CSDC 401

The Church's social doctrine indicates the criteria for exercising the right to resistance: “Armed resistance to oppression by political authority is not legitimate, unless all the following conditions are met: 1) there is certain, grave and prolonged violation of fundamental rights, 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted, 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders, 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution”.⁸²⁴ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2243. Recourse to arms is seen as an extreme remedy for putting an end to a “manifest, long-standing tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country”.⁸²⁵ Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 31: AAS 59AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 59 (1967) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1967), 272. The gravity of the danger that recourse to violence entails today makes it preferable in any case that passive resistance be practised, which is “a way more conformable to moral principles and having no less prospects for success”.⁸²⁶ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Libertatis Conscientia, 79: AAS 79AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 79 (1987) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1987), 590.