Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Fifth. On the Flatterer, the Receiver, and the Participant
492. 1. A flatterer is said to be he who by praising or blaming moves another to inflict damage on the neighbor. He ordinarily has influence on the damage itself where the other would not have inflicted the damage without the flattery.
- The obligations of the flatterer are the same as those of the one counseling: for he gives, as it were, clothed counsel, whose motives are generally taken from a false concept of worldly glory.
a. In order that the flatterer be bound to restitution, it is required that he advert that by his praises or reproaches he exists as a cause of the damage; but it is not required that he himself intend the damage.
b. It is clear that the flatterer is bound to restitution not only if he exists as cause of the damage, but also if by praise or blame he is the cause why the damage inflicted is not repaired.
493. 1. One receiving or furnishing recourse is said to be he who knowingly cooperates in the damage of the neighbor by furnishing security to the damager. This can happen in two ways: either by receiving another's thing or by protecting the author of the damage.
It belongs to the nature of one receiving that by his manner of acting he influence the will of the damager and determine it either to inflict damage again or to retain the thing taken away.
a. Therefore these are not receivers: alpha. those who receive criminals at home as friends and blood-relatives, or by reason of office as innkeepers, or to avert grave damage from themselves; beta. those who defend thieves or criminals in judgment in those things in which they themselves could defend themselves.
b. But these are receivers: alpha. innkeepers who receive thieves into lodging and conceal them lest they be captured; beta. tavern-keepers who accept from sons under family power money or other things secretly taken from their parents; gamma. parents who do not impede the thefts of sons and in this way add courage to them for repeating thefts.
- The receiver is bound to repair damages of which he himself is the efficient cause; therefore if the one furnishing recourse brought it about that damage was inflicted or that the thing taken away was retained.
494. The participant is twofold: a. a participant in the prey is he who receives part of the thing unjustly taken away; b. a participant in the action is he who assists the principal damager in the unjust action itself.
The participant in the prey must restore that which he unjustly accepted: for he is an unjust possessor of another's thing; but he has no other obligation.
The participant in the action must repair the damages of which he himself is the efficacious and culpable cause. Which these are must be determined from the principles established concerning cooperation (n. 118 s.). Therefore if the cooperation is licit, no obligation of restitution arises from it.
Whether it is licit, in order to avoid one's own damage, immediately to cooperate in an action damaging to another, is said elsewhere (n. 118).