Article III: On Certain Scandals in Particular

¶2.

That the doctrine stated above concerning scandal may be better understood and easily brought into practice, it is useful to apply it to certain special cases and determined examples more frequently occurring, so that it may thus be expressed by rules more concrete, whether general or special.

968. General rules concerning guilt of scandal.

I. He will be guilty of active scandal, and indeed always, who asks, counsels, commands, etc., a work which cannot be done by another without sin, even if that person is prepared to sin, because this is intrinsically evil, as directly inducing to sin, or at least to the exercise and continuation of sin.

Thus he who asks sacraments from an excommunicated priest to be avoided, or absolution from a priest lacking jurisdiction, from an unbeliever that he swear by false gods, from a usurer that he lend at unjust usury, from a notary or guardian what is against his office, from a prostitute fornication, from a man onanistic intercourse, etc. Nevertheless:

a) he who asks, counsels, commands, etc., a work which indeed can be done by another without sin, but which certainly or probably will not be done without sin, for example, a loan from a usurer, is not guilty of active scandal, although he can sin against charity by reason of passive scandal, as will be said below under II, and is clear from n. 965;

b) if someone is already prepared to commit a grave evil, and cannot be drawn away from the proposal (for otherwise the persuasion would not be good), it is licit to furnish to him the occasion of a lesser evil and to permit this, indeed probably also to persuade him, but precisely as lesser, unless nevertheless an unjust damage of a third party would follow. For it is not to seek evil but good, namely, the election of a lesser evil; to draw back from a greater evil and conditionally to propose a lesser;

c) he who sins with an accomplice probably is not bound explicitly to confess the sin of scandal of which he has become guilty by seduction, because the other party, by consenting, is guilty of scandal of the same species; whence he sufficiently accuses the scandal by confessing the sin committed with the accomplice.

II. He is generally guilty of passive scandal who asks, counsels, commands, etc., a work which indeed can be done by another without sin, but which the other certainly or probably will not do without sin. He is excepted if it is done from a sufficiently grave cause.

Hence on account of necessity or sufficiently great utility it is licit to ask sacraments from a sacrilegious priest, especially if he is the parish priest; a loan from a usurer; an oath from one who is going to swear by false gods; and a wife, on account of danger of incontinence, can ask the conjugal debt from an onanistic husband (not completing intercourse).

III. Likewise he is also generally guilty of passive scandal who deliberately places something which will be an occasion of sin for another. He is excepted if it is done from a just and proportionate cause, provided the action is not actively inducing to sinning and is indifferent.

Hence it is licit for the father of a family deliberately not to remove, or even to furnish, to children or servants inclined or prepared for theft a mere occasion of sinning (for example, by exposing money or keys, or by leaving open the chest in which money is kept), not intending but permitting one theft so that several may be avoided; likewise for guards of fields, vineyards, and woods to hide themselves so that they may catch those doing damage and, once punished, turn them away from inflicting further damage, but not for this sole end, that they may catch someone from whom they may receive a fine or exact a penalty; likewise for a husband to furnish to a suspect wife a mere occasion of adultery for correcting her, or catching her, or proving infidelity.

969. Examples of active scandal. - The following are to be held guilty of very pernicious active scandal:

Those who retain the custom of blaspheming, especially before the younger, most of all before children.

Those who, after hearing grave detraction, report the matter to others: for from this arise hatreds and quarrels.

Those who, without the end of marriage, are messengers of love to some woman, whether married or unmarried; thus servants and domestics sin who furnish help to children of a family for fostering shameful loves.

Those who compose, publish, spread, indiscriminately sell to all, or hand over to others to be read, books or other writings of harmful reading.

Those who make, spread, or publicly sing shameful songs or poems.

Those who introduce into schools a pernicious method of teaching, or dangerous books. Without scandal there cannot be handed into the hands of boys anatomical or surgical books, or also books of pagan authors not sufficiently expurgated.

Those who establish and prolong, whether with clear words or equivocal words (sufficiently understood by the hearers), truly lascivious conversations (for example, concerning the marital act, concerning shameful ways of impeding generation, concerning those things which they have seen and done in brothels), especially before persons of diverse sex or before young persons or innocent children; - otherwise if they are said jokingly by common people, harvesters, plowmen, and other workers among themselves, because from them they are not much moved.

Clerics who, by retaining a person suspect to the people, furnish occasion for sins of detraction, calumny, and contempt for the clerical state.

Likewise wives who, by admitting handsome lovers to familiar conversations, are an offense to their husbands and others; likewise a husband who retains a maidservant suspect to the wife not without reason.

Likewise, in itself, parents and masters who permit to daughters or maidservants conversations in hidden places with betrothed men and lovers; they are guilty on account of their cooperation in scandal.

970. Especially in the matter of lust, they are guilty of active scandal:

A. As regards obscene images and statues, and indeed the following sin gravely:

Painters, sculptors, photographers, etc., who fashion images or statues truly obscene and commonly incentives to lust; unless it is done from a just cause, for example, for the study of anatomical science. Now those are obscene which intend to exhibit the altogether immodest parts of an adult person naked or covered only with a thin veil, or represent gravely impure acts, or altogether lascivious forms.

Those who expose images or statues of this kind publicly to the eyes of all in shops or in houses or gardens; likewise those who sell them, unless it is done to those who devote themselves to anatomical science.

Those who spread them, carry them around, or furnish an occasion of seeing them.

But images of eminent art, in viewing which those looking are moved especially by the artistic mode of representing or by the idea represented rather than by nudity, it is licit to keep in collections and museums; nevertheless it would be necessary that they not be handed over indiscriminately to all to be viewed, but to experts in art and persons of mature age. Therefore it also seems licit to make and reproduce the aforesaid images, and to sell them to experts in art or serious persons.

B. As regards spectacles and dances, which in themselves are not illicit, although they often are an occasion of sin; whence one must dissuade from these and take care lest they be introduced:

Authors and actors of plays in which virtue or good morals or religion is not spared sin gravely; or of very shameful theatrical dances in which, on account of immodest clothing, obscene modes of dancing, or lascivious gestures or touchings, great turpitude appears.

Likewise those who hold at their houses dances or very shameful and lascivious dances, such as generally are meetings which are called masked balls.

Likewise those who promote or approve them with much money or applause.

Likewise musicians who cooperate by their music, or owners and inhabitants by renting the place, unless it is done from a graver cause, for example, by reason of grave damage.

Indeed those who assist at or participate in such things, unless they are not moved from them to sin and are not a scandal to others by evil example.

C. As regards the concession or procuring of a place for sinning:

Innkeepers sin most gravely who furnish secret rooms for lust; likewise a private person who grants a place to those requesting it for sinning, unless perhaps, says Lehmkuhl, a wholly grave necessity is present, in which case he ought still to manifest displeasure.

To rent a house to prostitutes (likewise to usurers) in villages and small cities is illicit; but in great cities, in which, for avoiding a greater evil, prostitutes are permitted, it is not illicit (especially if other tenants are lacking), unless this would gravely harm the neighbors, or by reason of the location there would be a special convenience for sinning so that seductions and sins would be multiplied, or it would be grave scandal to others, as also easily happens.

Drivers conveying others to a brothel are not excused by reason of wages, but only on account of grave damage to be avoided, for example, if they fear lest they be dismissed and not easily find another master, or if by civil precept they are bound to convey travelers wherever they wish. They can never exhibit service for leading someone more securely or more secretly, or indicate to one ignorant where the brothel is; unless perhaps on account of the greatest damage (cf. n. 492, B).

D. As regards concubinage and merely civil marriage, see our little work De Variis Peccatis in sacramentali confessione medendis, c. II, § B, q. 2, n. V-VIII.

E. As regards the adornment of women, it will be said in the treatise on Temperance, where modesty is treated.