CHAPTER II: ON SCRUPULOUS AND LAX CONSCIENCE

38. • A scrupulous conscience is that which, resting upon slight foundations, doubts, or rather fears, that such an action is a sin, although nevertheless it is not; or that it is a grave sin, although it is only light. From these things it is clear who a truly scrupulous man is; for they err by the whole heaven who call that Christian scrupulous who, solicitous for his salvation and led by filial love toward his God, searches all his works, lest perhaps in some matter he offend God Himself: such a one is to be called not scrupulous, but God-fearing.

We shall speak briefly concerning the causes, signs, harms, remedies of scruples, and also concerning rules for scrupulous penitents and their confessors.

39. • Some are intrinsic, others extrinsic. The intrinsic are: a character very much disposed to suspicions and fears, as is the melancholic; weak health of the head, especially in women; slowness of understanding, by which someone does not well perceive the precepts of God and of the Church; hidden pride, by which someone trusts too much in his own judgment; excessive abstinence and immoderate vigils, by which, when the head has been weakened, the soul is easily disturbed.

But the extrinsic are:

1° God, who permits scruples in the just, that, being purified, they may make greater progress; in the tepid, that they may perform the duties of Christian piety more fervently; in penitents, that they may pay the penalty of past sins. Moreover, scruples are judged to be from God if those harassed by them become better.

2° The demon, who, God permitting, can move the melancholic humors in a man, through which the imagination can either err or be disturbed unto inordinate fear.¹ Scruples are thought to come from the demon if the scrupulous person feels himself being brought to tepidity, withdrawn from virtue, and especially inclined to despair.

3° The society of scrupulous persons, especially if scrupulous persons are ruled by their counsels and converse frequently with them about spiritual matters; for those with whom we associate, we imitate more easily.

4° The reading of books which are excessively strict, establishing harder precepts which the human condition cannot sustain;² for gradually and without perceiving it we assent to those opinions which we study.

40. • It is of very great importance that directors of souls discern true scrupulous persons from false ones. For often those who are not scrupulous are thought to be so, and vice versa; and from this great errors in direction flow, with no slight danger of spiritual harm: therefore much circumspection is needed here. Now the chief signs of scruples are:

1° Pertinacity of judgment, by which someone refuses to obey the counsels of the confessor, or of wise men; and while he consults various persons, he acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed, the more persons he hears, the more he becomes entangled.

2° Frequent change of judgment from slight motives, whence there is frequent inconstancy in acting, and continual disturbance of mind.

3° Fear of sinning in all things, joined with pertinacity of mind against the judgment of the confessor, of prudent men, or even against one's own judgment; whence follows frequent questioning about the confessor's answers, and repeated inquiry whether, in acting according to the counsel given, the conscience can be free from fault.

4° Impertinent reflections about circumstances which were present in the action or could have been present, and certainty anxiously sought in all things.

5° Obstinacy in always repeating the same sin in confession, or in holding as a sin that which has already several times been declared by the confessor not to be such.

6° Continual anxiety about past confessions, notwithstanding the judgment of the confessor, or the repetition of confessions.

7° If he makes no end of examining his conscience, and explains the most minute things.

8° If he uses ridiculous signs, gestures, and other similar things to drive away temptations; for example, suddenly closes his eyes, contracts his eyebrows, nods and shakes his head, mutters to himself: I do not will; depart, devil.

But he cannot, at least immediately, be judged scrupulous, 1° who is moderately solicitous, or anxious, lest he offend God; 2° who, after a life spent in sins, is still distressed, nor after confession seems to have satisfied his obligation, but wishes to confess again and expiate his sins; 3° who deliberately still consents to grave sins, although after the sin has been committed he is greatly troubled and confesses anxiously, for there is a just cause of anxiety, at least moderate: nevertheless even in this case there can be a true scrupulous person; 4° who in only one or another case has a passing scruple.

Moreover, it sometimes happens that the confessor, after hearing the penitent the first or second time, cannot at once determine whether he is scrupulous, even if he appears anxious about many things; for some just and reasonable cause of anxieties can be present. Much less can a scrupulous confessor easily judge whether the penitent is scrupulous or only fearful.¹

41. • Scruples generally draw with themselves grave inconveniences and spiritual harms, and often also bodily harms, provided they have not been sent in by God, but persevere from man's fault. The principal ones are these:

1° They harm the body; for through continual anguishes they constrict the heart, corrupt the blood, consume the vital spirits, and weaken the head.

2° They render the scrupulous person unfit for fruitful action with his neighbor; for many scrupulous persons are severe, and no less peevish toward those of their household than toward strangers.

3° They harm obedience, or even totally impede it; since the scrupulous person rather follows trifles and the mockeries of his own fantasy, and thus is impelled to act against the will of God, which is manifested to him through his spiritual father or director.

4° They weaken the pursuit and love of prayer, or even take them entirely out of the way; because they enervate the force of the mind, distracting it by leading it to trifles, fill the soul with anxieties, and make it unfit for union with God. Hence follows not only spiritual profit ceasing, but also great emerging harm.

5° They break fortitude: for what great thing will he dare, who is wholly occupied in trifles and, neglecting the assault against his passions, is so easily cast down in soul?

6° They greatly diminish hope, or even destroy it, because the matter is finally brought to this point, that, confidence in God having been lost, he declines into laxity. For how will he duly trust God, who always beholds Him as a most severe exactor? Therefore the scrupulous person, unless he fights strongly against scruples, will shortly be driven by them, while vexed, into despair, and will loosen the reins to his desires, or at least will lead a most miserable life and one with great danger of damnation.

If scrupulosity is found in a confessor, it is even more harmful; for that someone is scrupulous with himself is an infirmity: that he is so with others is a contagion. Moreover, this cannot exist without the derision of the ministry and the despair of penitents. Therefore let the confessor guard as much as possible against scruples, if he wishes to exercise usefully the parts of his office: whence, if they arise in him from ignorance, let him devote himself to studies; if from excessive subtlety, let him not be wise more than is necessary, knowing that he acts not as a mathematician, but as a moralist; but if from a certain, so to speak, perverseness, by which he wishes all to think that very thing which he himself thinks, let him know that each one has his own gift, and one indeed in this way, another in that, and therefore let him seek what is just, not what is his own.¹

42. • I. To commend oneself earnestly and confidently to God, who consoles us in all our tribulation.²

II. To attack the causes of scruples which are in man's power, so that their effect may cease. Therefore let the proud man not lean upon his own prudence; let the pertinacious man break his own judgment; let the unlearned man be instructed; let the idle man work; let the timid man meditate on the goodness of God; let the melancholic man take solace; let the infirm man be cured; for sometimes the evil proceeds from inflamed blood, etc.

III. To commit oneself wholly to the judgment of one's own director; for it is written: an obedient man shall speak victory.³ Indeed, this alone must be called the remedy of scruples. For since the reason of scrupulous persons is plainly powerless, nothing else remains except that they be governed by another's reason. In this matter no temperament is admitted.

43. • 1° In moral matters certainty is not to be sought in all things. This must be applied to all, but especially to the scrupulous person.

2° Supreme and blind obedience must be rendered to the confessor, and one must proceed in all things with great humility and confidence.

3° A doubt which could seem reasonable in others is to be entirely spurned in scrupulous persons.

4° It is lawful, indeed often obligatory, and sometimes under grave obligation, to fight against scruples.¹

5° Confession is never to be repeated unless it was certainly invalid; nor is the examination of the last confession ever to be renewed, even if a doubt about a grave sin omitted seems to arise.

6° Scruples are to be contemned; nor must scrupulous persons ever dispute with themselves about them.

44. • I. With scrupulous persons let him be patient, discreet, prudent, brief.

1° Patient and full of charity; for since the care of scrupulous persons is long and difficult, and their condition most miserable, and unless they obtain a faithful friend, they are exposed to so many and such great dangers, they very greatly deserve our compassion.

2° Discreet, so that he may duly know what the origin of scruples is in the penitent; also whether he is scrupulous in all things, or in one thing only, so that he may be able to remedy the evils fittingly.

3° Prudent, namely in prescribing rules, which indeed ought to be general; for scrupulous persons are almost never able to accommodate themselves to particular rules, because they cannot apply them to themselves. Indeed they always doubt whether the case was sufficiently well explained and perceived, and whether the rule prescribed to them is well accommodated to that case.

4° Brief and peremptory in his answers, and, so far as can be done, let him define all things promptly and firmly; otherwise the penitent would be confirmed in his anxiety by the authority of the confessor himself.

II. For the various objects of scruples let him keep the following things before his eyes.

1° A scrupulous person concerning the hearing of Mass:

a) Let him not be distressed about intention; for this is present as long as it is not openly certain that he went to church solely from another end; nor b) about attention, since that external attention is sufficient which voluntarily admits nothing incompatible with advertence to those things which are carried on at the altar; c) let the confessor take care not to permit him to hear another Mass for the purpose of satisfying his scruple about Mass already heard, and let him take the same care with him who [source text breaks off after Latin: qui].

2° A scrupulous person is concerned about prayers to be recited by obligation, such as the divine office and sacramental penance. For the scrupulous person with regard to the divine office, - if a) he is anxious about intention, let it be said that the intention of satisfying the ecclesiastical law is not required, but that the intention of reciting is sufficient, even implicit and virtual, which he already has who takes the breviary in hand and in fact recites the office. - If b) about attention, let him openly say with St. Alphonsus¹ that he is not bound to repeat anything, unless he is certain that he rejected the intention of praying. - If c) about accurate pronunciation of the words, it should be advised that he not stick while reciting, but proceed without any anxious solicitude, without compression of voice, mouth, or chest, without motions of impatience or sadness. Finally, by whatsoever cause he is distressed, let him forbid repetition to him, and, if he suffers grave anxieties, even the recitation of the office.² With regard to sacramental penance, let him hold the same, with due proportion observed. Moreover, it will help to impose on him only easier penances, and to tell him that his own mind (namely, the confessor's) is once for all that he recite the imposed prayers only materially and mechanically, so that he satisfies even though he pronounces them with voluntary distraction.

3° A scrupulous person concerning past confessions. If the anxiety regards - a) preparation for the sacrament, let him render him secure, teaching that nothing is required except ordinary diligence and preparation. - If b) the confession itself, namely that he does not know whether he confessed certain things, or confessed them integrally, let him order him to be wholly silent about past things, especially if he has already made a general confession; for all sins innocently omitted have been taken away indirectly, by the force of the absolution already given, nor is anyone bound to search past things with so much inconvenience to himself, so that individual sins may be remitted directly. But if nevertheless he continues to be distressed, and affirms that he knows certainly that he has forgotten something, let him order him to confirm these three things by oath: 1° that the sin was certainly committed; 2° that it was mortal in his mind when he committed it; 3° that he certainly forgot it in confession. If he swears promptly, let him hear him; otherwise, if he hesitates. - If c) contrition and consequently the efficacy of absolution, let him teach him that confessions are not to be repeated unless it is certainly clear that they were invalid.

4° A scrupulous person concerning consent given to evil thoughts against chastity, faith, or charity should be ordered to despise these thoughts as mere phantasms, and, unless he can swear that he certainly and truly consented to them, to abstain from confessing them.

5° To scrupulous persons who in almost all actions are distressed by fear of sinning, it must be enjoined that they act strenuously against scruples, and abstain from confessing them, unless they are most certain that sin is present there. For although, in acting thus, they sometimes sin materially, they will not sin formally, by reason of the obedience which they must render to the confessor.¹ Nor does it matter that they act with an actual fear of sinning; for they do not therefore act against the dictate of conscience, but only against a vain apprehension, which vain apprehension cannot remove the judgment about the honesty of the action, previously formed from the judgment of the confessor or in some other way.

Notes to preceding text.

1 L. I. 17.

45. • A lax conscience is called that which, from a lighter reason, judges that what is illicit is licit; or finds only a venial sin where there is mortal sin: namely, that which, without sufficient reason, bends judgment in favor of liberty, either to avoid the law, or to diminish the gravity of fault.

Such a conscience is very greatly dangerous, as is easily clear to one attending to it; for it casts souls into the broad way, which leads to perdition.

It can be distinguished in three ways, namely: 1° a conscience lax simply, which tends to extend liberty more than is just, relying upon an opinion slightly probable or improbable, or even, according to St. Alphonsus (nn. 71-73), upon the less probable for liberty when the certainly more probable for the neglected law stands; 2° a cauterized conscience, which, from a long-standing habit of sinning, accounts grave sins, indeed even most grave sins, as nothing;¹ 3° a pharisaical conscience, which makes great things small, and conversely small things great. It takes its name from the Pharisees, who spurned the most grave commandments of the law, while they would have judged themselves guilty of great sin by eating with unwashed hands, or by passing over empty traditions.

46. • The things which generally pertain to a lax conscience can be comprised in these few words.

I. He sins gravely who, knowingly obeying a lax conscience, transgresses some law in a grave matter. And indeed ignorance of this kind, as being voluntary, can easily be overcome; therefore he cannot be excused from lethal sin under the pretext of this ignorance.

II. Indeed he can sin gravely in a light matter, if his own rashness impels him to act while any dictate whatsoever has been omitted and contemned.

Quest. What are the causes, effects, and remedies of a lax conscience?

Resp. to the first. The causes are: omission of prayer; tepidity of soul; excessive solicitude for temporal things; familiarity with sinful men; a custom of sinning, which removes the horror of sin; a soft life, which enervates the heart and turns it away from spiritual things.

Resp. to the second. The effects are blindness of mind; hardness of heart, which is scarcely wont to be moved by any means; obduration in evil, which induces the greatest danger to salvation, according to that saying of the Apostle:² According to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to thyself wrath in the day of wrath.

Resp. to the third. The following remedies, among others, can be proposed: humble and assiduous prayer; sacred exercises; pious meditation on the last things, according to that saying: Remember thy last things, and thou shalt not sin forever;³ frequent reading of pious books; daily examination of conscience; frequent recourse to the Sacrament of Penance; flight from the wicked and conversation with the good; to adhere to the principles and opinions of St. Alphonsus, and frequently to handle his ascetical works; for the writings of the Most Zealous Doctor possess very great force for moving the soul, and for turning the mind away from secular and carnal desires and leading it back to God, as the experience of those proves who have read through them for some notable space of time.