Case 5. Sexual Curiosity

Caius, a most innocent young man of sixteen years who is being educated in a certain Catholic college, one day comes upon an expurgated passage in a pagan author whom he studies. Thereupon, led by curiosity, he seeks another copy of the same book, in which he finds the complete passage. He reads it and finds described a fornication committed by a certain pagan god with a woman. Troubled and attracted by this reading, he thinks about the matter within himself and begins to suspect how human beings derive their origin, something of which he had previously been altogether ignorant. The young man, moreover, being exceedingly ingenuous, asks his teacher so that he may have certainty about the matter. The teacher consents, astonished at such innocence and suspecting that others in the class of about the same age are perhaps in the same state, and publicly explains to all of them the physiology of human generation. It is asked:

1. What is a bad thought, and what is required in order that someone may sin mortally by it?

2. Is thought about a bad thing sinful, and is anything to be noted particularly about thought concerning the matter of lust?

3. What is to be said about the manner of acting of Caius and of his teacher?

1. What is a bad thought and what is requisite for a mortal sin of thought? A bad thought is either a desire to do something bad, or morose delectation in something evil as represented in the mind. All bad thoughts can be reduced to those two classes. Under bad desires are placed all internal sins which tend toward the doing of some evil. Under morose delectation come all internal sins which are consummated in the mind, and which do not tend to the accomplishment of some evil outside the mind. For a mortal sin of thought the object must be gravely sinful, and there must be clear advertence to the grave malice and full consent to it.

2. Is the thought of an evil object sinful, and is there anything to be specially noted concerning thinking about sins of impurity ?

The thought of an evil object is not necessarily sinful. If, for example, I think about a brutal murder which has been committed, I do not thereby commit sin. I should commit sin if I thought of it with pleasure and approbation, gloating over the hideous details, or rejoicing in the murder because the murdered man was an enemy of my own. Although it is not sinful to think of an evil object in itself, yet sometimes there is danger in such a thought, because it tends to excite a sinful appetite. Thoughts of revenge are of this class, and still more so thoughts of impurity. A thought about impurity may be either no sin at all, or it may be a venial sin, or it may be mortal. A thought about impurity is no sin at all if there is good reason for entertaining the thought, as when a priest studies moral theology, and there is not proximate danger of consenting to it or to any evil motions which arise from the thought. Venial sin will be committed when there is no good reason for thinking of the bad object, and the danger of consenting to evil is not proximate. If this danger is proximate, mortal sin will be committed when the object is grievously sinful.

3. The case. Caius committed venial sin in indulging his curiosity, but as far as the case allows us to judge he does not seem to have committed mortal sin. After his curiosity was aroused the master acted rightly in briefly and clearly explaining to him the physiology of generation, but he should have told him not to think or talk about the matter with others, and he should have told him where the danger of sin lay. The master acted very imprudently in giving a public lecture on the subject in class; the few cases in which it would have done good had better have been treated privately. In other cases in all probability it would have done harm by needlessly directing attention to what should not be thought about except at the proper time, and by occasioning comment and talk about the matter among the boys, to their serious danger.