My understanding of all this is :-
“A criminal may not defend himself against lawful arrest,” - so if approached by a police officer, be co-operative and not resist/fight thus needing to be subdued.
" for that would be to resist lawful authority," - police officers have the legal ie lawful authority to arrest people (leaving out citizens’ arrest etc), and God has so placed these in authority above us, therefore we should obey their lawful directions as in doing so we are indirectly obeying God.
" but he is not compelled to deliver himself up to
justice," - here I understand this to mean he is not obligated/must ie no other choice, but personally I think that to do so would fall under the charity of justice, but the important word in this section is
compelled - he has a moral choice in the matter.
" and it is not a
sin to escape from
justice if he can do so without
violence." - so if a person is being chased by police and then flee jumping over fences, running down the road/ through yards etc to escape arrest , then doing so is not sinful to escape being caught. The part where it says
if he can do so without violence would mean not drive at the police officer, not shoot to kill or injure the police officer, but simply run away.
does Catholicism allow hit-and-run during a road accident?
My understanding is that the right/charitable thing to do in this case would be to stop and render assistance to the person hit. That would be the morally right thing to do. We each have the choice/free will as to whether we do the right thing or not. So I would not think “Catholicism” would allow/approve of running from the scene of an accident, but that one should stop and render assistance.
The running from authority in the example of a carjacking or hold up is different from a hit and run accident.
Edited to add:- Welcome to the forums!
