373. Laws fail to be of public benefit in such cases as the following: (a) if they are made without a broad view of the public good, which has regard for different classes of people and various interests, and which provides for the future as well as for the present; (b) if, losing sight of the fact that the majority are not perfect in virtue, the lawgivers require so much that the law falls into contempt, and graver evils result than would have happened otherwise. Hence, it is advisable that human laws confine their prohibitions to graver misdeeds, especially those that are harmful to others and to society, and restrict their commands to such good acts as promote the common weal. Multiplicity of laws, excessive penalties for minor offenses, cruel and unusual sanctions, lead to lawlessness.
374. Human laws should not prescribe what is too difficult.
(a) They should not prescribe heroic virtue, unless the common safety demands it, or a subject has voluntarily obliged himself to it. Example: Soldiers in war and pastors in time of pestilence must expose themselves to danger of death; but for ordinary occasions the law should not oblige one to risk one’s life or other great good.
(b) They should not prescribe agreement with the mind of the legislator or a virtuous performance of what is prescribed, unless the thing ordered itself demands this. Examples: The law of annual Confession and of the Easter Communion requires, not only that these Sacraments be received, but that they be received worthily, for an unworthy Confession is no Sacrament, and an unworthy Communion does not satisfy the command of Christ, of which the Church command is but a determination. On the other hand, the Lenten fast observed by one who is not in the state of grace is an act good in itself and satisfies the law. He who hears Mass on a holyday, not knowing that it is a holyday, satisfies the obligation, though he had no intention of fulfilling it.
375. Obligation of Human Laws.—All human laws that are just, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, made by believers in God or unbelievers, are obligatory in conscience, (a) From the beginning the Church has made laws and imposed them as obligatory (Acts, xv. 29; I Cor., vi. 4; I Cor., xi. 5; I Tim., v. 9-12), and has recognized as obligatory the laws of the State, without regard to the moral or religious qualifications of the rulers (I Peter, ii. 13-16; Rom., xiii. 1-7).
(b) Human laws are necessary. The Natural Law does not prescribe definite penalties, while the Positive Divine Law prescribes only such as are remote and invisible; and hence, if there were no human laws holding out the threat of determined and present punishments, the Divine laws would be contemned. Moreover, since the higher laws are sometimes unknown, or prescribe no time, place or manner of accomplishment, or do not command things that would be useful for their observance, it is necessary that there be laws made by man to secure the better knowledge and fulfillment of the laws given by God Himself.
376. A human law is unjust in two ways:
(a) if opposed to the rights of God. Examples: The command of Pharaoh that the Hebrew male children be murdered (Exod., i. 17), the command of Antiochus that his subjects sacrifice to idols (I Mach., ii. 16-20), the command of the Sanhedrin that the Apostles should cease to preach (Acts, v. 29);
(b) if opposed to the rights of man. This happens in three ways: First, when the purpose of the law is not the common good, as when the lawgiver seeks only his own profit or glory; secondly, when the maker of the law has not the requisite authority; thirdly, when the law itself, although for the common good and made by competent authority, does not distribute burdens equally or reasonably among the people. Examples: Achab and Jezabel, in the affair of the vineyard of Naboth, had in view not the public, but their own private benefit (III Kings, xvi). The sentence of death pronounced on our Lord by the Sanhedrin was illegal, because, among other reasons, the body was not assembled according to law, and hence had no authority to give sentence. The commands given the Israelites by Pharaoh (Exod., v. 18), and to their subjects by Oriental despots (I Kings, viii), were unjust, because the former discriminated against the Israelites, and the latter bore down too heavily on all the people. The former civil laws that prescribed the same penalty of hanging for a slight misdemeanor (such as the theft of a loaf of bread by a boy) as for the capital crimes of piracy or murder, the Stamp Act of George III, and some modern laws that sentence to life imprisonment those who have been four times convicted of slight offenses, are more recent examples of unjust laws.
377. Obedience to unjust laws is not obligatory in the following cases. (a) If a law is opposed to the rights of God, it is not lawful to do what that law commands or permits, nor to omit what it forbids. Examples: If a law permits one to practise polygamy, or commands one to blaspheme religion, one may not use the permission or obey. If a law forbids one to give or receive Baptism, it has no force. (b) If a law is certainly opposed to the rights of man in any of the three ways mentioned in the previous paragraph (376, b), it does not of itself oblige in conscience, since it lacks some essential condition of a true law, and even the consent of the majority or of all does not make it just. However, it may oblige accidentally, on account of the greater evils that would follow on disobedience, such as scandal, civil disturbances, etc. The duty of subjects is to remonstrate against such a law and to work for its repeal.