Pastoralis officii

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pastoralis officii is an encyclical written by Pope Leo XIII. on September 12, 1891, applied to the episcopate of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary . The subtitle read: "On the moral problems of dueling ".

Absurdity of dueling

With this encyclical the Pope answers the request of the bishops who had asked the Catholic Church for a binding pastoral statement on the question of dueling . In his answer he expresses that dueling does not correspond to the Christian commandments and that he therefore wants to repeat a guideline of his predecessors: It is legally and morally not allowed for men to try to kill or wound each other in this “competition” this private fight had nothing to do with self-defense. The Pope portrays dueling as an absurdity: These men did not defend their honor, because honor and killing are morally incompatible.

Penalty for dueling

Men who violated these commandments should receive just ecclesiastical and state punishment . For the church this would mean: the expulsion from the Christian community . Nor is it to be recognized that insulting one another would injure a man's honor . That is why the legislative power is called upon to emphatically stop these machinations and make dueling a punishable offense. No distinction should be made between the military and civilians; on the contrary: the military in particular had courts of honor and ordinances that would prevent dueling. Dueling between civilians is just as reprehensible, and state law does not allow killing and murder either .

Web links