Case XIV: The Wife and Children of a Thief

Case.—Sempronius brings home stolen goods, also money realized from the sale of stolen goods. At first his wife objected strongly to this, but the husband would not desist from stealing, and ordered his wife to use the fruits of his thefts for the support of the family, which she did. Now the man has died, without leaving anything of value.

Questions:

1. May wife and children accept their support from a husband and father who is a thief?

2. Are wife and children obliged to make restitution if later they ‘acquire property?

Solution.—The case before us is one of cooperation in the sin of another, in an injustice, of which he was the perpetrator. Cooperation is either formal or material, according as one shares the sinful intention of the perpetrator and therefore assists in his sin, or does not share the sinful intention, but for some reason participates in the act. Further, we distinguish direct and indirect cooperation; the former exists when one actually shares in the performance of sin, the latter when one only prepares the way or offers the means for the sinful need. The formal cooperation in sin is never allowed, the material cooperation may, for a relatively important reason (causa proportionate gravis), be allowed, and then exonerates from sin as well as from the obligation of restitution. A direct cooperation in sin as a rule cannot be excused; an indirect and remote cooperation may for weighty reasons be excused. The reason for this is that direct participation in the sinful act is generally not possible unless one has agreed to the sin itself; moreover, direct participation, as a rule, is not an indifferent action since one commits the deed with the intention that it be done; for instance, if one helps to kill or maim another then he assists because he has decided to do so for some motive, be it hatred, revenge, or self-preservation, and for his own reasons he intends that the victim be killed or maimed. Hence in regard to direct participation in causing injury, authors distinguish the different kinds of goods and say: 1. quoad damnum vitae, i. e., the unjust killing of a fellow-being; direct cooperation in such an act is never allowed, not even in danger of one’s own life: 2. quoad damnum membrorum, the maiming of important limbs, is likewise not allowed, not even in fear of death, unless cooperation in such mutilation would save the victim’s life; for in this case he would by the lesser evil be spared the greater one; 3. quoad damnum fortunae, an injury to property, may be excused under three conditions where grave fear is present, namely: (a) if the cooperator himself can and will make good the loss; (b) if a serious injury would be done even without the cooperation, and would be accomplished by the chief perpetrator, for then the position of the injured person would be made no worse by the cooperation; (c) when the injury is only trivial, one may cooperate in an injury ex gravissimo metu, in fear of death, even if one neither can nor will make restitution. If, however, one’s cooperation is an active cause of the injury, and one cooperates only in order to protect oneself from loss of property, then one is not allowed to cooperate without assuming the duty of restitution (S. Alph. L. IV. 571.) or, as St. Alphonsus formulates the principle: it is not permitted to cooperate directly in injuring our neighbor in order to avert our own loss of property of the same order if we have not the intention of making restitution; but it is allowable in order to avert an injury of a higher order, for instance death, mutilation, grave dishonor. A more remote cooperation may be permitted, for weighty reasons, in order to avert an equally grievous injury to oneself (Konings; Theol. Mor. n. 772; Aertnys, Theol. M. n. 330).

St. Alphonsus states (l. c.) the reason why even a direct cooperation in injury to property may be allowed in the stated cases: To appropriate or damage property of others is a sin of injustice invito domino; here however the dominus is not rationabiliter invitus.

Now to consider our case, we have to distinguish (1) The stolen articles and the money they brought; (2) the mother and the children; (3) participation in the theft (participatio in actione injusta) and participation in the stolen goods (participatio in praeda) and there will follow these answers to our questions:

1. It is permissible to take for the support of life money obtained from the sale of stolen property, for the wife absolutely so, and for the children if they cannot support themselves in any other way. For this money belongs to the thief, who for the support of his wife and children is under the same obligation as for restitution (S. Alphonsus, L. 4, n. 695; H. A. tr. 10, n. 115). The same may be done by the children if they have means of their own, but by their labor for the family earn as much as they receive from the thief, for if they accept only as much as they earn they do not involve the thief in greater difficulty to make restitution (Konings, 707, qu. 3).

It is not permitted to the wife and children to use stolen property, unless they are in most extreme need (necessitas extrema or quasi extrema); for the stolen articles still belong to another (praeda) and the participatio in praeda is only permitted in necessitate extrema or quasi extrema. But if the wife against her will was compelled, by threats, to employ the articles in the household, then she sins neither by participation in the theft itself—for her participation is only very remote and is permissible for sufficient reasons—nor through participation in the stolen articles themselves, provided she had the intention to make restitution; for her participation then only means that she retains the matter and does not return it (Konings, l. c.; Berardi, Praxis Confess., n. 257). And I hold this view to be right even if the wife does not know how she ever can make restitution, or is certain that she can not. Of course the wife must save the ill-gotten property as much as possible, and make an effort to render final restitution possible.

2. As regards the obligation of restitution, (1) on account of the money derived from the stolen property, the wife, and under the given conditions the children too, are not obliged to make restitution, neither ratione rei acceptae, nor ratione acceptionis; for they have not wronged anybody.

(2) As regards the part of the stolen property used for themselves they are obliged to make restitution unless it was used to relieve extreme want. The amount of restitution they are obliged to make must be proportionate: (a) to the extent in which they unjustly, effectively and sinfully participated in the theft; (b) to the extent in which they partook of what was stolen, even if they did not sin by employing the articles for their own use.