Still we may use our best efforts to bring them to
justice, even to capital punishment, according to the procedure of
public law established in the country, and not otherwise. We may also
with an _inefficacious_ desire, that is, a desire that finds no vent
in action, desire their death under an alternative thus, that either
living they may cease to do evil, or that God may call them away to
where the wicked cease from troubling. But we must not desire, nor be
glad of, their death by any unlawful means, for that were to
sympathise with crime.
8. Real charity shows itself in action, succouring a neighbour in
need, which is sometimes a counsel, sometimes a duty. It is an axiom,
that _charity is not binding with grave inconvenience_. The gravity of
the inconvenience in prospect must be measured against the urgency of
the need to be relieved. A neighbour is technically said to be in
_extreme need_, when he is in imminent peril of deadly evil to soul or
body, and is unable to help himself. We are under severe obligation of
charity to succour any whom we find in this plight.
9. By charity we give of our own to another: by justice we render to
another that which is his.
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