H. Sixty-five propositions condemned by Innocent XI, by the Decree of the General Congregation of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, Sanctissimus Dominus noster, etc., March 2, 1679

Thursday, March 2, 1679.

1. It is not illicit in conferring sacraments to follow a probable opinion concerning the validity of the sacrament, the safer opinion having been left aside, unless law, agreement, or the danger of incurring grave harm forbids it. Hence an opinion merely probable is not to be used in the conferral of Baptism, of priestly Order, or of episcopal Order.

2. I judge it probable that a judge can judge according to an opinion even less probable.

3. Generally, when relying on probability, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, however slight, provided one does not go beyond the bounds of probability, we do something, we always act prudently.

4. An unbeliever will be excused from infidelity if he does not believe, led by a less probable opinion.

5. Whether he sins mortally who elicits an act of love of God only once in life, we do not dare to condemn.

6. It is probable that the precept of charity toward God does not of itself oblige even in strictly individual five-year periods.

7. Then only does it oblige, when we are bound to be justified, and we do not have another way by which we can be justified.

8. To eat and drink to satiety for pleasure alone is not a sin, provided it does not harm health; because the natural appetite can licitly enjoy its acts.

9. The work of marriage exercised for pleasure alone is altogether lacking in all fault and venial defect.

10. We are not bound to love our neighbor by an internal and formal act.

11. We can satisfy the precept of loving our neighbor by external acts alone.

12. You will scarcely find among seculars, even among kings, anything superfluous to their state. And thus scarcely anyone is bound to alms when he is bound only from what is superfluous to his state.

13. If you do it with due moderation, you can without mortal sin be saddened about someone's life, and rejoice about his natural death, seek and desire it by an ineffective affection, not indeed from displeasure with the person, but on account of some temporal advantage.

14. It is lawful by an absolute desire to wish for the death of one's father, not indeed as an evil of the father, but as a good of the one desiring, because, namely, a rich inheritance is going to come to him.

15. It is lawful for a son to rejoice over the parricide of a parent perpetrated by himself in drunkenness, on account of the immense riches consequently obtained from the inheritance.

16. Faith is not judged to fall under a special precept and according to itself.

17. It is enough to elicit an act of Faith once in life.

18. If someone is questioned by public authority, frankly to confess the Faith I advise as glorious to God and to Faith; to be silent I do not condemn as sinful of itself.

19. The will cannot bring it about that the assent of Faith in itself be firmer than the weight of the reasons impelling to assent deserves.

20. Hence someone can prudently repudiate the assent which he had as supernatural.

21. The assent of supernatural Faith and useful for salvation stands together with only probable knowledge of revelation, indeed with fear by which one fears that God has not spoken.

22. Only Faith in one God seems necessary by necessity of means, but not explicit Faith in the Rewarder.

23. Faith broadly so called, from the testimony of creatures or a similar motive, suffices for justification.

24. To call God as witness of a slight lie is not so great an irreverence on account of which he would wish or be able to damn a man.

25. With a cause it is lawful to swear without the mind of swearing, whether the matter is slight or grave.

26. If someone, either alone or before others, whether questioned or of his own accord, whether for the sake of recreation or for any other end, swears that he did not do something which in reality he did, understanding within himself something else which he did not do, or another way than that in which he did it, or any other true addition whatever, in reality he neither lies nor is perjured.

27. A just cause of using these amphibologies exists whenever this is necessary or useful for preserving bodily safety, honor, family property, or for any other act of virtue, so that the concealment of truth is then judged expedient and diligent.

28. One who, by means of recommendation or a gift, has been promoted to a magistracy or public office will be able, with a mental restriction, to take the oath which by command of the king is customarily exacted from such persons, without regard being had to the intention of the one exacting it, because he is not bound to confess an occult crime.

29. Urgent grave fear is a just cause for simulating the administration of the Sacraments.

30. It is right for an honorable man to kill an attacker who strives to inflict calumny, if otherwise this disgrace cannot be avoided; the same also must be said if someone strikes a slap or strikes with a stick and, after the slap has been struck or the blow of the stick, flees.

31. Regularly, I can kill a thief for the preservation of one gold piece.

32. It is lawful to defend, by an occisive defense, not only the things which we actually possess, but also the things to which we have an inchoate right and which we hope that we will possess.

33. It is lawful for both an heir and a legatee to defend himself in such a way against one unjustly preventing either the inheritance from being entered upon or the legacies from being paid; just as also for one having a right to a chair or prebend against one unjustly preventing possession of them.

34. It is lawful to procure abortion before the animation of the fetus, lest a girl discovered to be pregnant be killed or defamed.

35. It seems probable that every fetus, as long as it is in the womb, lacks a rational soul, and then first begins to have the same when it is brought forth; and consequently it will have to be said that in no abortion is homicide committed.

36. It is permitted to steal, not only in extreme necessity, but also in grave necessity.

37. Domestic male and female servants can secretly take from their masters to compensate their service, which they judge greater than the wage which they receive.

38. One is not bound under pain of mortal sin to restore what has been taken away by a few thefts, however great the total sum may be.

39. One who moves or induces another to inflict grave harm on a third party is not bound to restitution of that harm inflicted.

40. The mohatra contract is lawful, even with respect to the same person, and with a contract of resale previously entered into with the intention of gain.

41. Since counted money is more precious than money to be counted, and there is no one who does not value present money more than future money, a creditor can exact something beyond the principal from the borrower, and by that title be excused from usury.

42. It is not usury when beyond the principal something is exacted as owed from benevolence and gratitude, but only if it is exacted as owed from justice.

43. What if it is only venial to destroy, by a false crime, the great authority of one detracting, which is harmful to oneself?

44. It is probable that he does not sin mortally who imposes a false crime on someone in order to defend his own justice and honor. And if this is not probable, scarcely any opinion will be probable in theology.

45. To give a temporal thing for a spiritual thing is not simony when the temporal thing is not given as a price, but only as a motive for conferring or effecting the spiritual thing, or even when the temporal thing is only a gratuitous compensation for the spiritual thing or conversely.

46. And this also has place even if the temporal thing is the principal motive for giving the spiritual thing, indeed even if it is the end of the spiritual thing itself, so that it is esteemed more than the spiritual thing.

47. When the Council of Trent said that those communicating in the sins of others sin mortally, namely those who promote to churches any except those whom they themselves judge worthier and more useful to the church, the Council seems either, first, by this "worthier" to wish to signify nothing other than the worthiness of those to be chosen, taking the comparative for the positive; or, secondly, by a less proper expression it puts "worthier" so as to exclude the unworthy, not the worthy; or, finally, it speaks, thirdly, when there is a competition.

48. It seems so clear that fornication according to itself involves no malice, and is evil only because it is forbidden, that the contrary seems altogether discordant with reason.

49. Effeminacy is not prohibited by the law of nature. Hence, if God had not forbidden it, it would often be good, and sometimes obligatory under mortal sin.

50. Copulation with a married woman, with her husband consenting, is not adultery; and therefore it suffices in Confession to say that one has fornicated.

51. A servant who, with shoulders placed under, knowingly helps his master climb through windows to violate a virgin, and many times serves him in the same matter by carrying a ladder, opening the door, or cooperating in something similar, does not sin mortally if he does this from fear of notable harm, for example lest he be badly treated by his master, lest he be looked upon with angry eyes, lest he be cast out of the house.

52. The precept of observing feasts does not oblige under mortal sin, scandal set aside, if contempt is absent.

53. He satisfies the precept of the Church concerning hearing Mass who hears two parts of it, indeed four, at the same time from different celebrants.

54. He who cannot recite Matins and Lauds, but can recite the remaining Hours, is bound to nothing; because the greater part draws the lesser to itself.

55. The precept of annual Communion is satisfied by a sacrilegious eating of the Lord.

56. Frequent Confession and Communion, even in those who live in a worldly manner, is a mark of predestination.

57. It is probable that natural attrition, provided it is honorable, suffices.

58. We are not bound to confess to the Confessor asking us the habit of some sin.

59. It is lawful sacramentally to absolve those who have confessed only by halves, by reason of a great concourse of penitents, such as, for example, can happen on the day of some great festivity or indulgence.

60. To a penitent having a habit of sinning against the law of God, of nature, or of the Church, even if no hope of amendment appears, absolution is neither to be denied nor delayed, provided that with his mouth he says that he is sorry and proposes amendment.

61. He can sometimes be absolved who is in a proximate occasion of sinning, which he can and does not wish to omit, indeed which he directly and intentionally seeks, or into which he thrusts himself.

62. A proximate occasion of sinning is not to be fled when some useful or honorable cause of not fleeing occurs.

63. It is lawful directly to seek a proximate occasion of sinning, for our own spiritual or temporal good, or that of our neighbor.

64. A man is capable of absolution, however much he labors under ignorance of the mysteries of Faith, and even if through negligence, even culpable negligence, he does not know the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

65. It suffices to have believed those mysteries once.

All condemned and prohibited, as they stand, at least as scandalous and pernicious in practice.

The Supreme Pontiff concludes the decree with these words: Finally, that doctors or scholastics, or any others whatever, may abstain in the future from injurious contentions, and that peace and charity may be consulted, the same Most Holy Lord commands them, in virtue of holy obedience, that both in printed and manuscript books, and in theses, disputations, and preachings, they beware of every censure and note, and also of any insults whatever against those propositions which are still disputed here and there among Catholics, until, the matter having been known, judgment concerning the same propositions is brought forth by the Holy See.

It is lawful to use knowledge acquired from confession, provided it is done without direct or indirect revelation and without burden to the penitent, unless something else much graver would follow from not using it, in comparison with which the former is deservedly contemned. See Viva, in the condemned propositions, T. 3, App. § VI-IX.

The decree of Clement VIII, May 26, 1594, can also be recalled here.

Let both Superiors existing for the time and confessors who afterward have been promoted to the rank of Superior take the most diligent care not to use, for exterior government, that knowledge which they had concerning the sins of others in confession.

Concerning the sacrament of Penance, under Clement VIII, July 19, 1602, the following proposition was proscribed.

It is lawful sacramentally to confess sins by letters or an intermediary to an absent Confessor, and to obtain absolution from the same while absent.