Chapter II. Consummated Sins of Impurity

THESE are commonly reckoned as six in number: fornication, adultery, incest, criminal assault, rape, and sacrilege. All are grave sins against chastity, and the last five contain grave malice against other virtues as well. Something must be said about each one.

Fornication is the act of carnal intercourse between persons of different sex who are not married but who are free to marry.

Holy Scripture teaches us that fornication is a grave sin, for “fornicators shall not possess the kingdom of God.”¹ “No fornicator hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”² It is a grave sin not merely because it is forbidden by positive law, but because it is intrinsically wrong and contrary to the law of nature. Innocent XI condemned the following proposition: ‘‘ It seems so clear that fornication in itself is not wrong, and is only evil because it is forbidden, that the contrary is altogether against reason.”³ This truth is sufficiently clear to unaided reason, for the human offspring requires for long years the constant care not only of the mother, but of the father as well, and so nature requires that the father should be certain, otherwise so great a burden could not be laid upon him. But the fact of paternity would be very uncertain if fornication were allowed, and so we must conclude that it is wrong in the nature of things. As St Thomas observes,⁴ the fact that in particular cases the paternity of a child born out of wedlock is sufficiently clear, and the child’s education can be provided for, does not militate against the force of the general argument, for in striving to lay down general rules of conduct we must have regard to what would happen ordinarily if such an action were lawful, not to what takes place in special circumstances.

¹ 1 Cor. vi 9; cf. Gal. v 19.

² Eph. v 5.

³ Prop. 48, condemned by Innocent XI, March 2, 1679.

⁴ Summa, 2-2, q. 154, a. 2.

Adultery is the act of carnal intercourse between persons of different sex of whom one at least is married to someone else. Besides being a grave sin against chastity, adultery is also a serious violation of justice, which prescribes fidelity to the marriage vows as long as they exist. Even if the other party whose marriage rights were violated by adultery should - have given his consent to the sin, it still is against justice, for, like the right to life, marriage rights are inalienable, and cannot be renounced by those who own them. If both parties who sin together are married to someone else, there will be a double sin against justice committed by both of them, and the circumstance should be mentioned in order to secure the integrity of confession. This is clear, and it is confirmed by the condemnation of Proposition 50 by Innocent XI.

Incest is carnal intercourse with relatives by blood or by marriage. Besides its general malice against chastity, incest is against the special virtue of piety, which prescribes due reverence toward, and abstention from carnal sins with, those who are nearly related. With regard to parents and children at least, this law of reverence belongs to the law of nature; in other degrees of kindred up to the third, and of affinity up to the second, reckoned according to the rules of canon law, it is of positive ecclesiastical law; whether it is also of natural law in the nearer degrees is disputed. All carnal intercourse then, between relatives by blood up to the third degree, and between relatives by marriage up to the second degree, is incest either by natural or by ecclesiastical law. Community of blood and the close ties which exist between parent and child give a special and distinct malice to sins of impurity committed between them; in other degrees of kindred and affinity there is not the same community of blood nor equally close ties, and so the opinion of many approved theologians is probable that although incest in the first degree of the direct line of blood relationship is distinct in malice from the others, these latter are all of one moral species as far as the integrity of confession is concerned.

Carnal sins committed between those who are united by the ties of spiritual or legal relationship are also distinct species of incest.

Criminal assault is the using of violence against a woman to compel her to commit sins of impurity. It contains a grave and special sin against justice as well as the malice of impurity, and it is severely punished by criminal law. It is probable that there is no specific difference in the sin whether the woman be a virgin or not.

Rape is the violent abduction of a person from a place of safety for the purpose of satisfying lust. The violence may be offered to the person abducted, or to the parents, or to those who have charge of her, and it adds a special malice of its own to the sin besides the malice against chastity.

By sacrilege is here understood the violation by carnal sin of a. person, place, or object, consecrated to God. The doctrine concerning it will be sufficiently clear from what was said above under the First Commandment.