Article I: On Depraved Desires and Purposes

346. DEFINITION. Desire, not insofar as it is a passion, but insofar as it is an affection of the soul, is defined: An act of the rational appetite tending toward an absent good. As it is taken here, that is, as sin, it is an act of the will by which someone deliberately desires to complete an evil work by deed.

DIVISION. Desire, with respect to execution, is said to be: 1. inefficacious (or conditioned), which someone consents to execute if he could; which therefore stands without purpose and is called velleity, for example, if he says: if I could steal the treasure of the church, I would steal it; 2. efficacious (or absolute), if he consents to execute it with foresight, or at least hope, of completing the work, and thus a purpose is elicited, for example, if someone devises means for killing an enemy (V, 15; H. Ap., III, 47). Purpose is the act by which the will determinately wills and resolves to complete the work.

347. PRINCIPLES. I. Any desire, even inefficacious, or purpose, concerning an evil thing or action, is sin. This is clear both from the precept, "Thou shalt not covet," and from reason, because to seek evil is certainly repugnant to rational nature and to the divine ordination (recall the things said n. 316).

348. II. A depraved desire or purpose includes the same malice and species which are in the desired work. This is clear from Matt. (5:28): He who shall have looked upon a woman to covet her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. The reason is because the internal act of desire has its goodness and malice from the external act as from its object, indeed simply, that is, as it exists concretely (V, 12; H. Ap., III, 48). Cf. n. 312.

Hence: 1. It must be well examined whether he who admitted a depraved desire apprehended all the malices which are in the object, or only adverted to this or that one.

2. A penitent who elicited a desire, even inefficacious, of stealing ought to explain whether it concerned a grave thing. Likewise, he who basely desired a woman ought to say whether she is a blood-relative, or an affine, etc.; because such circumstances (unless they are invincibly unknown by the sinner) add new malice to the sin. Indeed, it is EXPEDIENT in hearing confession to understand whether the desire was efficacious or not, and a true purpose of perpetrating external sin, so that occasions to be fled and remedies to be applied may be better known.

349. Questions. QUAER. 1. Whether he sins gravely who wishes for some gravely evil object under the condition: IF IT WERE LAWFUL?

Resp. Regularly negatively, since the condition appended takes away in fact the malice of the work, because then the desire is borne toward an object stripped of malice.

I say regularly, because this is certain:

1. In those things which are forbidden by positive right alone; for example, if someone says: I would eat meat on Friday if the Church had not forbidden it; or: I would wish that today the eating of meat were not prohibited, so that I could feed on it. 2. In those things forbidden by natural right, which in some case and state are lawful: for example, I would kill an enemy if God commanded; I would take a wife, if I were not a priest.

This is also sufficiently probable if the matter concerns those things in which malice cannot be separated from the object, because then also malice is taken away, while the will, by wishing under a condition which it knows cannot be verified, does not truly wish, but rather shows a natural propensity. For the rest, desires of this sort commonly are dangerous, or at least idle.

But to desire that things intrinsically evil be lawful is a grave sin, for it is to wish for the inversion of the order of nature. Likewise, it is a grave sin if the condition appended does not regard the malice of the object, but the punishment or something else; for example, I would fornicate if there were no hell; I would kill an enemy if I were not a priest (V, 13; H. Ap., III, 50).

QUAER. 2. Whether it is lawful to wish temporal evil to a neighbor FOR A GOOD END?

Resp. 1. It is lawful, if the order of charity is preserved, namely so that temporal evil is wished for a greater good. Thus St. Alphonsus (V, 21) with St. Thomas and others commonly.

Hence it is lawful to desire temporal evil for a neighbor: a) on account of the spiritual good of the neighbor himself; b) on account of the common good, whether spiritual or temporal; c) on account of the good even of a third innocent person, provided that it is of greater moment. Thus, for example, it is lawful to wish for the death of a heresiarch, or of a disturber of public peace, on account of the common good and the good of many, according to that saying (Gal. 5:12): Would that they be cut off who trouble you. Likewise, it is lawful to be saddened by the fact that dignities are conferred upon the unworthy; or by the health of him who takes from it an occasion of sinning. Likewise, it is lawful to wish poverty, disease, or some other adversity to a wicked man, so that he may come to his senses. Nevertheless desires of this kind sometimes are not free from danger. Cf. II, 30; H. Ap., III, 63.

Resp. 2. It is not lawful in other cases, where, namely, the good intended does not surpass or at least equal the evil which is wished to the neighbor.

Wherefore it is illicit for a wife to desire the death of her husband because she is treated badly by him; and for a mother to desire the death of a daughter who, on account of deformity or poverty, lacks hope of marrying honorably. That these and similar things are not lawful is clear also from the condemnation of the 13th and 14th propositions made by Innocent XI, of which the former sounds thus: "If you do it with due moderation, you can without mortal sin be saddened about the life of someone, and rejoice about his natural death, ask and desire it with inefficacious affection, not indeed from displeasure with the person, but on account of some temporal advantage"; but the latter: "It is lawful with an absolute desire to desire the death of one's father, not indeed as the evil of the father, but as the good of the one desiring, because, namely, a rich inheritance is going to come to him" (V, 22).¹