Religion: Enforcement of the Law of God

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"The Catholic policeman should regard his office not merely as a job . . . but primarily as a deputation to protect and enforce the law of God, which is reflected in every just civil law." So wrote Catholic University's Rev. Francis J. Connell in an article, Catholics on the Police Force, recently reprinted in pamphlet form by the Newman Bookshop of Westminster, Md. Said New York City's police chaplain, the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph A. McCaffrey, last week: "I'd like to see every policeman read it. No matter what religion a man is . . . it's going to do him good."

To plain citizens as well as cops, Father Connell's words make timely Christian reading in a world too used to thinking that the end justifies the means. Excerpts:

". . . It has happened that a detective, in order to have evidence that a certain establishment was a house of prostitution, patronized the place himself. Again, sometimes an agent of the law pretends to be in favor of some subversive organization and goes to the extent of taking an oath of loyalty to its false principles, in order to gain information. . . . Such means of protecting the law, being intrinsically wrong, are never permissible.

"It is forbidden to risk one's life when the desired effect can be obtained more safely in a less glamorous fashion, or when it is practically certain that the attempt cannot succeed.

". . . The 'third degree,' when it includes such measures as beating the accused or depriving him of food and drink and sleep until he is almost out of his mind, is absolutely wrong, and any Catholic policeman or detective who would participate in it should regard such participation as a matter of confession."