VIOLENZA. — In theological and canonistic language, violence, force, or coercion is understood as a motion proceeding from an external principle, while the patient opposes or resists II. For an act of violence to exist, therefore, two elements are required: 1) a motion from an external principle (true violence cannot be inflicted 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.
Violence is absolute if the patient resists in every way, and relative if the patient resists, but not as much as he can and ought. The latter is also called moral violence fear (v.). The resistance opposed to violence may be internal, if it consists in the will’s dissent, or external, if an attempt is made to repel the motion of violence through persuasion, prayers, threats, shouting, or self-defence; or it may be both internal and external.
I. EXERCISE OF violence
The will cannot suffer violence with regard to its elicited acts, which proceed immediately from the will itself, such as consenting, loving, and so forth. It can, however, suffer violence with regard to commanded acts, that is, acts to be performed through another power, whether external or internal (v. VOLONTÀ).II. INFLUENCE OF violence ON THE VOLUNTARY, THE FREE, AND MORALITY
1. If the patient resists internally and externally, as he can and ought, the act determined by violence will be wholly involuntary, in no way imputable either to merit or demerit. The same internal and external resistance, being voluntary and free, is good or evil according as violence impels one to attain evil or good.2. When the patient resists externally with all the resistance of which he is capable, but internally consents to, or has an inclination toward, the act to which violence impels him, judgment requires that the imputability both of the internal consent, of the act itself that was performed, and of the external resistance be examined. Certainly, the internal consent is imputable, but this imputability diminishes according to the degree of freedom and voluntariness of the consent itself; thus, for example, the greater the violence inflicted, or the more powerful the pleasure naturally included in the very act of violence and attractive to the will, the lesser will be the imputability of the consent, whether the matter concerns good or evil. The external act itself of violence, considered abstractly apart from the internal consent, from which, nevertheless, it derives, is neither voluntary nor imputable. External resistance undertaken for another reason, distinct from the internal consent (e.g. 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 dissents only internally, 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 of material cooperation in the sin of one’s neighbour. Here it is sufficient to note that: a) when, by resisting externally, the subject can repel the violence and prevent the evil without disproportionate inconvenience, he is obliged to resist; b) even when resistance to remove the external sin appears useless, it may be obligatory for another reason, such as, for example, as a necessary protest to prevent scandal, or even to avoid the danger of internal consent, for example in matters of chastity.
4. When the patient dissents internally and resists somewhat externally, but not as much as he can and morally ought, the external act is indirectly voluntary and imputable insofar as there is an obligation to resist effectively.
III.
V. IN CANON LAW
With regard to V. and its influence, the Code of Canon Law decrees: “Acts performed by a physical or juridical person through external force that cannot be resisted are deemed not to have been performed” (can. 103 § 1). Physical V. that removes all ability to act entirely excludes the delict (can. 2205 § 1). As for its influence on a juridical act, the Code generally attributes to V. the same effect as grave fear: thus with regard to marriage (can. 1087 § 1), admission to the novitiate or profession (can. 542, n. 1°; 572 § 1), the assistance of the Ordinary and the parish priest at marriage (can. 1095 § 1), and remission of the penalty (can. 2238).IV.
V. IN ITALIAN CIVIL AND PENAL LAW
The law considers only V. fear, that is, moral v.; legal doctrine, however, distinguishes between absolute v., which removes all volition from the subject by directly affecting its manifestation (as when an individual is compelled to make an objectively assentive gesture with the head) and which renders the juridical act radically null on account of the absolute absence of volition, and «vis» moral (vis compulsiva), which, under the influence of a threat, causes the process by which the threatened person’s will is formed to proceed in the direction desired by the person making the threat and which renders the act voidable (not null), for the reason that the act performed nevertheless remains an expression of the will of the person from whom it proceeds («quamvis si liber essem, noluissem, tamen coactus volui»). This type of V. is considered fear (v.), of which it is the cause.In Italian penal law, rather than as an attenuating circumstance (art. 62 of the Italian Penal Code) or one excluding the offense, V. or threat is considered as constituting an offense in its own right in its various forms: as a simple threat (art. 612); as intimidation generally aimed at compelling another to do, tolerate, or omit something (art. 610); as intimidation aimed at compelling another to commit an offense (art. 611); as intimidation of a public official (arts. 336, 339), or of a political, administrative, or judicial body or its representatives (arts. 338, 339); and as a means of taking the law into one’s own hands (arts. 392–93). Many of these forms of offense fall directly or indirectly among offenses against individual liberty, and the person subjected to it is compelled to act under the influence of fear. The special type of V. known as carnal V. may also be classified as an offense against individual liberty, since sexual liberty is part of the more general individual liberty (arts. 519, 539–44; Italian Civil Code, art. 269; V. STUPRO). For the exercise of V. strike, V. SCIOPERO.
Milan 1937; G. Dossetti, La V. nel matrim. in dir. can., there 1943; A. Bride, Violence, in DThC, XV. II, cols. 3086–93; O. Lottin, Principes de morale, I, Louvain 1947, pp. 99–100. Pietro Palazzini