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| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
The undue craving forhonour. Anciently inRome the candidates for office were accustomed to go about (ambire) soliciting votes. This striving for popular favour was spoken of asambitio. Honour is the manifestation of a certain reverence for aperson because of the worth or assemblage of goodqualities which thatperson is deemed to have. The excessive desire of distinction is of course asin, not because it is wrong in itself to wish to have the respect or consideration of others, but because it is assumed that this quest is conducted without proper regard to the mandates of soundreason. This deordination in the desire of, or search for,honour may come about chiefly in three ways.
Ambition as such is not accounted a mortalsin; it may become such either because of the means it uses to compass its object, as for instance, thesimoniacal endeavour to obtain anecclesiastical dignity, or because of the harm done to another. Ambition operates as acanonical impediment in the following circumstances. Those who take their elevation to a church dignity for granted, and, before receiving the requisite formal enabling notice of it, by some overtact demean themselves as if their election were an accomplished fact, are held to be ineligible. The bestowal of the office in this case is likewise considered invalid. Those who accept an election brought about by an abuse of thesecular power are also declared ineligible (Corp. Jur. Can. in VI Decret., Bk. I, tit. vi, ch. v).
APA citation.Delany, J.(1907).Ambition. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01381d.htm
MLA citation.Delany, Joseph."Ambition."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 1.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1907.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01381d.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by W.S. French, Jr.Dedicated to Adrian W. Harmening, O.S.B.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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