injustice, while fortitude removes the fear that might keep one back from attack on injustice. Accidentally, however, on account of greater evils, vengeance is sometimes unlawful, as when it would involve the innocent with the guilty, or fall more heavily upon the less guilty (Matt., xiii. 29, 30).
(b) Vengeance is obligatory when an injury to oneself is also an injury to a public or other necessary good (e.g., to the rights of God or of the Church). Hence it was that Elias and Eliseus punished those who maltreated them (IV Kings, i. 9 sqq., ii. 23, 24), that inspired writers pray God to punish the wicked (Psalms xviii, xxxiv, lxviii, cviii, lxxviii, cxxxvi; Jeremias, xi. 20, xvii, 18, xviii. 21, xx. 12), and Pope Sylvester excommunicated those who sent him into exile. If an injury to oneself is merely personal, one should be willing to forego punishment of the guilty person, and should actually do so when this course is expedient, as Our Lord teaches in Matthew, vi. 14, 15 (see 1198 sqq.). When no necessity requires one to vindicate a personal wrong, the more perfect course is to pardon the wrong for the sake of God; for in avenging injuries to self there is always the danger of such evils as selfish motive, arrogance, hatred, scandal, and the loss of such goods as peace of mind, conversion of the other party, edification, and greater claim on God’s forgiveness of self. Hence, vengeance is called “a little virtue,” since it is so often the less perfect way.
2383. Excess and Defect.—Punitive justice is a moral virtue and hence should be characterized by moderation as to all its circumstances. It should avoid the extremes of excess and defect.
(a) The sin of excess here is cruelty, which in the quality or the quantity of the punishment offends human rights or surpasses the measure of the crime or the custom of the law. Thus, it is immoral to associate young prisoners with hardened criminals, to deprive an offender of religious opportunities; it is inhuman to treat a human being as if he were a brute or less than a brute (e.g., by confinement in a loathsome dungeon, by overwork with starvation, by torture); it is unfair to use severe punishments unknown to law or custom, or whose rigor far surpasses the degree of offense. There is excess even in medicinal or reformatory penalties, if a higher good is sacrificed for a lower (e.g., the spiritual for the temporal, a major for a minor good quality), for then the remedy is worse than the disease.
(b) The sin of defect in punishments is laxity, which rewards crime, or allows it to go unpunished, or imposes penalties which are agreeable to offenders, or not a deterrent, or not at all equal to the offense. Scripture condemns this lenity when it declares that the parent who spares the rod spoils the child (Prov., xiii. 24). In weighing the gravity of a delinquency account should be taken of the fault itself, of the injury done and the scandal given. In the fault consideration must be had of the objective element (i.e., the nature and importance of the law violated), of the subjective element (i.e., the age, instruction, education, sex, and state of mind of the offender), of the circumstances (e.g., the time, the place, the persons involved, and the frequency). See Canon 2218.
2384. Circumstances of Punitive Justice.—(a) Punishments that May Be Used.—Punishment is virtuous only in so far as it restrains from evil those who cannot be restrained by love of virtue, but only by fear of penalty. Hence, penalties should consist in the deprivation of goods that are more prized than the satisfactions obtained through delinquencies. Both divine and human laws, therefore, have established as punishments the loss of a bodily good (e.g., by death, flogging, imprisonment) or of an external good (e.g., by exile, fine, infamy), the chief inducements to crime being found in bodily or external things. The extreme penalty of death should be reserved for extreme cases, and the other penalties should be suited to the crime, so as to remove the incentive or means (e.g., dishonesty should be punished by loss of goods, calumny by infamy, lust by pain, etc.).
(b) Persons Who May Be Punished.—Punishment again is virtuous only because it pertains to justice and rights the inequality caused by sin. Accordingly, no one should be punished unless he has sinned or voluntarily transgressed. It is unlawful to punish the innocent for the guilty, or to punish an innocent person in order to keep him from future sins. It should be noted, however, that God inflicts temporal evils on the just for the sake of spiritual goods (e.g., that they may not become attached to this world, may have opportunities of merit, and may give good example); that one person may be punished for the sin of another when he associates himself with or approves of that sin, as when careless parents have bad children or careless subjects bad rulers (Job, xxxiv. 30; Exod, xx. 5); that for a sufficient reason an innocent person may be deprived of a good for which he is unfitted (e.g., ordination when one is irregular by defect) or to which he has no personal or absolute claim (e.g., the family property when it is lost to the children because the father is fined).
2385. The Virtue of Truthfulness.—Having treated the virtues of gratitude and vengeance, which deal with moral obligations caused by an act of the one owed, we now pass on to truthfulness, which is a moral obligation arising from the acts of the one owing in which he communicates with others. For he who speaks, writes, or otherwise manifests his mind to others puts himself under a duty of not deceiving. Truthfulness or veracity is defined as “a moral virtue that inclines one duly and faithfully to express what is in one’s mind.”
(a) It is a virtue, that is, a good habit, and so it differs from truth, which is the object of intellectual habits. Thus, the First Truth or God is the object of faith. Truthfulness is not the object of a virtue, but it is a virtue.
(b) It is a moral virtue. It deals with external things (viz., the words or signs by which we express our thoughts), and so it is not a theological virtue; moreover, though the knowledge of truth belongs to the intellect, the right manifestation of truth depends on a good will, and so truthfulness is not an intellectual virtue: the truthful man may be unlearned, but he loves honesty.