Chapter II — Lax propositions of the Casuists

I. Marcos Vidal, in his Ark on the precept of charity, inquiry 11, number 57: "Although the Doctors commonly assert that one affected by an injury is sometimes bound to exhibit particular signs of love to his enemy — both to avoid scandal, and also when from the exhibiting of such a sign the spiritual salvation of the enemy might probably be hoped for: because if we ought to correct an erring brother when there is hope of his amendment, that we may gain him for the Lord, then, in order that we may reconcile to God and to ourselves one who is an enemy, we are rightly constrained, for example, to greet him, since there is probable hope of gaining him by our greeting — nevertheless I myself admit neither, nor concede it. First, as to grave scandal, which in these times almost never intervenes, since it is held in practice among nearly everyone not to greet an enemy, nor to speak with him," etc.

Number 58: "But as to the second I say: just as I myself ... am not bound under mortal sin to provide for the spiritual salvation of my Neighbor, short of his extreme necessity, with grave temporal loss to myself ... so neither am I bound to yield up my honor and reputation — which are goods of a higher order than temporal goods — under mortal sin, that I may provide for the spiritual life of my Neighbor outside extreme necessity ... But if anyone were bound to exhibit special signs of love to an enemy when by these signs his spiritual salvation might be hoped for, he would also be bound to yield up his honor and reputation short of extreme necessity ..."

This author imposes two things upon the cultivators of the Christian Religion: the one, that he blurts out that the custom of denying a greeting to enemies prevails, as it were, among all; the other, that a loss of honor and reputation is incurred when we embrace our enemies with these offices, that we may gain their eternal salvation.

II. Tamburini, book 5 on the Decalogue, chapter 1, § 3, number 29: "Can a son wish for the death of his father, or rejoice over it — not as an evil to the father (for this would be an execrable hatred), but that the son himself may enjoy the paternal inheritance? Can a mother desire the death of her daughter, lest she be compelled to feed or to dower her? Can a subject desire the death of his Prelate, that he may himself succeed to the prelacy, or that he may be freed from that Prelate who is hostile to him? ... If you only desire, or receive with joy, effects of this kind — the inheritance, the freedom from trouble, the prelacy — you licitly wish for or embrace these things: because you rejoice not over another's evil, but over your own good ... If you desire it under a condition, the answer is likewise easy: you can do so licitly. Finally, if with an absolute desire you desire in this manner: I wish for my father's death, not as it is an evil to my father, but as my own good, or as the cause of my good — namely because from his death I shall enter upon his inheritance; or thus: would that my daughter would die, for thus I shall shake off six hundred anxieties, etc. — if, I say, you so desire, the difficulty of resolving is greater: because then you choose to will evil to them, though as the cause of your own advantage, which does not seem free of fault; and so indeed Bonacina thinks ... Nevertheless Castropalao teaches that the contrary opinion is sufficiently probable."

III. Fernando de Castropalao, treatise 6, disputation 4, point 1, number 11: "Nevertheless I believe that, if you act with due moderation, you can without mortal sin be saddened over someone's life, and rejoice over his natural death, and seek and desire it with an inefficacious affection — not indeed from displeasure at the person, but on account of some temporal advantage following from it. So Emmanuel Sa seems to teach, at the word Charity, number 8, where he teaches absolutely that you can wish bodily evil to your Neighbor for the salvation of his soul, and death for the good of the Commonwealth, and death to an enemy otherwise very harmful to you — not out of hatred, but to avoid your own loss — and likewise to rejoice over his death on account of the good following from it. Azor, part 1, book 3, chapter 12, question 2, and Bonacina, disputation 3, question 4, last point, number 7, affirm that it is lawful for a mother to wish for the death of her daughters, because on account of their deformity or her poverty she cannot give them in marriage according to her desire; and they say the same holds if on their account she were ill-treated by her husband: she could wish for their death, that she might be freed from that harm."

IV. Juan Sánchez, select disputation 2, number 9: "Hence it is inferred that it is lawful to wish death for oneself or for one's Neighbor, in order to avoid a troublesome infirmity, beggary, a penal life inflicted upon a woman by her husband, and other things of this kind — provided the death be desired as to be inflicted by God, not unjustly by man, or by the demon. For health is not worth so great a pain, and a prolonged death is what a life filled with miseries is called."

V. Marcos Vidal, in the Ark on the precept of charity, inquiry 1, number 85: "It must be noted, however, that this precept is fulfilled by this, that no evil be inflicted upon the Neighbor: and therefore there is no precept obliging to have an internal act of love toward the Neighbor, since it does not of itself lie open to the Neighbor, as it does to God."

VI. The same, in the same place, number 88: "It is gathered, secondly, that those living together in some college, or in some religious order, can without the stain of mortal fault mutually deny particular signs of love — namely, greeting, address, and things like these."

VII. The same, inquiry 11, number 46: "Fifth conclusion. It is licit, order and manner being preserved, to wish a temporal evil to another for the honorable end of obtaining some temporal good."

VIII. The same, number 65: "It is gathered, fourthly, that one can licitly imprecate a temporal evil upon another from the motive only of his own or another's utility — as to wish infirmity upon someone, lest he squander everything in gaming; or death, to avoid poverty, or a troublesome infirmity, or a penal life, and the like."

IX. The same, number 66: "It is gathered, fifthly, that one can licitly wish for someone's death, and rejoice over it, on account of an inheritance to be had ... For the object of this act is not the evil, but the advantage following from the death, which is a good and conformable to right reason, as is supposed. Whence the death itself, conducing as a means to such an advantage, and following from natural causes, will be something good."