Article First. On Sins According to Nature.

15. On fornication. Definition. Fornication is intercourse of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman by mutual consent.

a. Intercourse is an act suitable for generating offspring. Perfect intercourse is distinguished, which consists in penetration of the female vessel with insemination made there, and imperfect, or begun, intercourse, which consists in penetration of the female vessel destined for generation, but without insemination made there. An unmarried man is one who, apart from the precept of chastity, is bound by no other bond, whether of marriage or of vow or order or kinship. By consent is added so that fornication may be distinguished from defilement. Effusion of female humor is not required for perfect intercourse, contrary to what several older authors had taught.

b. Intercourse of a eunuch with an unmarried woman is not fornication, but impure touch with complete venereal delectation. Imperfect intercourse in which semen is poured out outside the female vessel is not simple fornication, but qualified fornication, because to the sin of fornication against chastity there is added a sin which is reduced to sins against justice, because semen is frustrated against the order of nature and the end of human generation.

16. Concubinage and prostitution are referred to fornication.

1. Concubinage is frequent intercourse of an unmarried man with one and the same unmarried person. It differs from fornication in this, that a concubinarian always approaches the same person with whom he lives as if he had been joined with her in marriage; but a fornicator approaches now one, now another. Nevertheless, it has no bearing on the nature of concubinage whether they live in the same or in diverse houses. Therefore the proper malice of concubinage consists in the purpose, at least virtual, of persevering in sin.

a. Because a concubinarian is occupied in a proximate occasion of sinning, which he is held under grave obligation to abandon, he cannot be absolved unless he casts out the concubine; or if he does not have her at home, unless he has seriously promised that he will no longer approach her. And if he has a concubine at home, he ought to cast her out, even if he is in danger of death; and only where death is now imminent and time is lacking for casting her out can he be absolved, after eliciting a firm purpose of casting her out as soon as it can be done.

b. If in some parish two persons live in concubinage, one must proceed against them in this way.

a. First, they are to be admonished privately by the pastor, or by others, so that they amend themselves and make an end of a depraved and scandalous life.

b. If the admonition lacks effect, the matter is to be referred to the ordinary, who by his office ought to admonish public sinners; this can also be done by the pastor in the name of the bishop.

c. But if this admonition also is fruitless, the ordinary is to inflict excommunication, either publicly, to remove scandal, or privately through the pastor. Those who do not amend themselves are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial.

d. If ecclesiastical admonition lacks effect, the help of the civil power can and must be invoked where this is offered.

2. Prostitution is the state of a woman prostituted to all, whether for the sake of gain or of satisfying lust. In order that she can be called a prostitute, she must admit at least more than two. The proper malice of this sin also consists in the depraved will of accumulating sins.

Note. Fornicators are to be asked whether offspring has been born from the fornication, whether they impeded generation or procured abortion, whether perhaps they neglected the offspring born. As regards prostitutes it must be noted that many and diverse seeds in the womb impede generation.

17. Malice. 1. Fornication is always a mortal sin: for it is gravely prohibited both by the law of nature and by positive law.

a. By the law of nature. Caramuel had said that fornication is illicit only by positive law, but falsely: for it is opposed to the good of offspring and therefore to the propagation of the human race. Certainly those who fornicate seek vague concubitus, i.e. venereal delectation of intercourse without the obligations and burdens of marriage; but vague concubitus tends to the destruction of human society. For offspring, whose apt education requires not only the care of the mother but also the care of the father, is not sufficiently provided for; therefore it is gravely prohibited by the law of nature. And although accidentally offspring might be educated well by a fornicator, nevertheless fornication is always a grave sin, because what happens commonly and ordinarily must be considered, not what happens accidentally.¹

b. By positive law. St. Paul, in the places cited above, n. 11, counts fornication among the sins which exclude from the kingdom of heaven; moreover, in 1 Cor. 6, 15 ff., he shows by many internal reasons the deformity of fornication.

2. Concubinage and prostitution do not differ specifically from fornication; wherefore the circumstance of concubinage and prostitution of itself need not be declared in confession. But accidentally, on account of the occasion of sin, it must be declared to the confessor, especially when he asks. From the great number of sins which are accused, the confessor can easily suspect that there is question of concubinage or prostitution.

¹ Therefore this proposition, 48, was condemned by Innocent XI: Thus it seems clear that fornication involves no malice in itself and is evil only because it is forbidden, so that the contrary seems altogether discordant with reason.

18. On prostitution. 1. Prostitution is lust exercised by women for pay. Public prostitution, which is distinguished from clandestine prostitution, is called that which is permitted by the civil power and is either unlimited or limited and moderated according to certain norms of morality and health.

Namely, only to women to whom a certificate of health is granted by physicians is permission conceded for exercising prostitution, and this only under certain conditions by which public morality is provided for.

Clandestine prostitution especially flourishes where public prostitution is not admitted by the civil power; but even in states which admit public prostitution, clandestine prostitution prevails.¹

2. But if the public power is said to permit prostitution, permission must be understood in such a way that it tolerates what it cannot impede without a greater evil; and the laws by which it moderates it tend to this, that harms to public honesty and health may be avoided.

a. The magistrate can admit clandestine prostitution as a lesser evil for impeding greater evils, pollution, sodomy, bestiality, etc.

a. Prostitutes certainly cannot be permitted by reason of the vehemence by which the carnal appetite inclines toward venereal matters, nor by reason of health, which would require that satisfaction be given to the rising carnal appetite; nor can they be permitted in any village whatever, but only in great cities and under certain conditions by which scandals are removed. Recent non-Catholic physicians judge each reason brought forward sufficient so that prostitutes can be admitted. But the will ought to resist the carnal appetite, however vehement, as it resists all other temptations; moreover, according to the authorship of physicians themselves, health is not endangered by the fact that the carnal appetite is repressed.

b. Whether greater evils are truly impeded through prostitution, or whether rather sins are increased by greater opportunity of sinning, is not established among experts. According to the mind of St. Augustine² and St. Thomas,³ they can be impeded through prostitutes.

b. There are those who judge that public prostitution must be reproved and abolished. For the laws by which it is moderated tend to this, that harms to public honesty and health may be avoided; but experience being witness, these evils, especially dangers to health, are not excluded. For even from those for whom a certificate of health is at hand, innumerable persons are infected with syphilis, which authors call the French disease, and from these the same plague is derived also into mother and offspring.

c. Brothels seem in no way to be tolerated: for first, through a brothel provision is not made for health; but great harm is brought to morality both because an easy occasion of sinning is offered and because sin appears as if permitted by law.

¹ In Berlin there are 5000 public prostitutes and 40000 clandestine ones; in Vienna 2000 public ones and 20000 clandestine ones.

² De ordine, l. 2, c. 4.

³ Cf. St. Thomas II-II, q. 10, a. 11, and the author of the work De regimine principum, l. 4, c. 14.

19. On adultery. Definition. Adultery is intercourse with the spouse of another. Simple adultery is distinguished, if an unmarried man sins with a married woman or a married man with an unmarried woman; double adultery, if a married man sins with a married woman.

a. Where adultery is reserved, attention must be paid to whether only perfect intercourse or also imperfect intercourse is reserved.

b. The nature of adultery is also had by: a. imperfect acts, namely touches, kisses, embraces, which a married person commits with another person not his own, whether that person is unmarried or bound; b. acts against nature, pollution, sodomy, which a married person commits either alone or with his own partner. But venereal delectations which a married person excites in himself by imagining intercourse with another do not have the nature of adultery, because this does not injure the right of the other spouse.

c. Therefore if an adult penitent accuses himself of the sin of pollution or of immodest touches committed either in his own body or on another person, by strict right he must be asked whether he is joined in marriage. Nevertheless, because those who are untrained in moral matters do not apprehend the twofold malice which is present in these sins, the question can frequently be omitted, unless the confessor hopes that, after the penitent has been admonished concerning the greater gravity of the sin, he can frighten him away from committing new sins.

20. Malice. 1. Adultery includes two sins, each mortal: one against justice, for the adulterer violates the right of another, which by the matrimonial contract he alone has acquired over the body of the spouse; the other against chastity. And if adultery is had between two married persons, two adulteries are committed by each, and therefore three sins: one against chastity and two against justice, because the diverse rights of two persons are injured.

A married woman who commits adultery at that time when she can conceive offspring contracts another injustice besides, both against the husband, who perhaps will have to nourish spurious offspring to be conceived, and against the legitimate offspring, who are compelled to divide the inheritance with the spurious offspring.

2. Adultery is committed even if the other spouse consents, because he cannot yield his right: for the right which follows from the very nature of marriage cannot be alienated by the private will of the spouse.¹ Therefore St. Paul says generally concerning a married woman: while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress if she has been with another man.²

Whether intercourse with another's betrothed woman is adultery. Intercourse with another's betrothed woman is fornication, not adultery, because this aggravating circumstance does not change the species. For it is commonly called probable that the sin of the betrothed with an external person does not contain grave injustice against the other party.³

In fact, doctors in resolving this question so dissent that some simply deny that the circumstance of betrothal changes the species of fornication; others say that it changes the species of fornication in the betrothed woman, but not in the betrothed man; and finally others affirm that it changes the species of fornication in each. The proper malice of this sin consists in the abuse by which a body promised to another is violated, therefore in injury to the right of another, to whom belongs a right over the body which had been promised incorrupt. Now this injury inflicted by a betrothed woman is certainly graver than that which is committed by a betrothed man; but whether it is so great that it constitutes a new species, and indeed a grave species, of sin, is not certainly established. Wherefore it is not necessary that the penitent declare the circumstance of betrothal, nor that the confessor ask about it.⁴

¹ Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri III, n. 273.

² Rom. 7, 3. Proposition 50, condemned by Innocent XI, has: intercourse with a consenting married woman is not adultery ...

³ St. Alphonsus, n. 847.

⁴ Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri II, n. 1007.

21. On incest. Definition. 1. Incest is intercourse with blood relatives or relatives by affinity within the degrees prohibited by the Church for marriage. Therefore it belongs to the nature of incest that it be committed between those blood relatives and relatives by affinity who, according to the law of the Church, cannot enter a valid marriage, i.e. up to the fourth degree.

a. Base touches which are committed between blood relatives and relatives by affinity, whether of the same or of diverse sex, also have the nature of incest.

b. If blood relatives or relatives by affinity sin after they have been dispensed for entering marriage, they do not commit incest, because the dispensation removes the prohibition of marriage; but where marriage is not prohibited, there is no incest.

c. The sin which those bound by the impediment of public honesty commit between themselves is not incest, because it belongs to the nature of incest that it be committed between blood relatives and relatives by affinity; but those who are bound by the impediment of public honesty are neither blood relatives nor properly relatives by affinity.

2. Since, besides affinity, kinship is threefold, natural, which arises from nearness of blood; spiritual, which arises from baptism and confirmation; and legal, which arises from adoption, a fourfold incest must be distinguished:

a. with a blood relative up to the fourth degree;

b. with a relative by affinity up to the fourth, respectively up to the second degree;

c. with a spiritual relative;

d. with a legal relative.

A sin of lust committed by a confessor with a penitent does not have the nature of incest, because spiritual kinship arises only from the administration of baptism and confirmation, not from the sacrament of penance. Nor is a sin of lust committed by a pastor with a parishioner incest; but besides the guilt of lust this also puts on the malice of injustice, because a shepherd by office ought to draw back from sins the sheep entrusted to his care.

22. Malice. 1. Incest contains two grave sins, one against chastity, the other against piety: for it is repugnant to the reverence which is owed to parents and consequently also to persons joined with them either by blood or by affinity.

2. As regards specific difference: a. Incest between spiritual and legal relatives differs in species both among themselves and from incest which is committed between blood relatives and relatives by affinity; but it is commonly admitted that incest committed with a blood relative does not differ in species from incest committed with a relative by affinity. The reason is that kinships arise from a formally diverse root; but sins between blood relatives and relatives by affinity are prohibited from the same motive of piety; in each case the same reverence owed to blood is injured.

b. It is probable that incests committed between blood relatives or between relatives by affinity in any degree whatever, whether of the direct line, even in the first degree between parents and children, or of the collateral line, even in the first degree between brothers and sisters, are of the same species. Wherefore, just as it is not necessary that the connection, consanguinity or affinity, be declared in confession, so it is not necessary that the degree be declared; but it suffices to say: I committed incest. For in all of them the same virtue is injured, namely the reverence owed to those joined, and in the same way as regards substance; wherefore diversity of connection and the nearer degree add nothing to the sin except an aggravating circumstance.¹

St. Alphonsus, n. 448 f., excepts the first degree of consanguinity and affinity in the direct line, judging that the reverence which is owed within the first degree is morally other than that which is owed within the other degrees. But this sentence is not certain. Indeed Suarez, De poenitentia, disp. 22, sect. 3, n. 12, says: "Concerning the degrees of consanguinity, insofar as they are circumstances of incest ... it is more probable that they do not change the species of sin."

¹ Cf. Sporer-Bierbaum III, pr. 4, n. 609; Ballerini-Palmieri II, n. 1016 ff.

23. On defilement. Definition. 1. Stuprum is taken in three diverse senses: broadly it is the violation of any woman, even a widow, a corrupted woman, or a married woman, where adultery is added to stuprum; juridically, in civil law, it is the violation of any honorable woman, whether she is a virgin or not; theologically, in canon law, it is the violation of a virgin, or the deflowering of a virgin, against her will.¹

Violation is the violating of a woman without consent; therefore to fornicate with a woman out of her mind, drunk, sleeping, likewise with a girl who has not yet obtained the perfect use of reason, has the nature of stuprum. A virgin is said to be deflowered who is corrupted for the first time through carnal intercourse and in this way is deprived of integrity of the flesh and of the flower of virginity.

2. Stuprum taken strictly or theologically is distinguished as violent and voluntary, according as a virgin is violated against her will or plainly consenting. It is clear that voluntary stuprum properly does not differ from fornication; nevertheless it is sometimes called stuprum because a virgin is deflowered, even with consent. But stuprum is called violent not only where physical force is applied, but also where moral force is applied; for in each case injury is inflicted on the virgin.

Violent stuprum can be committed in five ways: a. by violent oppression; b. by threats or by fear unjustly instilled, even reverential fear, as if the defiler is a superior or a man of great authority; c. by deceit, as if someone abuses a girl's ignorance and brings her to intercourse which he had said was licit; d. by fraud, as by a false promise of marriage or of a great dowry; e. by oppressing a virgin in sleep or drunkenness.

¹ Cf. c. Lex 2, C. 36, q. 1.

24. Malice. 1. Every stuprum properly so called, or violent, contains two sins, one against chastity, the other against justice: for whatever woman is oppressed against her will, always her true right is injured, and therefore injury is inflicted on her.

a. He who corrupts a consenting virgin by non-violent stuprum does not commit a sin specifically diverse from fornication: for although integrity of the flesh, of which the virgin is deprived, is a good to be held at a great price, nevertheless no injury is inflicted on the virgin, since she can consent to the violation of herself and in fact consents.¹ But it is rightly affirmed that a virgin who freely consents to her own deflowering, besides the sin of lust, commits the sin of prodigality, since she rashly casts away the good of bodily integrity, and therefore that the circumstance of virginity in a woman adds a new species of sin to fornication. But since the sin of prodigality is not mortal, it is not necessary that it be declared in confession.

b. He who oppresses a virgin against her will properly commits a twofold injury, since he abuses her body against her will and moreover deprives her of virginity by tearing the virginal enclosure.²

2. Stuprum which is affected by an ecclesiastical penalty or is reserved is understood as stuprum in the strict sense, namely the unjust deflowering of a virgin, unless something else is expressly noted.

In order that a woman oppressed by force be immune from sin:

a. she cannot have herself negatively or permissively, but is held to resist both internally, lest she consent to pleasure, and externally, so that she repel force by force.

b. But she is not held to cry out if this cannot be done without danger of life or notable infamy or without excessive shame, unless proximate danger of consent to the consummated act is imminent. For the rest, as Berardi notes well, the case of a woman oppressed without fault of her own, i.e. altogether against her will, is not so frequent.

¹ Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 443.

² Sanchez, De matrimonio, l. 7, disp. 14, n. 7.

25. On sacrilege. Definition. Sacrilege, insofar as it is a sin of lust, or sacrilegious lust, is the violation of a sacred person, place, or thing through a venereal act.

Therefore carnal sacrilege, or sacrilegious lust, is likewise threefold, personal, local, and real, just as sacrilege itself considered in itself, which is a species of irreligiosity.

26. Malice. 1. Sacrilege contains two sins, one against chastity, the other against religion: for it is repugnant to the reverence owed to God in sacred persons, places, and things.

2. Personal sacrilege is committed if a person bound by a vow of chastity sins against chastity, internally or externally,¹ or if someone sins with one who has such a vow.

If one bound by vow, e.g. a priest, sins with a person likewise bound by vow, each commits two sacrileges; if a religious priest sins against chastity, he commits one sacrilege, because he injures one obligation imposed twice from the same motive.

3. Local sacrilege is committed through an external sin of lust in a sacred place. And this indeed is certain concerning pollution, fornication, and conjugal intercourse which moral necessity does not excuse; but concerning other gravely immodest acts, touches, kisses, looks, conversations, this must probably be denied.²

But internal acts certainly are not sacrileges, namely grave sacrileges: for some malice of light sacrilege is present in every sin which is committed in a church.

A sacred place in this question is a consecrated or blessed church, or public oratory, and this only from the roof to the pavement, and a blessed cemetery. Therefore private, or semipublic, oratories are not sacred places, nor is the sacristy, at least if it is not part of the building itself of the church, but if it is built exteriorly, nor the atrium of the church, nor the roof above the church.

4. Real sacrilege is committed through the abuse of a sacred thing for base things, as if a Mass were promised for obtaining consent to a base matter, or if a priest administering a sacrament, or refreshed by Holy Communion, at a time when the sacred species are not yet corrupted, were to sin carnally. To this also belongs that gravest sacrilege of solicitation in confession, by which a confessor abuses the sacrament of penance for a base sin.

¹ Cf. De praeceptis^3, n. 177, where the explanation of this matter is given.

² Cf. ibid., n. 178.

27. On raptus. Definition. Raptus, insofar as it is a sin of lust, is the violent abduction of any person whatever for the sake of satisfying libido. The proper malice of raptus consists in the injury which is inflicted through violent abduction.

a. Therefore for raptus it is required: a. that abduction or transfer from one place to another morally diverse place occur; b. with force inflicted, either physical or moral, either on the abducted person herself or on those in whose power she is: parents, guardians, a husband; c. for the sake of libido. Hence, if she is abducted for another end, e.g. that she may be used for services or for entering marriage, it is not a sin of lust; d. of any person whatever, whether this person is male or female, whether a virgin or corrupted, whether married or unmarried.

b. Hence he does not commit raptus who inflicts force on a person in the same place, nor he who for the sake of exercising libido drags her from one room into another, although in this case, besides the sin of chastity, on account of the violence inflicted he also commits a sin of injustice to be declared in confession.¹

¹ Cf. De sacramentis, n. 573 f.

28. Malice. Raptus contains two sins: one against chastity, either through the intention of sinning or through carnal intercourse with the abducted person; the other against justice, on account of the force inflicted either on the abducted person or on those whose power she is subject to, or on both.

a. For committing the sin of raptus, which at times is reserved, nothing else is required except that a person be abducted with the intention of sinning with her, whether through intercourse or through another base act, even if the external sin does not in fact follow. But in order that raptus can truly be numbered among consummated sins of lust, fornication must be committed with the abducted person.

b. If a woman, for the sake of satisfying libido, abducts a male, as regards malice indeed the same sin is committed specifically; but the woman does not incur the penalty or reservation established for raptus: for penalties established are judged to be against raptus according as it is ordinarily done; but ordinarily males abduct females, not females males.