Christian Roque 2-F

Sem4 Reflection Paper

Rule of Benedict
Chapter 30: How Boys are to be
Corrected
With the coming of a new
president of the Philippines that
emphasizes on harsh discipline and
extermination of criminality in our
country, I believe Chapter 30 of the Rule
of Benedict is appropriate reading to
guide our country in the future that is to
come.
St. Benedict opened this chapter
by saying that every age and degree of
understanding should have its proper
measure of discipline. I believe this to
be the most important passage of the
chapter. Although St. Benedict had
children and teenagers in mind when he
wrote this chapter, I believe that much of
it can be applied to the punishment and
discipline of criminals and those who we
deem as criminals. St. Benedict used
the words age and degree of
understanding as a basis of standards
that we can use to determine the
measure of discipline that needs to be
handed out. The same is still true now in
our criminal justice system. Minors and
those who are weak or feeble minded
are given special consideration in courts
whenever they commit a crime. Such
considerations were given since no true
justice can be achieved in punishing
such persons. They either lacked the
intent in the crime that they committed
or they have no full understanding of
their actions and as such our law fully or
partly exempts them depending on the
circumstances.

Continuing on this line of thought,

I believe that aside from using age and
level of understanding as basis for the
punishment, we should also look into
the situation of the person who
committed the crime. We are slowly
entering into an era wherein, more and
more people are more concerned in the
punishment of criminals that we lose
track of what is important. We tend to
forget that our aim is not to punish but to
discipline and correct the wrong action.
Focusing too much in punishment tends
to lead us back to the dark days of our
Martial Law era wherein the phrase the
end justified the mean has been
repeated far too often to justify ruthless
acts of that lacks any sense of justice.
In the last line of the chapter, St.
Benedict writes that they may be
cured. Again this is an emphasis that
the point of punishing the criminal is not
for revenge but to cure the criminal. This
is the reason why I am so vehemently
against the implantation of the death
penalty. Taking the life of a criminal as a
punishment for a crime serves no
purpose both for the victim and the
society. It is a remnant of an old
Abrahamic belief that should have no
room in modern society let alone in our
country.
Despite the few words that St.
Benedict has wrote in this chapter, I
believe that reading this would help a lot
of our countrymen in their actions.
Hopefully after reading it, it could help

lead to better decisions regarding such

an important aspect of our society.