Case 4. Countenancing a Duel

Caia came for confession to Paul, a missionary priest in England, to whom she disclosed that in the preceding year in Italy she had stood by at a duel in order to encourage a friend fighting a duel. Caia further said that she had not been able to obtain absolution from the parish priest in Italy, since he affirmed that the case was reserved to the Pope. In answer also to Paul’s question, Caia replied that she knew the Church forbids every participation in a duel under penalties, but that she had performed a work of charity which it would have been inhuman to refuse; indeed, that she would do the same thing again in the same circumstances. Paul, however, wishes to know what he can and ought to do in the case. Hence it is asked:

1. What is a censure, and what conditions are required in order that it be incurred?

2. How does a censure cease?

3. What is persistence in a censure, and what effects does it produce?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is a censure and what conditions are required for incurring it?

The first part of the question was answered above, p. 349.

The conditions required that a censure may be incurred are: a sin grave internally and externally, completed, not altogether past, and committed with contumacy.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 369.

The second question was answered above, p. 353.

3. What is insordescence in a censure and what effects does it produce?

Insordescence is the obstinate remaining of an excommunicated person in his excommunication for a whole year without absolution. The Council of Trent decreed (Sess. XXV, c. 3 de Ref.) that such a person might be proceeded against as suspect of heresy. If he does not purge his heresy he should be declared a heretic after the lapse of another year.²

4. The case. The third of the excommunications reserved to the Pope by the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis is couched in these terms:

“ Those who commit duels, or simply provoke them, or accept them, or assist any of them in any way or give them favor, and those who watch them with intent, or allow them, or to the extent that they are able do not prevent them, of whatever dignity they may be, even royal or imperial.

It is obvious, therefore, that Caia had incurred this censure by being a spectator of the duel with the intention of giving courage to her champion. She seems also to have had sufficient knowledge that she was doing something prohibited under censure by the Church. She is. not yet penitent, and Paul’s first task will be to try to make her see the gravity of her sin and express her sorrow and repentance for it. When she is disposed he will be able to absolve

< Lehmkuhl, vol. ii, n. 1148.

her by virtue of the special faculties which confessors in England receive through their bishop from the Holy See. She does not seem to have fallen into insordescence, for she tried to get absolution before, and the case does not state that she remained a whole year under excommunication.