VIOLENCE. — In theological-canonical language, violence (v.) or coercion is understood as a motion that comes from an external principle, while the patient resists or opposes II. For an act of violence to occur, therefore, two elements are required: 1) a motion from an external principle (true violence cannot come from within); fear (which is sometimes called moral violence, taking the effect for the cause) is therefore distinct from violence; 2) resistance or opposition on the part of the patient.
Absolute violence occurs when the patient resists in every possible way; relative violence occurs when the patient resists, but not as much as he can and should. The latter is also called moral violence and is the cause of fear (v.). The resistance that opposes violence can be internal, if it consists in the dissent of the will, or external, if one attempts to repel the motion of violence through persuasion, prayers, threats, shouting, or self-defense; or it can be both internal and external.
I. EXERCISE OF VIOLENCE
The will cannot suffer violence with regard to its elicited acts, which derive immediately from the will itself, such as consenting or loving. However, it can suffer violence with regard to commanded acts, which are to be performed through another power, whether external or internal (v. VOLUNTÀ [will]).II. INFLUENCE OF VIOLENCE ON THE VOLUNTARY, THE FREE, AND MORALITY
1. If the patient resists internally and externally, as much as he can and should, the act determined by violence will be entirely involuntary and in no way imputable, neither for merit nor for demerit. The same internal and external resistance, voluntary and free, is good or bad according to whether violence impels one to pursue evil or good.2. In the case where the patient resists externally with all the resistance of which he is capable, but internally consents or has an affection for the act to which violence impels him, to judge, one must examine the imputability of both the internal consent and the act itself, as well as the external resistance. Certainly the internal consent is imputable, but this imputability decreases according to the degree of freedom and voluntariness of the consent itself; and thus, for example, the greater the violence exerted, or the more powerful the natural pleasure included in the act of violence and alluring to the will, the lesser will be the imputability of the consent, whether it concerns good or evil. The external act of violence itself, considered abstractly apart from the internal consent from which it in fact derives, is neither voluntary nor imputable. The external resistance, which occurs for another reason distinct from the internal consent (for example, to avoid infamy), considered separately, has its own imputability, which must also be considered in relation to the degree of imputability of the internal consent.
3. If the patient only internally dissents and externally neither consents nor resists, but remains passive, the external act is indirectly voluntary and also sinful, whenever there is an obligation to resist externally. Such cases must be resolved according to the principles of indirect voluntariness and material cooperation in the sin of another. Here it is sufficient to note that:
a) when, by resisting externally, the subject can, without disproportionate inconvenience, repel the violence and prevent the evil, he is bound to resist;
b) even when resistance to avert external sin appears useless, it may be obligatory for another reason, such as a necessary protest to prevent scandal, or to avoid the danger of internal consent, for example, in matters of chastity.
4. In the case where the patient internally dissents and resists externally to some extent, but not as much as he can and should morally, the external act is indirectly voluntary and imputable, insofar as there is an obligation to resist effectively.
III. VIOLENCE IN CANON LAW
The Code of Canon Law, with regard to violence and its influence, stipulates: “Acts performed by a physical or moral person under external force to which one cannot resist are considered not to have been done” (can. 103 § 1). Physical violence that removes all capacity to act entirely excludes guilt (can. 220 § 1). With regard to its influence on a juridical act, the Code generally attributes to violence the same effect as grave fear: thus with regard to marriage (can. 1087 § 1), with regard to admission to the novitiate or profession (can. 542, n. 1°; 572 § 1), with regard to the assistance of the Ordinary and the parish priest at a marriage (can. 1095 § 1), and with regard to the remission of a penalty (can. 2238).IV. VIOLENCE IN ITALIAN CIVIL AND PENAL LAW
Civil law considers only violence as a cause of fear, that is, moral violence; doctrine, however, distinguishes between absolute violence, which removes all will from the subject by directly influencing its manifestation (such as forcing an individual to make a nod of assent with his head) and which renders the act radically null for the absolute lack of will, and moral violence (vis compulsiva), which, under the influence of a threat, causes the process of the threatened person’s will formation to unfold in the direction desired by the threatener and renders the act voidable (not null), on the grounds that the act performed is still an expression of the will of the person from whom it proceeds (“quamvis si liber essem, noluisssem, tamen coactus volui”). This kind of violence is considered by canon law together with fear (v.), of which it is the cause.In Italian penal law, more than as an attenuating circumstance (art. 62 of the Italian Penal Code) or as excluding guilt, violence or threat is considered as constituting a crime in itself in its various forms: as simple threat (art. 612), as intimidation generally directed at compelling another to do, tolerate, or omit something (art. 610), as intimidation directed at compelling another to commit a crime (art. 611), as intimidation of a public official (art. 336, 339), or of a political, administrative, or judicial body or its representatives (art. 338, 339), as a means of taking the law into one’s own hands (art. 392-93). Many of these forms of crime fall directly or indirectly under crimes against individual liberty, and the individual who suffers it is compelled to act under the influence of fear. To crimes against individual liberty can also be traced the special type of violence known as carnal violence, since sexual liberty is a part of more general individual liberty (art. 519, 539-44; Italian Civil Code, art. 269; V. STUPRO [rape]). For the exercise of violence in strikes, V. SCIOPERO [strike].
OLLETTE-LE-DUC, EUGÈNE-EMMANUEL. — French architect and writer, b. in Paris on 21 Jan. 1814, son of the writer Emmanuel-Nicolas, d. in Lausanne on 17 Sept. 1879.
In 1863 he obtained the chair of Aesthetics and History of Art at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, from which he had to resign due to the controversies aroused by his teaching; in 1874 he was elected a radical deputy for the Montmartre district. The V. is chiefly renowned as the brilliant restorer of French medieval churches and monuments. In his restoration work, he followed the principle of recreating missing or perilous parts exactly as they had emerged from the hands of medieval craftsmen. This principle is now abandoned, yet the V. deserves credit for saving from certain ruin France’s most distinguished Romanesque and Gothic monuments and for arousing intense interest in them. His studies and restorations also made a notable contribution to the spread of the taste for Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic styles, to which, unfortunately, must be attributed the construction of so many Romanesque and Gothic churches for missionary purposes abroad. Among the monuments he restored, besides others, are the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris; the church of Vézelay; Notre-Dame in Paris; the cathedrals of Amiens, Laon, Reims, and Lausanne; and the town hall of Narbonne, etc. As a writer, always clear and concise, he owes his fame to the *Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle* (10 vols., Paris 1854–68), adorned with numerous drawings of his own, an opus still fundamental. Also noteworthy are: *Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l’époque carolingienne à la Renaissance* (6 vols., ibid. 1872–75); *Entretiens sur l’architecture* (2 vols., ibid. 1858–72); and *La Cité de Carcassonne* (ibid. 1856). His drawings, published in 1884 (100 plates) and in 1896 (2 vols.), are preserved in the Musée du Trocadéro.