Mutilation

The maiming of the body is altogether unlawful and opposed to justice unless it be by way of necessary surgerycompetently performed, or by way of punishment for crime, under public authority. It seems clear that public authority may inflictmutilation of members as a penalty for heinous crime; the same authority may lawfully take a criminal’s life, and mutilation is a much less terrible punishment than death.

It is not contrary to justice for parents to punish their children corporally by way of needful correction. But no person may justly strike or punish another corporally unless he has jurisdiction over him.

Competent public authority may lawfully detain orimprison a person by way of punishment, or even as a precaution against impending evil, provided this be done according to the order of justice. On occasion, it is permissible for an individual to restrain a person temporarily, as, for example, to prevent his jumping to death from a high place, or to hold him back from doing violent injury to someone unable to defend himself.

An unjust act of injuring another in his body (bymaiming, striking, fettering, restraining) is made worse if the person injured is one to whom the offender owes a special reverence or respect, or with whom he is connected by some relationship.