Law, on the Nature of

On the Nature of Law

On the Nature of Law: Divine, Natural, Ecclesiastical, Civil, Positive

According to St Thomas Aquinas, 

A Law is

•A precept of Right Reason

•For the Common Good

•Promulgated by the legitimate Authority.

Thus an attempt at enforcing a law that is either impossible, or unreasonable, or not directed to the Common Good, or not validly promulgated, is not a law at all but an abuse of authority which we are under a moral obligation to resist, otherwise we are participating in the sin by compliance with the offence against justice.

“The Law” subsists in several categories, the later ones "inside" the earlier.

•First is Divine Law which flows from the Nature of God Himself and the Nature of Reality.

Examples are: “Do good and avoid evil”. “Love the Lord thy God with thy whole Heart, mind and soul”.

•Within this is Natural Law which flows from the nature and structure of Creation, and within this the nature and structure of Man, body and soul.

Examples are:  “You are never to commit murder” (the correct translation of the 5th Commandment); the absolute prohibition of abortion, homosexual acts, artificial contraception.

•Within this again is Ecclesiastical Law, which derives from Christ's establishment of His Church.

Examples are:  The Commandments of the Church (see the Catechism).

•Ecclesiastical Law contains general principles and

•Particular or •Positive Laws which derive from the lawful authority, derived from Christ, of appointed lawmakers within the Church. In general, these are collected and set out in The Code of Canon Law.

Examples are:  the Sunday obligation, the Friday abstinence, the rule of celibacy for priests.

•Civil Law is that part of Positive Law that "Renders unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's". A Civil Law that contradicts or nullifies Ecclesiastical or Natural or Divine Law is ipso facto invalid.

In the very nature of things, a Law cannot contradict one on a higher level of this hierarchy. An attempt to promulgate a Positive Law that contradicted the Natural or the Divine Law would be ipso facto invalid. Thus no conceivable Positive Law could legalise direct abortion.

Hence  Roe vs Wade, which in the USA is the basis for legalising direct abortion, is invalid as a law, even though it was promulgated in correct form by the US legislature, because it contradicts the higher Divine and Natural Laws.  Hence one is forbidden to comply with it.

Holy Mother Church helps us not least by providing Positive Laws to guide our daily conduct, and then enforcing them. 

However, subordinate laws sometimes fail to achieve their purpose. They are merely applications of higher general laws to particular situations. Yet the particular or concrete situation can vary infinitely. It is impossible for positive law to envisage and provide for all these situations, even exceptional situations. This is why dispensations from law have always been allowed, often even foreseen, even by God. 

 [This paragraph adapted slightly from “The Episcopal Consecrations” by Rev. Fr. F. Pivert, ISBN 0-935952-54-3, page 4].

We must beware of the fallacy of believing that the collection of written, positive laws constitutes the whole of Law. They must not be stretched beyond their context. In every generation, new situations arise that must be dealt with by reference to the higher categories of law and justice. Then the Church in her wisdom may or may not enact new positive laws. 

Examples that spring to mind in the modern age are: the question of the Just War given the existence of weapons of mass destruction: the question of which medical procedures, formerly unheard of, are licit and pleasing to God: organ donation? IVF?

In considering novel situations, we must be extra vigilant that we are hearing the authentic voice of the Bride of Christ, which can be none other than a faithful echo of that of the Bridegroom.

The crisis precipitated by the situation in the Church and the World after Vatican II – which it is absurd to say was actually foreseen and intended by the majority of the Council Fathers (if by any at all) – requires very careful contemplation on these things.

The Keys were given to Peter and his successors to keep and to safeguard the Faith until the end of time.  At no time, repeat, at no time since the Apostles has any pope attempted to impose by "obedience"  a programme of novelty while simultaneously attempting to extinguish immemorial traditions that had been held to be sacrosanct.  On the contrary, the Saints and doctors have always  said:  in cases of doubt, do what the Church has always done in the Past.  In the Past is to be found safety and certainty.

When a new situation arises not covered by the current set of positive laws, what the Church must do is to go back up through the hierarchy of levels to find the correct guidance.  It would normally result in a new series of Positive Laws.  The attempt by Vatican officials since Vatican II – up to and including the Pope – is strictly unprecedented, as history will show abundantly.  It is erroneous to simply apply a set of positive laws that presuppose that the Pope and the curia are safeguarding Tradition, as they have always done in the past. 

This is quite apart from the irregular, hence illegal and invalid, way that the novelties have been proposed and enforced.  The SSPX, by standing fast and refusing illegitimate pressures, has brought these things into sharper and sharper focus.  They have done the Church an incalculable service.  And no, they are not disobedient within the meaning of either Law or True Obedience. 

(Compiled from various sources, principally S. Thomas Aquinas).

Micheál Ó Fearghail