§ III. On sodomy

505. Definition. - The horrendous crime of sodomy is concubitus with an undue sex, or with a due sex, but in an undue vessel.

Division. - One sodomy is called perfect, which is the congress of two of the same sex, namely a male with a male, a female with a female. Another is imperfect, which is concubitus with a person of diverse sex, but in an unnatural vessel. L. IV. 466.

Principle. - Sodomy is a crime much graver than simple pollution. This is clear from the horror which it excites among all, and also from the unheard-of penalties which God inflicted on Sodom.¹

St. Doctor notes² with the more probable sentence: 1° Perfect sodomy is any concubitus whatever with a person of the same sex; therefore, as regards this species, it is not to be expressed either by men or by women in what part of the body the congress or pollution occurred, because its whole malice consists in affection toward the undue sex.

2° Imperfect sodomy is not any unnatural concubitus whatever of a man with a woman, but coitus in the preposterous vessel; for its specific malice consists in affection toward the undue vessel.

3° Yet concubitus or conjunction of bodies is essential in each crime. Hence:

506. You will resolve. - 1° If only mutual touches have intervened, even with pollution, it is not sodomy. Nor is it sodomy if a man pollutes himself between the legs, arms, in the bosom, or even in the mouth of a woman; but they are two other sins, namely pollution in effect and fornication in affection.³

2° In Confession there must be expressed: 1) The sex of the accomplice. 2) The sodomitic copula itself, or in the preposterous vessel, if the sex was diverse. 3) The quality of the person, whether married, blood-related, etc. 4) Whether the guilty party was active or passive, by reason, namely, of the danger of pollution, which in the active party happens much more easily than in the passive. Moreover, the circumstance of pollution is supposed from things commonly occurring; wherefore only then, when it was not present, is one to speak about it. 5) Whether force was applied.⁴

3° But when the confessor understands that a woman has been known outside the natural vessel and preposterously, he ought not to ask further in what place or in what way.⁵