VI. On Scrupulous Conscience

What is scrupulous conscience? - A scruple is an empty apprehension, and from this arising fear and anxiety, that sin is somewhere where it is not; or that there is grave sin where there is only light sin. Therefore scrupulous conscience is that conscience which from some vain cause doubts about the honorableness of some action, and therefore fears sin. Fear of this kind can very well stand with a determinate judgment concerning the honorableness of the thing; for it rests only on a light and empty motive. But if that fear is with a determinate judgment that something is sin which in reality is not, this judgment, insofar as it proceeds from an empty motive and afflicts and anxiously troubles the soul, can certainly be called a scruple, or scrupulous conscience, speaking broadly; but properly it is vincibly erroneous conscience. Likewise there can be a scruple with true practical doubt whether this is sin or not, from an empty motive, suspecting perhaps that it is sin, without any determinate judgment that it is or is not sin.

And thus again it is a scruple or scrupulous conscience broadly so called, but properly it is doubtful conscience. Ferraris Supplem. v. Scrupulus. Scrupulous conscience differs from tender conscience; for the latter is a conscience recognizing, fearing, and fleeing both grave and light sins, and even simple imperfections, as much as with divine grace it can, strives to avoid.

Is it licit to operate with a scrupulous conscience? - The response is clear from the two following propositions in this number and the next. - It is licit to operate with a scrupulous conscience, while the scruple remains, provided it is judged to be a scruple and is despised as such. Nor indeed is it necessary that this express judgment, that it is a scruple, be formed for each individual act; but it suffices that someone act against it from a judgment of experience of past acts. - The first reason is that such a scrupulous person has a prudent motive for despising the dictate of scrupulous conscience; because a scruple proceeds from a light foundation and consequently does not take away a judgment otherwise certain or probable; and because confessors and theologians commonly say that scruples are to be put aside, or, if they cannot be put aside, are to be despised. The second reason is that then there is had at least a virtual judgment of that contempt of scruples. - Suarez tr. 3. d. 12. s. ult.; L. 1. 1. n. 18. 19; Wirceburg c. 4. a. 1.

One who is scrupulous, without knowing or noticing that he is scrupulous, or at least scrupulous in this action, cannot act against a scrupulous conscience, if a judgment about sin is formed or doubt about it is had. The reason is that such a person would freely choose that which he judges evil, or about which he doubts whether it is evil.

From where do scruples proceed? - The causes of scruples, dispositive, permissive, effective, occasional, are some intrinsic and others extrinsic. The intrinsic causes of scruples are: 1. The natural constitution of the body, very much disposed to suspicions and fears, as is a melancholic disposition. 2. Weak health of the head, especially in women. 3. Ignorance, by which someone does not well perceive the precepts of God and the Church. 4. Hidden pride, by which someone trusts too much in his own judgment. 5. Excessive abstinence and immoderate vigils, by which, the head being weakened, the soul is easily disturbed. 6. Immoderate and indiscreet fervor.

But the extrinsic causes of scruples are: 1. God, who permits scruples in the just so that thus purified they may advance more; in the tepid, so that they may perform the offices of Christian piety more fervently; in penitents, so that they may pay the penalty of past sins. Scruples are judged to be from God if those agitated by them become better. 2. The devil, who, "God permitting, can move melancholic humors in man, through which the imagination can either err or be disturbed to inordinate fear." S. Anton. I. p. t. 3. c. 10. Scruples are thought to come from the devil if the scrupulous person feels himself being brought to tepidity, drawn back from virtue, and especially inclined to despair. 3. The society of the scrupulous, especially if the scrupulous moderate themselves by their counsels and frequently converse with them about matters of the soul; for those with whom we associate, we imitate most easily. 4. Reading of books which are too rigid, "establishing harsher precepts which the human condition cannot sustain"; S. Ambrose on Ps. 118; little by little without sensing it we assent to those opinions to which we give study.

What are the signs of a scrupulous conscience? - "1. Pertinacity of judgment, by which the scrupulous person refuses to obey the counsels of the wise, consults various persons, but acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed the more he hears many, the more perplexed he becomes. - 2. Frequent change of judgment from light motives, whence arises inconstancy in acting and disturbance of mind, especially in external operations, for example in the celebration of Mass, etc. - 3. To have irrelevant reflections about many circumstances which were present or could have been present in the action." L. 1. 1. n. 11. 4. If he thinks that he sins in that in which pious men find no sin at all; if he recites his prayers anxiously and continually begins them anew; if he does not make an end of examining conscience, and explains every least thing, and often also repeats it in Confession. 5. If he uses ridiculous signs, gestures, and other modes for putting aside scruples. 6. If the confessor, or another prudent man, has judged him scrupulous. La-Croix 1. 1. n. 515 seq.

What are the remedies of a scrupulous conscience? - 1. To despise scruples, act against them, and not foster them by thought. "The scrupulous person is sometimes bound by grave obligation to operate against scruples, when from the anxiety of scruples he can fear grave harm in spiritual progress, or in the health of body or mind." L. 1. 1. n. 17. 13. - 2. To acquiesce in the judgment of the confessor, or of another pious and learned man. "For this above all can be called the chief, indeed the only, remedy of the infirm of this kind.... Deprived of this anchor of obedience, they can never be healed." L. 1. 1. n. 12. 13. 16. "After the scrupulous person has received the response or example of one confessor or good man, he ought not consult others, lest he become accustomed to fostering useless anxieties longer." Sporer n. 108. - 3. To look upon the life and custom of good men as a rule, and to avoid conversation with other scrupulous persons; likewise to abstain from reading books exciting scruples. L. 1. n. 2. 4. Before he operates, not to judge anything to be sin unless he certainly knows it, lest from error of conscience he really sin. After the operation, let him use "the rule wisely handed down by the doctors, namely that those who are of a timorous conscience, unless they know morally certainly that they consented to grave sin, are to be judged immune from sin; for it is impossible for sin to enter a soul abhorring it without being clearly known by that soul." L. 1. 1. n. 15; Suarez tr. 3. d. 12. s. ult. 5. To accustom himself to following the milder and even less safe opinions. Busemb. apud La-Croix l. c. "For the scrupulous, that rule handed down by Blessed Albert the Great and S. Antoninus is to be preserved: Between the hard and benign opinion concerning precepts, the benign interpretation, other things being equal, is to be made." L. 1. 1. n. 19. - 6. Never to be idle, because idleness fills the imagination with scrupulous thoughts. L. 1. 1. n. 12. 7. To destroy the causes of scruples; for example, let the melancholic person purge black bile with medicines, let the pertinacious break his own judgment, let the proud not trust his own prudence, let the uneducated seek instruction, let the fearful meditate on the goodness of God, which does not impose precepts reducing one to insanity. 8. To commend oneself insistently and confidently to God, who consoles us in all our tribulation, 2 Cor. 1:4; L. 1. 1. n. 12.

It will also be useful to know the privileges of the scrupulous: 1. that the scrupulous person is not bound in acting to employ examination and diligence except very moderate diligence, and not so much as others; and that, while a scruple torments and counsel is not available, he can freely do what he wishes, unless it is certain and evident that it is sin. Cf. Vasq. on 1. 2. d. 57. 2. That he is bound to repeat nothing from past Confessions, unless he certainly knows that it is mortal and that he has not been duly confessed. But he is not certain as long as he doubts. Hence Laymann advises that the scrupulous person never confess doubts and scruples. And Sa, v. dubium, and others say that he is not bound to confess except those things which he could swear are mortal and have never been confessed. The reason for each privilege is that in the scrupulous person, by excessive fear of sinning, reason is disturbed, so that he cannot examine the matter rightly. Hence, although he perhaps did not confess some things, nevertheless he is not bound with so much harm and danger of perpetual anxiety to procure the integrity of confession, since lesser difficulties often excuse from it. L. 1. 6. n. 476. 477. - 3. "Indeed sometimes someone can be so tormented by scruples that, although it seems certain to him that he did not say some things, still he is not bound to confess them." L. 1. 1. n. 16.

What ought to be the manner of acting of a confessor with the scrupulous? - It is contained in these rules: 1. Let him be patient and full of charity, since the care of the scrupulous is long and arduous, and their condition most wretched. 2. Let him be discreet, so that he rightly knows what is the origin of the scruples in the penitent, and whether he is scrupulous in all things or only in one, so that he may be able to remedy the evils congruently. 3. Let him be prudent, namely in prescribing rules, which ought indeed to be general; for the scrupulous almost never are able to accommodate themselves to particular rules, because they cannot apply them to themselves. Indeed they always doubt whether the case was sufficiently explained and understood, whether the rule prescribed to them was well accommodated to that case. 4. Let him be brief and dictatorial in his responses; and, as far as he can, let him define everything promptly and firmly; otherwise the penitent would be confirmed in his anxiety by the authority of the confessor himself.

Especially let the confessor notice that for the most part scruples are concerned about three things: 1. that assent is given to any evil thought whatever which appears to the mind, for example, against faith, chastity, charity; 2. that past Confessions were null, or even sacrilegious, either because of defect of integrity or because of imperfection of sorrow; 3. that in every action sin or the danger of sin seems to be present.

If the first, let him command the penitent to despise fears of this kind altogether, and teach him that not depraved thoughts, but depraved consents are sins. Often it will also be expedient to impose on the scrupulous person that the penitent abstain from Confession of thoughts of this kind, unless he knows so certainly that he consented to them that he could immediately swear it. "Nor is there reason for us to be frightened because of length of time or vehemence of thought, for these things also are often natural and involuntary, and sometimes afterward appear greater from fear than they really were." Suarez d. 12. s. ult. "Nevertheless take care diligently to note that the devil or sense itself sometimes injects temptations into certain persons, especially the scrupulous, under an expression declaring consent, in this or a similar way: I wish to sin, I wish to consent; although nevertheless no consent of the will is present, which is not to be drawn from incidental words, but from the proper act itself of the superior will." Ithur. Cas. 18. n. 5; Elbel De Act. hum. 226 seq.

If the second, and the penitent has already elsewhere completed a general Confession, or for some notable time has been accustomed to approach penance diligently and piously, let him impose on him that he no longer think about past faults, nor say any word about them any more, unless he can swear that he certainly committed those mortal sins and never deposited them in Confession. But if after a Confession duly completed he returns, then let the confessor dismiss him unheard, commanding him to approach Communion. Thus S. Bernard behaved, who is reported to have said to a certain priest wishing from scruples to abstain from the celebration of Mass: Go, and celebrate on my faith; and he was freed. Nor should you say: Would that he who speaks so were another Bernard! "Whoever says so," says S. Antoninus from Gerson, "errs; for you have not committed yourself into the hands of a man because he is learned, because he is pious; but because he has been placed over you."

If the third, let the confessor impose that he act freely and despise scruples; indeed that he operate against them whenever evident sin does not appear; because, generally speaking, such persons, because of reason disturbed from that slightest fear, think there is sin where there is none. Hence it is necessary to enjoin a precept on them that they conquer scruples, lest they become useless both to themselves and to others; and that afterward they in no way accuse themselves in Confession of such actions. "For a scruple ought not to be exploded speculatively, but practically, and not so that it is not felt, but so that consent is not given to it by a determinate judgment." Suarez l. c. n. 4. In this matter it must be noted that even if it can happen that sometimes they err materially in acting so, nevertheless they will not sin formally by reason of the obedience which they furnish to the confessor; because then they obey not man, but God saying: He who hears you, hears me, and he who despises you, despises me. Nor indeed "in moral matters is every kind of certainty to be sought; and a doubt which perhaps in others would be reasonable is to be reckoned as nothing in the scrupulous." Suarez l. c. n. 6. - L. 1. 1. n. 12-19; La-Croix l. 1. n. 527 seq.

Are scruples useful? - "A scruple... for some space of time, helps not a little the soul which gives itself to spiritual exercises; indeed it greatly purges and cleanses such a soul by separating it very much from every species (appearance) of sin, according to that saying of Gregory: It belongs to good minds to know fault there where there is no fault." S. Ignatius of Loy. Exer. Spir. Reg. de Scrup. 3; La-Croix l. 1. n. 513. But if they are prolonged for a long time, "scruples are harmful, first to the body, because they destroy health, weaken the head, often reduce man to insanity, often shorten life; then to the soul, which they render entangled, desolate, perplexed, sometimes despairing; they confuse the intellect, disturb the power of judging, often render the whole man, endowed with remarkable talents, inept for all functions; moreover they impede many good works, waste time with many vain and useless thoughts, etc." La-Croix l. c. n. 514.