Do
Public Awards and Punishments Dignify and Encourage, or Corrupt and Humiliate?
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
We were recently asked to
comment on the fact that the custom of granting awards to the best students is
being abolished in several schools. At the root of this new policy is the idea
that the public bestowal of awards is doubly harmful: exciting vanity in the
beneficiaries of the honors and provoking feelings of guilt or inferiority
complexes in the others.
Thus, we decided to
discuss in this section how this theme vitally concerns the maintenance of
sanity in ambiences, develops an appreciation for time-honored customs, and is
essential for the life of a civilization.
This problem far
transcends scholastic ambits, touching directly upon honors and punishments in
human societies.
According to the doctrine
of Saint Thomas, the fact that a person possesses authentic qualities and is
recognized and honored for them by society is a good that surpasses health or
riches, being inferior only to the grace of God, which transcends every other
good (cf. Summa Theologica, II-II, q.
29, a. 1; II-II, q. 129, a. 3).
Thus, to deprive the best
of their rightful honors is a flagrant injustice because it inflicts injury,
and a most grave injury, precisely upon those who deserve the contrary.
Moreover, the awarding of
honors does not make truly virtuous men proud, but stimulates them to advance
farther in virtue. As for the others, it does not degrade them; rather, it
invites them to a laudable imitation.
This was taught by Saint
Pius X in the brief Multum ad excitandos
of
"Rewards granted for
merit contribute tremendously toward stirring in hearts the desire to practice
generous acts, for if singularly deserving men of Church or society
are vested with glory, they serve as a stimulus for all others to follow
the same path to glory and honor. Following this wise principle, the Roman
Pontiffs, our Predecessors, looked upon the knightly orders with special
affection as another such stimulus to good. Through their initiative, many
orders were created; others that had been previously instituted were restored
to their original dignity and endowed with new and greater privileges."
In this spirit, the
In this same spirit, the
Church established ceremonies suitable for inflicting a note of disgrace upon
those deserving of it. We need only mention the terrible ritual of demotion of
priests, or, in the Middle Ages, the analogous ceremony for knights who were
deemed unworthy of the title.
OUR first picture shows
the medal denoting singular rank in the Order of Christ. Everything about it --
its form, its color, the fact that it is to be worn openly on the chest --
indicates the Church's intention that it be visible to all and thus loudly proclaim the merits of its bearer.
The other picture, a
woodcut from 1565, shows a knight being demoted. Knighthood was a sacramental.
Thus, the demotion of a knight was done not only with the intervention of the
Church, but with her full approval. The picture shows a knight who dishonored
his rank by some infamous crime mounted with derision on the cross-beam of a
fence, as if on a wooden horse. To one side, a page holds his charger, which he
has been compelled to dismount. The ceremony is half-over. The knight has
already been divested of his helmet and gauntlets, which lie cast on the
ground. Two knights in ceremonial attire are now removing his brassards; in
such manner, piece by piece, he will be stripped of all his armor. Gathered in
the place of execution or at nearby windows, the public attends the ceremony,
at once horrified and edified by it.
REMINISCENCES from days of
yore, one might say. No. That ceremony, unfortunately secularized, still exists
in all modern armies in the form of military demotion. And, even today, the
As for the application of
punishments for infamy, the Colombian magazine El Catolicismo of
We, Crisanto
Luque, Cardinal priest of the Holy Roman Church,
titular of Saints Cosmas and Damian, by the grace of
God and by the Apostolic Holy See, Archbishop of Bogota
and Primate of Colombia,
Considering:
First, that Canon 2356 of
the Code of Canon Law so disposes that bigamists...are ipso facto infamous,
and, if they disregard the admonitions of the Ordinary and remain in their
unlawful relationship, they should be excommunicated or punished with a
personal interdict depending upon the gravity of their fault....
That by means of public
documents, it was proven that Dr. Hernando Diaz Rubio and Mrs. Olga Pardo Pardo contracted between
themselves a so-called civil marriage in Ibarra, Ecuador..., Dr. Diaz Rubio
being bound by a previous marriage yet knowing intimately Mrs. Pardo Pardo;
We thus declare:
First, by the very fact of
having ventured to contract this so-called civil matrimony, they are infamous
and are subject to all canonical consequences of infamy by law...(Canons 2356
and 2294, sec. 1, Code of Canon Law);
This decree notifies the
guilty parties and reminds them of their duty to separate under threat of being
excommunicated if they remain in their unlawful relationship, and it is
published by the press so that it might produce the desired social effects.
IN short, to confer public
awards and inflict ignominious public punishments conforms to the morals and
practices of the
[Catolicismo, Jan 1959; TFP
Magazine, March-April 1993]