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 greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I do not want to be covetous, but I think I speak the minds of many a wife and mother when I say I would willingly work as hard as possible all day and all night, if I might be sure of a small profit, but have worked hard for twenty-five years and have never known what it was to receive a financial compensation and to have what was really my own.”
—Emma Watrous, U.S. inventor. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, ch. 8, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)