Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Second. On Curses
208. To curse properly is to imprecate evil upon another. Therefore curses uttered against creatures are blasphemies when the curses redound upon God. But curses uttered against creatures redound upon God when they are cursed insofar as they have a relation to God, that is, insofar as they are the work of God or insofar as they are sent by God. Therefore:
To curse saints or sacred things, for example the sacraments of the Church, or to speak malevolently about some saint, ordinarily is blasphemy, because in these there is ordinarily had and apprehended a relation to God.
To curse creatures lacking reason, for example winds, rain, hail, animals, ordinarily is not blasphemy, because their relation to God is not apprehended; ordinarily therefore it is a light sin of anger and impatience. And if there is an honorable end of cursing creatures, there is no sin, as David cursed the mountains of Gilboa, Job and Jeremiah the hour of birth, and the psalmist cursed sinners in the imprecatory psalms.
Yet if the relation of irrational creatures, for example animals, to men is regarded, a sin against charity is committed, because the evil which is wished to them is in reality wished to the man to whom they are useful.
- To curse rational creatures ordinarily is opposed only to charity, because their relation to God is ordinarily not apprehended. This sin rather often is venial, either because of smallness of matter or because of defect of serious will, for example in him who in great anger curses his neighbor.
These curses: May God damn me; may the devil take you, are blasphemies if they are uttered against the creature insofar as it has been made by God or bears before itself the likeness of God; but ordinarily he who utters an imprecation of this kind does not attend to the respect which the creature has to God.
- To curse the devil, with anger, impatience, or another defect excluded, is not a sin: for he is not customarily cursed insofar as he is a creature of God, but insofar as he is the hostile enemy of God and of men and the author of so many and so great evils.