To the Benevolent Reader (Ballerini)

TO THE BENEVOLENT READER

ANTONIUS BALLERINI, S.J.

In the letters which I published in the year just past, ¹ in order to dispel the calumnies cast without cause upon this Compendium and the attached Notes by a certain anonymous man, ² I already said that, on a more opportune occasion, I would satisfy other very grave complaints as well as accusations which certain anonymous Theologians from the Venerable Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer had moved against this same Compendium and Notes, first indeed in the Additional Summary for the cause of St. Alphonsus, ³ and then in the volume entitled Alphonsian Vindications.

¹ See Univers, 25 June 1873.

² See Univers, 28 May 1873.

³ To indicate this volume I shall use the letters S. A.; but to indicate the authors of the Vindications, the letters Vv.

TO THE BENEVOLENT READER

And indeed I had proposed to myself to perform that work in the Notes to be added to the Medulla, or brief Compendium of Moral Theology, by the author Hermann Busembaum; I was preparing to publish that quite excellent little work for the use of the School, with suitable additions. But if I had to grieve that the narrowness of time, and especially the very well-known calamities by which it happened that we were tossed about, have until now introduced some delay in carrying out this plan, there has now been obtained, in preparing this third edition of Gury, another advantage by no means slight for the additional purpose now proposed. For whatever labor and space the necessity of placing before the Reader's eyes either the context of Gury or of the Notes, which had given occasion to the complaints and accusations of the anonymous Theologians, would have required for itself in adding Notes to Busembaum's Medulla, none, as is evident, is required here, since texts of this kind already stand forth complete in this very work.

Wherefore this one thing now remains: that in their own places I indicate the observations and arguments which the Alphonsian Vindicators have objected to each question, and that I subjoin to them, as the matter may require, a very brief answer. I said, first, the observations and arguments, whatever they may be; for as to jests, rebukes, and other things of this sort, and very many things which do not pertain to the matter, there is no intention to dwell upon them, nor ought there to be. I said, secondly, to each question; for although, so far as the moral system of St. Alphonsus is concerned, rather than follow the Vindicators through a thousand windings, it seemed a more opportune and more effective answer to have placed before the eyes the opinions of St. Alphonsus in complete agreement with the opinions of Father Gury; nevertheless, with respect to the remaining questions, the Reader will find from these things that nothing has been omitted which the Vindicators judged worthy of censure.

Moreover, there are two things which can in some measure commend this third edition coming forth from the Roman College. One is that, the difficulties having been dissolved which the industry of the Vindicators gathered from every side, certain very grave questions may now seem to have been brought almost to the condition of a matter adjudged. The other is that whatever pertains both to Censures and to the faculty of absolving from them is now found to have been brought exactly to the norm of the new Law introduced by the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis of our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius IX.