Occult Compensation is, in the radical Catholic tradition, the extra-legal taking of goods from a person who refused to meet the demands of justice, for a value equivalent to the loss or damage inflicted.
Occult compensation is a demand in commutative justice and deducible from the principle of self-defense. It is, of course, open to all manner of abuses, but the utter denial of it gives the weak no redress against the oppression of the strong.
Catholics believe that occult compensation is justifiable only when
- The right of the creditor is certain
- No recourse to the law is possible or feasible
If the debtor or his heirs later make redress, restitution is necessary.
Reasonable efforts must be made to prevent scandal.
Famous quotes containing the words occult and/or compensation:
“The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is “what should be.” Now, if you’re taught to live up to a “what should be” that never existed—only an occult superstition, no proof of this “should be”Mthen you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)
“Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)