Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/23

 THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA

I

Infamy (Lat. in, not, and fama, fame) is loss of a good name. When this has been brought about by- regular legal process, terminating in a conviction in a court of justice, no injury is done to the criminal by publishing the fact. The same thing can be said when the scandalous repute in which a person is held is matter of common knowledge. The canon law seems to require a pre-existing public opinion against an individual before the investigation in a judicial inquiry can be narrowed to any particular person. Infamy in the canonical sense is defined as the privation or lessening of one's good name as the result of the bad rating which he has, even among prudent men. It constitutes an irregularity, i. e. a canonical impedi- ment which prevents one being ordained or exercising such orders as he may have already received.

It is twofold in species, infamy of law {infamia juris) and infamy of fact (infamia facti). Infamy of law is contracted in one of three ways. Either the law itself attaches this juridical ineligibilitj' and incapacity to the commission of certain crimes, or makes it contingent upon the decision of a judge, or finally connects it with the penalty imposed by him. This kind of infamy is incurred chiefly by those guilty of duelling (whether as principals or seconds), rape (as likewise those who co-operate in it), attempt to marry during the lifetime of the actual consort, heresy, real simony, etc. Infamy of law may be removed either by canonical purging or by apjilication to the Holy See. Infamy of fact is the result of a widespread opinion, by which the community attributes some unusually serious delinquency, such as adultery or the like, to a person. This is more of an unfitness than an irregularity properly so called, unless sentence in court has been pronounced. It ceases therefore when one has shown by a change of life extending over a period of two or probably three years that his repent- ance is sincere.

Taonton. The Law of the Church (London, 1906): Suiter, Manual of Moral Theology (New York, 190S): Gasparri, De Sacra Ordinatione (Pariis, 1893); Wernz, Jus Decrelalium (Rome, 190-1).

Joseph F. Del-u^y. Infant Baptism. See Baptism.

Infanticide, child-murder, the killing of an infant before or after birth, .\ceording to the French Criminal Code the word is limited to the murder of the new-born infant. In English it has been used for the deprivation of life from the moment of con- ception up to the age of two or three years. Except under Hebrew and Christian law, the killing of very young children by their parents has almost invariably been either legally permitted or at least practised with impunity. Economic reasons more than any others had led to the killing of infants before or after birth and have continued to exert an unfortunate influence even down to our own day. In Oriental countries certain poetic and religious traditions were appealed to in justification of the custom of killing infants, but VIII.— 1

as a rule the economic basis for it is clear. In many countries it was the custom to get rid of many of the female infants because they were unproductive, and generally expensive, members of the family. Some- times usage required large dowries to be given with them. In India infanticide continued to be practised until far into the nineteenth century, notwithstanding the efforts of the British Government to put an end to it. In Greece and Rome, even at the height of their culture, the custom of exposing infants obtained, and in China and Japan deUcate or deformed children were abandoned, or even healthy females, where there were male children in the family. Missionaries liave done much to break up the custom and many children have been saved by them in the last few generations to be reared in the light of Christianity. Christianity first opposed a formal and effectual barrier to infanticide. Immediately after the Emperor Constantiue's con- version he enacted two laws (about .\.d. 320) directed against child-murder which are still found in the Theodosian Code (hb. XI, tit. xxvii). The first, to remove temptation, provided funds out of the imperial treasury for parents over-burdened with cliildren ; the second accorded all the rights of property of exposed infants to those who had had the charity to save and nurture them.

In modern times even in Christian countries two causes have led to post-natal infanticide: one, the disgrace attendant upon illegitimacy; the other, an economic reason. Illegitimate children were sacri- ficed partly for the concealment of shame, but often to escape the burden of the child's support. The crime occurs most frequently where illegitimacy is most fre- quent and, according to statistics, is least common in Ireland. In coimtries where children are readily received without question into institutions, infanticide is rare. In France the law forljids inquiry into pater- nity, and arrangements are made for the state care of the cliildren. In Russia even more liberal provision is made for the state care of any child whose parents cannot or will not care for it. The question of child- murder by mothers has always been a difficult legal problem. Under a statute of James I of England, the mother had to account forthedeathof her infant or be held responsible for it. In 1803 trials for infanticide were placed under the ordinary rules of evidence. The presumption now is that every new-born child found dead was born dead unless the contrary is proved. This rule of English law holds in the United States. Infanticide has been quite common in European coim- tries during the nineteenth century for two sordid reasons: one was the neglect of infants in the process of what was known as baby-farming, the other was the desire to obtain insurance money. This abuse has been regulated in various ways, but baby-farming and child-insurance still seriously increase the death-rate among infants.

Pre-natal Inf.\nticide, the murder of an infant before birth. This is more properly called foeticide.