Pius XI, 1922-1939

committed, to be sought by public authority, nor to ward off future crimes of the guilt,¹ but, contrary to every right and claim, by arrogating this power to the civil magistrates, which they never had and can never have legitimately.

Whoever so act completely forget that the family is more sacred than the state, and that men are generated primarily not for earth and for time, but for heaven and eternity. And, surely, it is not right that men, in other respects capable of matrimony, who according to conjecture, though every care and diligence be applied, will generate only defective offspring, be for this reason burdened with a serious sin if they contract marriage, although sometimes they ought to be dissuaded from matrimony.

2246. In fact, public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, they can never directly do harm to, or in any way affect the integrity of the body, where no crime has taken place, and no cause for serious punishment is at hand, either for reasons of eugenics, or any other purpose. St. Thomas Aquinas taught the same, when, inquiring whether human judges have the power to inflict some evil on man to ward off future evils, concedes this to be correct with reference to certain other evils, but rightly and worthily denies it with regard to injuring the body: “Never ought anyone, according to human judgment, to be punished when without guilt, by a penalty of flogging to death, or of mutilation, or of beating.” ²

Christian doctrine has established this, and by the light of human reason it is quite clear that private individuals have no other power over the members of their bodies, and cannot destroy or mutilate them, or in any other way render them unfitted for natural functions, except when the good of the whole body cannot otherwise be provided for.

The Emancipation of Women ³

[From the same Encyclical, “Casti Connubii,” Dec. 31, 1930]

2247. Whoever, then, obscure the luster of conjugal faith and chastity by writing and speaking, these same teachers of error easily undermine the trustful and honorable obedience of the woman to the man. Many of them also boldly prattle that it is an unworthy form of servitude on the part of one spouse to the other; that all rights between spouses are equal; and when these are violated by the servitude of one, they proudly proclaim that a kind of emancipation has been or ought to be effected. This emancipation, moreover, they establish in a threefold way: in the ruling