Article II. On the Obligation of a Vow

325. Principles. I. A vow obliges per se, like a law or precept of the Church, and therefore gravely in grave matter, and lightly in light matter; for a vow is, as it were, a certain private law which someone imposes upon himself.

II. A vow obliges according to the intention of the one vowing, if he determines the quantity of the obligation in the act of vowing, so that he can bind himself only under light obligation in matter however grave. The reason is that just as a legislator or superior can oblige in grave matter only under light obligation, so also he who vows concerning a grave matter can impose on himself only a light obligation. - Nevertheless, conversely, he cannot bind himself gravely in a light matter, because light matter is not capable of grave obligation ¹. - Thus commonly. - St. Alphonsus, n. 211 and 213.

¹ It pertains to the prudence of the confessor to admonish penitents on this matter who have vowed spontaneously; namely, lest, as sometimes happens, they sin gravely from an erroneous conscience even where the matter of the vow does not admit grave obligation. To the same prudence it pertains that the confessor persuade a penitent eager to vow that, even if the matter is grave, he should nevertheless assume only a light obligation of the vow, so that the occasion of offending God gravely may be very far away. And this cause existed why many most holy and most wise founders of religious orders, although most desirous of regular observance, nevertheless, in order to avert occasions of divine offense, decreed that rules founded by God's impulse should induce no obligation per se and by their own force which would bind violators by guilt of sin.

And indeed nothing prevents a vow under light obligation from being pronounced also in that matter which, considered according to natural law, obliges under grave obligation, for example in the matter of chastity.

326. Questions. Q. 1. What matter is judged light or grave per se in a vow?

Resp. That matter is judged grave which, when it is prescribed by the Church, obliges gravely, such as fasting, Mass, etc.; or which, compared with another precept, seems grave; or which contributes notably to the end of the vow or to the worship of God. - Reuter.

Q. 2. Whether several light matters coalesce to make grave matter?

Resp. No, if the light matters are vowed separately, so that the obligation is attached precisely to the time or day, or to sanctifying that day. - But it is otherwise if the light matters are vowed by way of one thing, so that the determination of the day accedes only for urging the execution, as happens generally in real vows; nevertheless make an exception unless something else is clear from the intention of the one vowing, on which the whole obligation and the reason of the obligation depend.

327. Q. 3. Whether someone can be bound by another's vow?

Resp. No, at least by reason of the vow; the reason is that a vow is a personal burden voluntarily undertaken, and therefore no one can promise another's thing or action. - Hence the vows of parents dedicating their children to some religion, or imposing an obligation on them, for example of fasting on certain days, etc., cannot bind them. Although children are not held by the vow of parents who have dedicated them to religion or to some obligation, nevertheless the vow obliges the parents, so that, as far as is in them, with the freedom of the children preserved, they move them to embrace that which they vowed on their behalf, and much more so that they not stand in the way of children who wish to embrace it ².

² Vows of this sort have annexed the condition: if the children are willing. But ratification must not be judged to consist in the silence alone of the children; rather, true and real consent must accede when they have reached the years of discretion, because silence in those things which are burdensome and laborious does not indicate consent. Salamancans, tr. 17, c. 1, n. 117.

Nevertheless this doctrine, namely that it denies that anyone is bound by another's vow because a vow is a law which each imposes on himself by his own will, must not stand in the way of this: that by vows which the magistrate or religious superior emits in the name of the whole community, all the citizens or subjects are bound, and not only those present, but also those who afterward become members of that community; and indeed they are bound in such a way that, if they violate the vow, they sin against the virtue of religion. Now since different authors have said different things for giving the reason for these vows (see Suarez, De Relig., tr. 6, lib. 4, c. 9), that doctrine seems preferable which the same Suarez attributes to Navarrus (l.c., n. 6-7), namely that these vows are to be compared with other agreements by which a community binds itself, and whose obligation passes to posterity. For magistrates, as heads of the community, can bind it by this kind of obligation also. And since it flows from the nature of a community that the members ought to conform themselves to the head by obeying, and obedience transfers the obligation to the kind of virtue in view of which it is induced, from this the obligation arising from it, as Suarez himself says, is an obligation to accept such a vow with respect to the obligation of the vow.

I said, at least by reason of the vow; for from justice an heir is bound to fulfill the real vows of the deceased. - St. Alphonsus, ibid. - See what is to be said in the tract On Contracts, where promise is treated.

Q. 4. What delay is to be judged grave?

Resp. 1. Per se any delay of a vow gravely obliging is grave, when it is affixed to a determined time, as is a vow of fasting on such a vigil, etc.; because when the time has elapsed the obligation of the vow ceases, and cannot be compensated ³.

³ Both he who allows the time to pass in which the vow was to be fulfilled, and he who by force or deceit prevents the condition from being fulfilled under which he was bound to render the vow, binds himself by the sin of infidelity which is proper to the violation of vows; nevertheless he is held to nothing else except repentance for the sin, from the general principle that transgression of a vow does not oblige to compensation. See Laymann, lib. 4, tr. 4, c. 6, n. 2-4.

Resp. 2. But if a determined time has not been fixed, or has been fixed beforehand only for urging the execution of the vow, a notable delay in a grave matter will be a grave sin, according to St. Alphonsus, n. 221, and others. Tamburini, however, with others, judges that no delay, however long, is mortal per se, with the danger, namely, of forgetfulness or inability perhaps supervening set aside ⁴. Yet the matter seems to be determined from the circumstances and from the mind of the one vowing.

⁴ St. Alphonsus (n. 221, at the end) attributes this opinion also to St. Antoninus, namely that delay is not mortal except when delay occurs through long periods and from the delay itself there is danger of forgetfulness or inability to fulfill. And certainly, as Tamburini argues well (Decal., lib. 3, c. 12, §3, n. 11), no one who gives the whole which he promised, and by delay inflicts no harm on the creditor which had to be guarded against by his promise, seems to be condemned for grave injury, but only for light negligence. But in the case, the matter stands thus. Therefore Sporer rightly says (in the same St. Alphonsus) that the doctrine of St. Antoninus is probable; nor does any weight of reasons, beyond some external authority, fight for the opposite, which Palaus seems to have brought forth first of all (De Vot., disp. 1, punct. 13, n. 7), drawing by conjecture this opinion of his concerning a grave delay of two or three years. Yet these things are not to be transferred to a vow in which delay diminishes the promised matter, for example if someone has vowed religious life; on this matter one may see the diverse opinions of the doctors in St. Alphonsus (l.c.). And to this chiefly pertains what the author has, that the matter must be determined from the circumstances and from the mind of the one vowing.

** Here the VV. ask (pp. 919-920 in the Note) whether the author of this Note has forgotten the sayings of Sacred Scripture, where it is read (Ecclesiastes 5. 3): "If you have vowed anything to God, do not delay to render it"; and (Deuteronomy 23. 21): "When you have vowed a vow..., you shall not delay to render it," etc. - Resp. Had St. Antoninus also forgotten these sayings when he wrote that delay is not mortal except when delay occurs through long periods and from the delay itself there is danger of forgetfulness or inability to fulfill, as St. Alphonsus also reports (lib. 3, n. 221)? Certainly someone would affirm against the sacred letters if he said that a delay of this sort is laudable. But in the present matter the question is not whether this is laudable, but whether it is a mortal sin. Some have affirmed; some have denied; and certainly each judged his own opinion more probable. What then? Let the canon be recalled which St. Alphonsus inculcates so often: that one must not be condemned for mortal sin unless what is certain and evident by reason is clear to be mortal.

Palaus, who seems to be the first author of the affirmative opinion, wrote conjecturally: "I would judge that a delay of two or three years is notable. For although the promised thing is to be executed, nevertheless to defer its execution for so long a time against the will of God the creditor contains grave disorder; and this can be proved from the delay of a debt promised to men, which no one will deny constitutes grave fault."

Thus Palaus, and, as I said, conjecturing uncertainly, as is clear even from that hesitation alone between two and three years, as though the difference of one year were something light.

But to the argument of Palaus another can respond: 1. I deny parity with a human creditor; for he can need and suffer harm from delay; not so God.

2. I deny that grave injury is done to a man in the case. For if you did not determine a time, and in promising said to Peter: "This ring, this watch, this palace will be yours from me," you bring him no injury at all, neither grave nor light, even if you defer the execution to the hour of your death.

3. I deny that the delay occurs against the will of God the creditor. For God, as creditor, demands nothing except what is owed by the vow. But nothing is owed from a vow beyond that to which someone obligated himself by his own will, because a vow is a law which someone imposes on himself. But by the very fact that the one vowing does not determine a time, he does not wish to bind himself to some determined time, but only to furnishing the thing finally at some time. Therefore God, as creditor, does not demand this or that time.

Besides, no one has added anything further to this furniture of Palaus.

328. Resolves. 1. Real vows must be fulfilled from one's own property; but he who cannot fulfill from his own is not bound to beg from another so that he can satisfy. Nevertheless he satisfies if another, either when asked or spontaneously, wishes to fulfill for him, although he himself may be able to satisfy; because what the other gives becomes his own when the consent or ratification of the one vowing accedes. Make an exception if the matter of the real vow was determined; for then that individual thing is to be bestowed ⁵. - St. Alphonsus, n. 217, with Busembaum.

⁵ Understand this when a special reason moved him to vow this thing as an individual. Otherwise the vow will be satisfied if either the one vowing himself or another gives an equal or equivalent thing.

2. Personal vows can be fulfilled only by the one vowing himself, nor do they pass to heirs. Hence he who has vowed a pilgrimage does not satisfy by inducing another to it ⁶.

⁶ By this very fact he is not bound to substitute another for himself; unless, however, from the vow he assumed some burden in itself so entirely that grave inconvenience would follow if he did not fulfill it either by himself or through another.

3. A vow indeterminate as to cessation of time, for example of saying the rosary daily or fasting every Saturday, obliges perpetually, unless something else is gathered from the circumstances. In doubt whether the vow is temporary or perpetual, or for a month or year, the minimum must be held. - St. Alphonsus, n. 221.

4. He who vowed something without a certain quantity, for example alms, money, etc., satisfies by giving what he wills, provided he does not bestow so little that he seems rather to mock God than to fulfill the vow.

5. He who vowed to hear Mass for a month or year, more probably is not bound on feasts to hear two Masses, unless he explicitly vowed this; because the end of the vow is that on individual days he gather the fruit of the sacrifice. Likewise he is not bound to fast on Sunday who has vowed to fast for a month, a year, or his whole life, unless he expressly obligated himself to this; because he is judged to vow fasting according to the custom of the Church. - St. Alphonsus, n. 224 ⁷.

⁷ ** St. Alphonsus in the same n. 224, lib. 3, has a resolution taken compendiously from the Salamancans, which perhaps will now seem difficult to admit. For he writes: "If one vowing a fast eats meat, he is not bound to the fast; unlike the fast prescribed by the Church, which by a twofold precept imposes both the fast and abstinence from meat according to the Salamancans (c. 1, n. 137, tr. 17) with Sanchez, Azor, Sylvester, etc., and as the reigning Pontiff Benedict XIV declared. See lib. 3, n. 1013." Indeed this most compendious brevity brought it about that the holy Doctor did not even present the opinion of the Salamancans clearly enough.

For the Salamancans (l.c.) establish as a certain principle that he who promised a fast by vow is held to observe it in that mode in which other fasts are prescribed by the Church. Then, according to an opinion sufficiently received at that time, that the essence of a fast consists indivisibly in one eating and abstinence from meats in such a way that if either is removed, the substance of the fast is in no way preserved, they add this resolution: "He who has already broken the fast promised by vow, by eating meat or by repeated eating, is no longer held to it, and can eat more, because it is now impossible for him to observe the fast." Laymann, Palaus. And from this indeed St. Alphonsus drew that opinion of his, saying: "If one vowing a fast eats meat, he is not bound to the fast."

But what St. Alphonsus adds about the twofold precept, etc., pertains to an entirely diverse resolution, which the Salamancans took from Laymann and Sanchez, but less clearly and exactly. "Indeed," they say, "he who once broke the fast by eating meat does not sin afterward by eating meat, but only in that first eating of meat; because in a fast promised by vow, abstinence from meats is accessory; and thus, when the fast has been broken, it no longer obliges, because when the principal fails, the accessory fails." But soon after they add: "There is a different reason in ecclesiastical law, in which the fast and abstinence from meats are prescribed by a twofold precept; and thus one can be separated from the other; and therefore he who broke the fast is held to abstain from meats, because when one precept has been broken, the other remains; which does not happen in the present case," namely in a fast promised by vow. I have said that these things are proposed less clearly there. Namely, they ought to have said with Laymann and Sanchez: on the day on which the Church prescribes fasting, she at the same time prescribes abstinence from meats both to those fasting and to those not fasting; therefore if on that day someone broke the fast by eating meat, although it is impossible for him to observe the fast, nevertheless he sins if he eats meats again, because the Church prescribes abstinence from eating meats even to those not fasting. Now it is too difficult to discern this resolution and these meanings in the words of St. Alphonsus which have been described above.

But whatever the case may be about this, that prior resolution of St. Alphonsus could hardly be admitted at all now, namely: "If one vowing a fast eats meat, he is not bound to the fast." For with that principle established, which is common to all, that votive fasts, unless the one vowing has otherwise restricted his promise, are to be observed in that manner in which fasts prescribed by the Church are observed, certainly after Benedict XIV, alleged by St. Alphonsus himself, declared that the matter or substance of fasting is divisible, so that those too who in any way, whether culpably or inculpably, have eaten meats are held to one eating, it can no longer be sustained that he who has vowed a fast, if he has eaten meats, is in no way held to the fast. Better after the declarations of the Apostolic See it must be said that one vowing in this way, if indeed the obligation of the vow ended on that day, is held at least to observing one eating; but if the obligation was not affixed to that day, and therefore was not ending on that day, he remains obligated to fast on another day.

6. He who vowed a fast on the vigil of some Saint, if this falls on a Sunday, can fulfill the vow on Saturday, according to the custom of the Church. - St. Alphonsus, ibid. - See Cases, n. 312 and following.