Doubt IX: Whether one who says a great part of the Office with no intention of satisfying satisfies

¶ COMMONLY Doctors assert that one who thus performs the office with the intention of not satisfying, whether in part or in whole, satisfies the precept, and is bound to nothing further; So many, as reported by Diana resolut. 37.

The REASON is, because the law obliges only to execution, not to intention; and he who thus recites the office fulfills all that is commanded. It is confirmed by Suarez cap. 16. num. 8.; for he who from devotion completes the hourly task, intending to say it again in order to satisfy the Church, is no longer pressed by such a precept, which only enjoins on him to recite the hours once in the day; but this he has already done: Therefore. Say the same of Hearing Mass, or the execution of another human precept: I say human, because if it is a natural or divine precept, whose imposition depends on your will, as in a vow, it must be said otherwise, as I shall note below. This is clear from the example cited in Suarez; for he who in good faith on the Vigil of the holy Virgin, when he was bound by precept to fast, wished rather to fast from devotion, intending to satisfy the precept on the next following day — who would say he was bound that day to the precept, which was extinguished with its own day? Moreover, he who with whatever intention would say the office, or a notable part of it, the intention of satisfying being excluded, would incur no excommunication or censure; therefore it is a sign that the precept has been satisfied.

I SAY the same of other crimes on account of which censures are incurred; for he who would so wound a man that, all hope being removed, he would be dying, if nevertheless he were saved by a miracle, would contract no censure.

On account of these reasons there adhere to this opinion Portell. addit ad dub. regul. verbo hora can.; Lessius lib. 2. cap. 47. dub. 10. num. 59.; Sanchez in summa tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 43. num. 16.; Aragon. 2. 2. quaest. 83. art. 3.; Henriquez lib. 9. cap. 15.; Garzias de beneficiis, tract. 1. part. 3. cap. 1. num. 198.; Squillante de oblig. clericor. part. 1. disp. 22.; Valentia tom. 3. disp. 6. quaest. 2. puncto 10.; Vasquez opusculo de beneficiis, cap. 4. §. 1. disput. 7. num. 114.; Mollesius tomo 1. tract. 5. cap. 1. num. 40.; Neldus V. officium; Filliucius tom. 1. tract. 23. cap. 8. quaest. 1. num. 251.; to whom Bassaeus subscribes num. 18. Many, however, hold the opposite opinion, as reported by Suarez cap. 16. num. 7.

FIRST they support it, because the action which is in the precept ought to be elicited in a human manner; but this happens with intention.

SECOND, because he who owed a hundred gold pieces to someone, and gave them to him, saying he did not will by that payment to satisfy his debt, would always be bound to pay as much again from justice; so he who received a stipend in order to celebrate Masses, and said them from devotion, would be bound still to satisfy the prior debt.

THESE reasons, though specious enough, yet seem to me to yield to the former ones; first indeed, because the human manner in which the will obeys the precept is well and sufficiently preserved, while he acts freely and effects by his liberty the substance of the action; nor is it necessary that he affect the manner, since the manner does not fall under the precept, at least when the manner is not the principal object of the precept: as happens in the second reason alleged, where he who owes 100 gold pieces is bound not only to give them, but to pay them from justice; wherefore if he gave them under another title, he would still be a debtor; because it lay with him to give or not to give. So he who would vow to recite the office of the Blessed Virgin on a fixed day, and would not will to say it from the vow but from his own devotion, resolving that he would satisfy the vow on another day, would be bound still, and would not satisfy by the first recitation; because, since the natural or divine precept of the vow arose from him immediately, it will be in his own power to retain it as long as he wills; it is otherwise in precepts which are imposed upon us but not by us; for if we have once satisfied a thing commanded by the Church, with the intention of executing the formal part of the precept at another time, or even of not executing it, it is no longer in our power to retain that precept, but in the thing once done the precept has simultaneously been accomplished and extinguished.

Suarez, however, above strives to make BOTH opinions agree in such a way that a twofold precept occurs: one natural, which obliges us to obey whatever precepts with affection; and this he says is transgressed if the office is said with altogether no intention of satisfying: because by natural law we are taught that, a precept being posited, we execute it without reluctance of will. The other is a human precept, which is satisfied by performing externally the action enjoined, cut off from all internal intention; provided it be done voluntarily, both objectively and effectively.