Case XLVII: Restitution to a Railroad Company

Titius, a traveling salesman, is more or less intimately acquainted with a number of conductors on the several railroads over which he travels on his business trips. Now, whenever he rides with one of these conductors, he does not pay the usual fare for the distance he travels, but instead he hands the conductor a dollar bill, which is much less than the fare, for which the conductor gives him no receipt, in order not to be obliged to turn it in to the company, but to keep it for himself. In this way Titius has defrauded the several railroads in the last few years, to the extent of several hundreds of dollars.

Now, it is asked:

1. What constitutes materia granris, when stealing from a corporation?

2. When do small thefts coalesce, and create a grave obligation to restore?

3. Did Titius commit a mortal sin from the start, or only after he had, de facto, taken a considerable sum?

4. Was he also responsible for what the conductors stole?

1. The good of society at large, as well as the good of the individual, require that the members of society shall enjoy complete security in the possession of their earthly goods. Unless peace and concord reign among the individual members of a state, civilized life would become impossible. But the peace and concord required to make life tolerable would be impossible were the individual members of society free to steal from one another. And all human society would fail of its purpose were property rights not inviolable, because the greatest if not the only inducement held out by society to its members to promote industry and to encourage sustained labor and effort is precisely the security that the state guarantees to its citizens in the possession of the fruits of their labor.

The stealing, therefore, from a private individual of a sum sufficient to jeopardize the peace and concord that should reign among private members of society in the possession of their property, and which would therefore cause grievous injury to the individual, will constitute a materia gravis, and be forbidden under pain of mortal sin.

Now, although the amount stolen from very rich persons and from great corporations may not do the said persons or corporations a grave damage, and therefore might seem to be a venial sin only, nevertheless the security of property, which must necessarily obtain in every civilized state, requires that the stealing of a considerable sum, even from a corporation, shall constitute a grave transgression. For if the stealing of a considerable sum from very rich persons or from large corporations were only a minor misdemeanor anda venial sin, these thefts would multiply rapidly, as, for instance, the adulteration of goods, the falsification of weights and measures, the defrauding of insurance companies, railroad corporations, State treasuries, etc., and thus incalculable injury would be done to society at large by destroying the confidence and trust and good faith on which commerce and trade and business enterprise of every kind depend. An amount must be fixed, therefore, to exceed which will be always and in all cases a grave transgression and a mortal sin, no matter from whom it is stolen, because a grave injury is thereby done to the security of the State and the interests of its citizens.

To fix this amount in dollars and cents is one of the difficult tasks of moralists. To say, in a general way, that whenever the amount stolen, although not inflicting a serious injury on the individual owners of, say, a railroad, still is sufficient to place in jeopardy the peaceful possession of property and render the State insecure, it is a materia gravis and a mortal sin, does not help much to a solution of the difficulty. For when we come to estimate in money the amount of damage that constitutes a materia gravis, we discover an ingens auctorum dissensio. The authorities on this matter are agreed that when the sum stolen belonged to a number of owners, all constituting one moral body, as, for example, a railroad company, the sum must be absolute gravis, that is, the sum taken must not necessarily inflict a grievous injury on the individual holders of stock in any particular company directly, but only on the State directly by rendering property insecure, and through the State indirectly on the stockholders.

But what the materia gravis amounts to, when estimated in money, is difficult to determine with precision. One reason for this difficulty is the fluctuating value of money, or the varying purchasing power of money throughout any given period of time, as is apparent from the history of money in the United States and Europe for the last century. It is estimated by skilful economists that the purchasing power of money has suffered a decline of from 30 to 40 per cent. in the last one hundred years. Another reason for this same difficulty is the difference in purchasing value of money in different countries at the same time. Thus the same amount of money will purchase less in the United States than it will in Europe, as American tourists know to their comfort. Thus the estimates given by moralists, as to what constitutes materia gravis in this matter, depend largely on the time and the country in which they live. Father Konings, C.SS.R., who understood American conditions well, thinks that $10 constitutes a materia gravis when taken from very rich persons or great corporations. Father Tanquerey, S.S, thinks that $7 or $8 is a materia gravis. Fathers Sabetti, S.J., and Lehmkuhl, S.J., think that $5 is a materia gravis. Palmieri, S.J., thinks that even for Europe 100 francs, or over $19, is required to constitute a materia gravis. His words are: “I have heard other learned men who, because the value of money has greatly diminished day by day, would now have an absolutely grave amount be one that equals approximately one hundred francs; with them we agree without difficulty.” (Ball. Pal., vol. I, n. 607.)

From this opinion of Palmieri Father Genicot, S.J., dissents, and thinks that Palmieri exaggerates the decline in the purchasing power of money, and prefers to adhere to the generally accepted opinion of contemporaneous writers. We are inclined to think that Father Konings' opinion is just and reasonable, and that it is safe to say that $10 constitutes a materia gravis when stealing from a large corporation, like a railroad company.

2. Small sums stolen by the same person, but at different times, may coalesce, either by reason of the thief's intention, from the very start, of stealing small sums until he acquires a large amount, or else, where there is no intention from the start of repeating the small thefts, but still they are repeated, as occasion offers, then the short space of time intervening between one small theft and another will bring them so closely together as to make them really one moral act, and that grievously injurious. If a sufficiently long interval elapse between one small theft and another, then the victim of them has ample time to recover from the injury done by one before another is inflicted, and therefore is riot in the long run injured grievously. What this time limit in which these small thefts must follow one another in order to coalesce is, theologians are not agreed. Roncaglia thinks that these small thefts should not be separated by more than two months in order to coalesce; if they occur at intervals longer than two months, they can not be said to coalesce and to inflict a grievous injury. St. Alphonsus indorses Roncaglia's opinion. Sometimes an interval of one month, or even less, is sufficient to prevent very small thefts from coalescing. This is the opinion of Ball. Palmieri (n. 78).

A distinction must be made, however, between small thefts committed against individuals and small thefts committed against large corporations. When small thefts are committed against a corporation, they must amount to a sum half again as large as required to constitute a mortal sin if taken at one time from a corporation. Because a corporation is less injured by ten small thefts, done at considerable intervals of time, even though they amount to a considerable sum, than by the single theft of a considerable sum. Therefore, if $10 constitute a materia gravis if taken at one time from a corporation, $15 will be required to constitute a materia gravis if taken in small sums and at different times.

3. Now, in regard to Titius, there seems to have been an intention from the very start of stealing a considerable sum. If there was, then he committed a mortal sin when he first formed this intention, because the intention was graviter peccaminosa. A grave obligation to restore, however, did not arise for Titius until he had accumulated about $15. Although Titius, over and above the mortal sin he committed, when he formed the intention to defraud the railroad company, committed a new mortal sin each time that he stole a small sum, because he put into effective execution an intention that was mortally sinful, still in ordine ad confessionem he commits one mortal sin by all these small thefts.

4. Titius is also guilty of the sin of co-operation, being a party to the thefts that the conductors committed. He would be bound also, ex hoc capite, to make restitution of the sum the conductors stole, but only secundo loco. Practically speaking, however, Titius will not only be quite ignorant of his duty in this respect, but it would be difficult to convince him of it, and still more difficult to persuade him to perform it. Therefore, it will be more prudent for the confessor to say nothing about this latter obligation, and simply to urge Titius to make restitution to the railroad company for what he himself took, leaving him in good faith as regards the rest.