“The death sentence is a necessary and efficacious means for the Church to attain its end when rebels act against it and disturbers of the ecclesiastical unity, especially obstinate heretics and heresiarchs, cannot be restrained by any other penalty from continuing to derange the ecclesiastical order and impelling others to all sorts of crime ... When the perversity of one or several is calculated to bring about the ruin of many of its children it is bound effectively to remove it, in such wise that if there be no other remedy for saving its people it can and must put these wicked men to death.”
Quote by Pope Leo XIII
Author
Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII (born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci) served as the 256th Pope of the Catholic Church from 1878 to 1903, making him one of the longest-reigning popes in history. Born on March 2, 1810, in Carpineto, Italy, he died on July 20, 1903, in Rome. He is renowned for establishing modern Catholic social teaching through his landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which addressed workers' rights and became a foundation of Catholic social doctrine. Leo XIII promoted Thomistic philosophy and worked to reconcile the Catholic Church with the modern world. more
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Source: A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII
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