Case 3. Not Excused from Observing the Law

Titius, a confessor, remains doubtful whether certain drunkards who belong to his mission sin or not by omitting Mass on Sunday. The circumstances of the case are as follows. Every Saturday afternoon these men receive their wages for the week’s labor. Having received the money, they immediately go to the tavern and drink until they are drunk. They return home at about eleven o’clock at night, when the tavern closes, and on the following day suffer the effects of drunkenness in bed. Titius doubts whether they are guilty not only of drunkenness but also of the Mass omitted on Sunday, for they are drunk before the law begins to urge, and when it urges they are incapable of fulfilling the law. Hence it is asked:

1. What causes exempt from a law, and what causes excuse from a law?

2. Is it lawful voluntarily to posit either kind?

3. Is someone bound, if he can, to remove an excusing cause in order to fulfill the law?

4. What is to be said concerning the case?

1. What are causes exempting from a law and causes excusing from a law?

Causes exempting remove a subject from the jurisdiction, as does departure from the territory within which the law binds. Causes excusing relieve him of the obligation of obeying the law though he remains subject to it.¹

1 Bucceroni, vol. i, no. 216.

2. Is it lawful to put both causes exempting and causes excusing voluntarily?

A subject may put causes exempting voluntarily, for a law does not compel a man to remain subject to it; it only obliges him to act in conformity with it as long as he remains subject. By special law, however, one who has incurred a reserved case in one diocese can not be absolved from it if he go to another diocese with the intention of getting absolution there.

While remaining under the jurisdiction of the law, a subject may not do anything with the intention of avoiding the obligation of complying with it. But for a sufficiently grave reason he may do something, although he foresees that the doing of it will make it impossible for him to comply with a positive law.

3. Is one bound to remove an excusing cause if he can, so as to be able to comply with a law?

Much depends on the nature of the law in question, for some laws bind more strictly than do others. Thus Lehmkuhl says: “Nor do they judge that anyone is bound by force of the law of hearing Mass to procure release from a censure, liberation from prison, etc., if, being imprisoned, he cannot assist at Mass, unless perhaps for a long time, or through design lest he be present at the sacred rite, he neglects these things. Nevertheless, they hold that someone is bound to remove those bonds or impediments by reason of the precept of Easter Communion; for which precept, even several days before the time of the law becomes urgent, it is not lawful to place an impediment, unless a sufficiently grave cause is present.”²

2 Theol. Mor., vol. i, n. 158.

4. The case. Titius, a confessor, doubts whether some drunkards in his parish commit sin by omitting Mass on Sundays. Every week these men get their week’s wage after mid-day on Saturday. They go straight to the public-house and get drunk, returning home about 11 p.m. when the public-house closes. Next day they sleep off the effects of drink in bed. Although they certainly sin against temperance, Titius doubts whether they commit sin by not hearing Mass, for they are drunk before the time when the law of hearing Mass begins to be urgent, and when Sunday comes they are too ill to get up. If there were question of putting some honest excusing cause, the doubt of Titius would be well founded. Thus Gury says: “It would be lawful, from mere pleasure, to enter upon a journey which would impede attendance at Mass throughout the whole of Saturday, up to one or another hour before Sunday.”¹ This, however, can not be applied to our case. For in this matter much depends on the intention of the legislator. He does not intend to restrict the liberty of his subjects so far as to compel them to forego honest recreation on Saturday, though this will prevent them hearing Mass on Sunday. But the legislator does not use the same indulgence in favor of drunkards, who get drunk on Saturday afternoon, foreseeing that they will not be in a fit state to hear Mass on Sunday. They sin, then, not only against temperance, but also against the obligation of Sunday Mass.

1 Gury, in Génicot, vol. i, no. 116.