§ 1. On Simple Fornication

300. - Complete use according to nature takes place in fornication, which, under the respect of lust, can be described as natural, extramarital copulation. And simple fornication is copulation which is vitiated by the defect of marriage alone; that is, which, in carnal commerce, violates only that order which specifically human or rational nature demonstrates to be necessary: this nature postulates a conjugal bond.

We prefer this definition to the customary one, according to which simple fornication is said to be the intercourse of an unattached man with an unattached woman by mutual consent. For the quality of being unattached, by which the sin is diminished, seems, from the place which it holds in the definition, to contribute toward constituting the sin; and, while it properly indicates persons who are not married, here it must designate every person who is joined neither by a matrimonial covenant with another, nor by a special obligation to God (from a vow), nor by a natural or legal bond of piety (from consanguinity, affinity, or legal relationship) with the person with whom he or she sins.

301. - Concubinage denotes carnal commerce prolonged in intention and in fact between the same persons, whether a certain express agreement has intervened for a fixed time ¹ or without a fixed day, or whether they have tacitly agreed ² upon a habitual relation or familiar intercourse; always excluding, however, that handing over of mutual right which is proper to matrimony.

¹ We know that in a certain large city women are now hired for this end for three or six months, and that hiring agencies exist. A most manifest agreement is present in civil marriage, which, where a priest is available, is nothing but concubinage for Catholics.

² Thus, in the colonies, a native woman is taken by Europeans for as long as the man remains separated from his own wife. Cf. no. 213.

Among the Romans, the institution of concubinage was in some manner legal; we described it above, in nos. 101 and 117, and here in the third footnote.

Today it is considered merely as "a continuous state of committing fornication and a perpetual occasion ³," which, because of the obstinacy of the will, is regarded as graver than accidental fornication, and must be disclosed at least to a confessor who asks, so that he can judge concerning the occasion that must be fled.

³ Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 1037. Formerly, greater attention was given to the imitation of a legitimate state and to the hope of a better education afforded to offspring who seemed likely to be born from concubinage than to offspring born from promiscuous intercourse. Under this respect, promiscuous intercourse with several persons is worse than concubinage and is judged worse. Wherefore, as morals declined, the institution of concubinage began to exist alongside the institution of matrimony, so that until Constantine it was permitted by the laws to have a concubine in addition to a legitimate wife. Cf. law 4, Digest, 25, 7; and the Code, sole law, book 5, title 26.

Not rarely, concubinary adultery is also reserved by the bishop to himself. For fornicators to incur that reservation, a certain frequency of acts is required, which are not repeated merely by accident but are joined by a nexus of intention, so that there is a state or custom; in other words, so that the woman is in some manner destined to the same man.

Where this designation is clear, for example, after a civil marriage, even a few acts suffice ⁴.

⁴ Two then seem to suffice. Cf. Reiffenstuel, on book 1, title 4, no. 124.

In doubt, since it is not always easy to have the conditions ascertained, the case, according to the general canon, will have to be regarded as not reserved. Cf. canons 299 and 2245, 4.

Because of the reservation, the circumstance of concubinage will also have to be disclosed at least to that confessor who lacks power over reserved cases.

302. - Prostitution designates the condition of a woman who, prepared to grant access to almost anyone, is accustomed to make gain from her body. A prostitute - who among certain peoples is honored in certain circumstances - is accustomed to commit not a few specifically diverse sins, some according to nature, others against nature; nevertheless, her state does not impart a new species to her sins. Wherefore, this condition will not have to be accused except because of public scandal ⁵ and in order to reveal the occasion of sin.

⁵ Cf. Palmieri, Opus theologicum, vol. 2, no. 1006.

Moreover, once she has indicated her infamous trade, the burden of accusing herself now becomes lighter for her. In order to satisfy the precept of integral confession, it is sufficient that she declare the genera of sins in a few words; then, concerning interior sins, let her indicate the time during which she began and continued to act as a prostitute; but concerning exterior sins, let her state the principal species (insofar as she herself distinguished the persons): with married persons, with sacred persons, and about how often those rarer species occurred; adding the nearly usual number of her exterior sins in a day or week, insofar as she morally can. For although some, with Navarre ⁶, were content with an indication of the time during which she was situated in that wretched state, since in fact she can quite easily do something more, and the usual frequency varies greatly according to the nature of the place and certain times, no reason appears why she should not indicate in confession what she can indicate.

⁶ Manuale, chapter 6, no. 5.

303. - Onanistic copulation differs in species from fornicatory copulation, since it is consummated against nature. Penitents, however, often neither observe nor accuse this distinction. And when there is question of illicit commerce, it profits quite little to question guilty persons who have sinned with the other sex about another abuse and about abortion.

304. - But now, although fornication, with attention to its species, is the least among sins consummated in the genus of lust, nevertheless we defend this common and certain conclusion:

Every fornication is a mortal sin, even when considered by the natural law alone.

Before the birth of Christ, the pagans, certainly the Greeks and Romans, permitted fornicatory copulations to the young; nor can a prohibition be gathered from the sacred writings of the Old Testament. Yet in the days during which Christ lived a mortal life, the Jews seem to have professed purer counsels. Wherefore, when questioned concerning the precepts which were to be imposed upon converts from the Gentiles, the apostles especially commanded that they abstain from fornication. (Acts 15:29.)

Nevertheless, several heretics, both of the ancient age, such as the Gnostics, and of the sixteenth century, such as the Anabaptists, denied that fornication was unlawful by any law.

Certain Catholics thought that the malice of fornication was to be derived from positive law alone and not from natural law: either all of it, as Caramuel ⁷, or its grave malice, as Durandus, book 4, distinction 33, question 2, no. 10.

⁷ Book 3 of the Theologia moralis, no. 1600.

Among the propositions which were "condemned and prohibited as they stand, at least as scandalous and dangerous in practice" by Innocent XI on March 2, 1679, there is proposition 48: "It seems so clear that fornication of itself involves no malice and is evil only because it is forbidden, that the contrary appears altogether discordant with reason." Cf. Viva on this proposition, where he endeavors to dissolve the arguments of Caramuel.

Catholics, therefore, do not doubt the intrinsic and grave malice of fornication; but they labor considerably in assigning the reason, so that Palmieri ⁸ acknowledges that he does not recoil from the observation of Tamburini ⁹ that there indeed exists an efficacious reason by which this malice is derived from a natural source, but that "it has not yet been clearly discovered by us a priori."

⁸ Opus theologicum morale, vol. 2, no. 1008.

⁹ Explicatio Decalogi, book 7, chapter 1, section 2.

305. - Difficulties of this kind, which occur in this very treatise on purity and in other moral arguments, where a certain inward sense immediately perceives as grave what some despair of demonstrating to be grave, we consider to derive their origin from an excessively neglected metaphysical consideration of sin, and from that confusion by which a divine offense and a violation of the essential order have been equated with offenses among men and with a violation of the secondary order which human laws constitute.

The rationale of mortal sin, as is explained in its proper treatise, must be derived formally from a substantial contrariety to the order of reason or the divine order, and not from the harm which it brings to this or that good. But, with the generic difference between venial and mortal sin neglected, they began to place every sin under the common rationale of a disordered act, the various gravity of which they then wished to estimate after weighing the importance of the object and of the consequences. This rule for measuring human precepts - that is, precepts proceeding from an authority which, being constituted to protect either the common or a private good, can command acts only with respect to that good - is false, or at least without general application, when there is question of the essential order. For then this quantitative consideration is seen to be infected by the vice of "utilitarianism," that is, by excessive attention to the goods which lie nearest to us, and it opens a place for various difficulties, such as these: "Since the punishment of mortal sin is despised by so many and unknown to very many, one of two things must be said: either that punishment is not necessary for the common good; or God has not provided efficaciously enough for the common good"; "The rationale of common harm seems to be lacking in these or those circumstances: why, even when the rationale ceases accidentally, would the gravity of the guilt not also cease accidentally? For example, the good education of offspring requires birth from just nuptials; but when there is no hope of conceiving offspring, why do we even then call fornication a grave sin ¹⁰?"

¹⁰ Cf. Rev. Dr. Van Roey, Quaestio specialis, p. 24, at the end.

Theologians who adduce merely these secondary arguments emerge from this kind of difficulty only with difficulty.

We are indeed persuaded that it is supremely important to the private or common good of men that the essential order of things sanctioned by the most wise God be observed; but this connection between justice or honesty and our utility easily escapes our weak eye, nor ought it to be perspicuous, as the respect of the common good in human law ought to appear both to the ruler and to the subjects.

Therefore, we must begin from this other principle: Every human act substantially repugnant, that is, contrary, to the essential order is a grave sin. For the essential order, or that which is demonstrated by the essences of things, has its own substance and its own integrity, and an evil act can be opposed to it under a diverse rationale, perfectly or imperfectly.

An injury to the substance of this order constitutes a mortal sin; an injury to its integrity, although intrinsically evil, is of itself venial: it is an accidental violation. But every inversion of the order or contrariety, at least when there is question of the order of man himself or of his faculty, is a substantial violation: it is perfectly opposed to that order. Wherefore, it is also understood why St. Thomas, I-II, question 87, article 1, reply to objection 1, denies that venial sin is against the law, but contends that it is beside the law and is compared with mortal sin as an accident with a substance.

When the intrinsic malice, whether grave or light, has thus been known, it is then lawful to infer from it a relation to the common good according to the general rationale by which we trust the wise God; but we shall attempt a direct demonstration of a relation of this kind not as though it were something capital, but merely to illustrate and confirm the principal argument.

306. - Argument. 1. From Sacred Scripture, or rather from theological reason.

Fornicators, by an equal law with those who serve idols, adulterers, etc., are universally excluded from the kingdom of heaven. "Neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, etc., shall possess the kingdom of God ¹¹." - "Those who do such things (fornication, uncleanness, etc.) shall not obtain the kingdom of God ¹²." - "But know this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous person, which is the service of idols, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God ¹³."

¹¹ 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

¹² Galatians 5:21.

¹³ Ephesians 5:5.

Observe, however, that according to the interpretation which several judge probable, by the name of the covetous person is designated one who desires illicit pleasure, who is among those concerning whom the Apostle had written above: "they have delivered themselves up to immodesty, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness" (Ephesians 4:19).

From this we gather that fornicators incur the wrath of God. But by what law and whether each fornication is prohibited gravely, Scripture does not say expressly; nor is one who has fornicated once or twice strictly a fornicator. Yet it does not appear why the rationale of mortal sin would first be present only in some plurality of acts which, moreover, cannot be defined; and it is sufficiently accepted that, in the New Law, if you except the laws concerning faith and the sacraments, no divine precept is promulgated besides those which are contained in the natural law ¹⁴.

¹⁴ Cf., for example, Cajetan, on II-II, question 184, article 2.

Therefore, it is indirectly established from the sacred writings that every fornication is infected with a grave and natural malice.

2. From natural reason. Unless in the end itself, at least in the manner in which it is exercised, carnal commerce must preserve its essential relation to the species; otherwise, it would be exercised against its own nature. Therefore, it is necessary that it take place in a natural manner by two persons who have completed one another as a principle of generation. But only through matrimony can they so complete one another, since nature holds no other compact of carnal commerce ratified. For the principle of human generation must be such as the human species to be multiplied demands. Wherefore, only two persons, joined into a stable unity, can constitute that principle. Cf. what was said in nos. 61, 104, and 105.

A. In every fornication, both parties will to institute copulation by a precarious consent, without mutual right, without a bond of mutual obligation, not as though stably made one, but as independent and separate persons.

Therefore, in every fornication, those lying together deprive carnal commerce of its relation to the species, and consequently violate the order in themselves insofar as they are parts of the human race essentially subordinated to that species.

Moreover, since they do this while carried away by carnal passion, they again violate the order in themselves insofar as, with the essential subordination of passion set aside, man allows himself to be carried away by carnal appetite against the rational mind.

The violation of the order insofar as they are parts of the human race appears especially in promiscuous intercourse, where copulation, with the essential order inverted, is manifestly referred to the pleasurable individual good alone of those who sin.

Cf. no. 258, where a similar demonstration was made concerning the intrinsic and grave malice of onanism.

307. - The demonstration is confirmed by the harms which fornicatory copulation brings to the common good. These harms would increase in number and gravity unless common sense marked it with the note of grave sin.

The grave harms can be demonstrated thus:

1. Insofar as copulation takes place without mutual right, it is capable, both before and afterward, of exciting most grave contentions, jealousies, discords, quarrels, struggles, and killings among several persons who desire the same woman, indeed among women who desire the same man. Hence the greatest danger to public peace is discerned. If, in order to protect the common peace, it was necessary to divide exterior goods which nevertheless can, by some agreement, be possessed in common, how much more necessary does the exclusive ownership of a thing appear which cannot be held in common and is desired with a more insolent concupiscence.

N.B. Yet this rationale demonstrates the necessity of the institution of matrimony more directly than the danger of every fornication. Nevertheless, it can also be employed to some extent to attack fornication, especially that which would be regarded as lawful.

2. Insofar as fornication induces or presupposes no bond of obligation:

a) Without the matrimonial burden, it procures the greatest pleasure, which is appointed for undertaking, tolerating, and alleviating the various burdens of conjugal life. Hence nuptials become less desirable, as is also shown by the frequent example of those who, although they already live in prolonged concubinage, nevertheless abhor and repudiate the matrimonial bond.

As many as are the social goods of the matrimonial covenant, so many accusers and condemners arise against the copulation by which that institution is weakened.

To recall these goods very briefly: Matrimony is the stronghold of the weaker sex, whose dignity and liberty it vindi- cates; it is the present happiness of two persons; it is the perfection of both persons who, joined by the bond of mutual and intimate friendship, complete one another; it is the hope of the future age; it is the principle of the right and perfect education of offspring.

b) It either bespeaks no order toward generation, or only such an order by which the right education of offspring is corrupted in its root and of itself. For two wills, which a firm agreement and not mutable choice has joined, must be devoted to the offspring to be educated, so that the qualities and gifts of each sex may conspire toward that good; those two wills must first have been intimately joined, so that they may produce as it were one governing and directing principle, just as both bodies had composed one principle of generation. A firm agreement of this kind is none other than the conjugal one; a unity of this kind is induced by matrimony alone. Cf. no. 104.

Nor can the frequent cases be opposed in which the work of either spouse is impeded by disease or death. For the other spouse much better supplies the place of the spouse with whom he or she was so joined as to participate in that spouse's qualities; and much more easily fulfills the wishes of the deceased spouse than a man could supply the place of a woman separated from him, or a woman the place of a man separated from her, whose intimate commerce of soul was unknown, even if he or she wished to do so. After the experience of conjugal partnership, the surviving spouse, from the habitual manner of acting of the other, suspects and detects without difficulty how that spouse would act and how the survivor ought to act. And the memory of their common solicitude brings it about that the survivor endeavors more formally to supply for the deceased than if the offspring had never enjoyed the benefit of that cooperation. Through this endeavor of imitation, it happens that even the absent or deceased spouse exercises a salutary action and authority.

3. Fornication contains nothing but a conjunction of bodies conceded to raging lust, apart from that nobler affection by which, in marriage, minds are joined before bodies. Even in the use of marriage, the mind dominates matter and the will governs passion, so that the order and dignity of the human person are placed in safety; while in fornicatory copulation these things stand in the inverse relation. Wherefore, while in matrimony, even a sterile one, copulation contributes greatly toward joining minds more nobly, and is at once the effect and, as it were, the expression or manifestation of a nobler union, fornicatory copulation, if it is fruitful, prepares a defective generation; if sterile, it is rendered honorable by no end and derogates from human dignity.

We have thus far touched upon a threefold genus of harms which fornication brings of itself. But that they arise of themselves as grave harms from individual fornications can be gathered from the fact that one copulation is sufficient to generate offspring ¹⁵, and by itself is already capable of exciting great jealousy and of corrupting a virgin. But if rare fornications were sanctioned differently from frequent ones, who would define the measure of rarity, who would efficaciously compel its observance?

¹⁵ St. Thomas, II-II, question 154, article 2.

If, moreover, you consider both the importance of the matter being treated and, because of the immense force of the appetite, the immense danger of delusion, you will easily perceive that no exception could have been admitted by the provident Author of nature which, in a matter full of dangers, would have had to be surrounded by so many conditions. This matter, so cries the practical judgment of the wise man, must be withdrawn from the judgment of individuals. But it will not be withdrawn unless every fornicatory copulation is gravely prohibited. Therefore, the efficacious protection of the common good demands a universal and grave prohibition of every fornication.

308. - The argument which St. Thomas ¹⁶ uses is reduced quite easily to our demonstration. For he argues from the fact that fornication contains a disorder which tends toward the harm of offspring who perhaps will be born from such intercourse, insofar as it deprives them of due education. We freely acknowledge that the education of offspring is the cause why, in the human species, carnal commerce takes place against the natural order if it takes place outside matrimony. Nor is this argument weakened by the fact that offspring are not born from every intercourse, indeed that there are intercourses which give no hope of offspring. For human intercourse manifestly bespeaks of itself an order toward the generation of offspring; and consequently the precepts and prohibitions of nature concerning human intercourse are to be understood according to those things which this order requires (cf. nos. 61 and 105). Nor does it matter that it can happen that provision is made otherwise for the education of offspring. For then, as Cajetan ¹⁷ wisely observes, it happens that the harm which the disorder brings of itself is accidentally absent or is removed; but the natural order in intercourse is not restored, even accidentally.

¹⁶ Summa theologica, II-II, question 154, article 2.

¹⁷ On the cited article.

Nor is it an objection that the Holy Doctor alleges "the harm to the life of him who is to be born from such intercourse." St. Thomas certainly was not ignorant that copulations, indeed matrimonial unions, are sterile. But he posited intercourse together with its natural effect in order to express through that example the general assertion.

But the fact that, in the response to the sixth objection, he gathers the gravity of the sin from the fact "that from one intercourse one man can be generated" does not prove that the quantity of harm is formally or universally to be considered in a right evaluation of sin. Rather, when the occasion is present, the Holy Doctor does not refuse to use this sensible demonstration, while pronouncing nothing concerning the primary or secondary value of the argument.

Cf. the manner in which Cajetan, on the cited article 2, question 154, II-II, solves the difficulties of the argument, or that in which the Most Illustrious Dr. Waffelaert ¹⁸ proposes the rationales of St. Thomas.

¹⁸ De virtutibus cardinalibus: Temperantia, no. 138.

Nevertheless, we acknowledge that it is strange that St. Thomas, in order to exclude the objection of a fornicator who sufficiently provides for the education of the offspring, appeals to a positive law whose determinations are made according to those things which commonly occur. Cf. Palmieri, Opus theologicum, vol. 2, no. 1008. But in book 3 of the Summa contra Gentiles, chapter 122, he sets forth this as a natural principle: "Natural rectitude in human acts is not according to those things which occur accidentally in one individual, but according to those things which follow upon the whole species."

309. - But the gravity of fornication in a Christian is increased because he dares to defile his dignity as a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit ¹⁹. This dignity was explained above, in no. 97. The matter can be proposed thus, though deficiently, since in this state of life we cannot adequately attain our supernatural elevation.

¹⁹ Lessius, book 4, chapter 2, no. 53.

1. According to the Apostle ²⁰, it is repugnant that one who is one spirit with the Lord (verse 17) should become one flesh with a prostitute (verses 15 and 16).

²⁰ 1 Corinthians, chapter 6.

This rationale admits the following probable explanation. A Christian, through charity, is joined with God by an intimate and supreme supernatural bond. This union takes place primarily according to the spirit, and brings it about that one who adheres to the Lord is "one spirit" with Him (verse 17). Consequently upon this supreme union, the body itself, as the lesser part of the same composite, becomes a member of Christ (verse 15; cf. Ephesians 4:15-16). Earlier, in verse 13, the Apostle had inculcated the mutual destination of the body, as a member, to the Lord, and consequently of the Lord, as the head or as the one governing the body, to the body; and he had shown the perpetuity of this dignity in the future resurrection (verse 14).

The fornicator, in turn, through the consent which he fosters with a prostitute according to carnal concupiscence, enters into the lowest union with her, from which he is made one body with her (verse 16). And thus, adhering to the prostitute, he hands over his own body to her as a member.

With these things posited, we can argue thus.

Just as, when an exalted office has been undertaken, base arts are prohibited, and it would be against the law of the noblest friendship to seek at the same time some dishonorable familiar intercourse, so likewise, after that exalted union with Christ which, reaching even to the body, renders the whole man as it were spiritual, it is indeed lawful to seek a conjugal union, which joins minds and wills before the body, and which not only corresponds to the divine ordination but, sanctified through the sacrament, represents the very union of Christ and the Church; but it is wicked to desire a union of the lowest love which, from carnal concupiscence alone, makes one flesh from a Christian and a prostitute and casts the whole man down into the vileness of the sin of the flesh.

2. By another rationale, in verses 13-20, the Apostle considers more the profanation injurious to God which fornication contains.

The Holy Spirit dwells in the body of the Christian as in His own house, which He bought for Himself through the blood of Christ "at a great price" (verse 19). Therefore, the profanation of this temple assumes the rationale of a sacrilegious injury against the Holy Spirit. But fornication is a profanation of this kind. For while, in other sins, if the body cooperates instrumentally, an exterior thing is abused (which violation can be called a sin against this thing), in this sin man abuses his own body. "He who fornicates sins against his own body" (verse 18).

Concerning this whole argument, cf. Cornely on this passage, who develops it at length. Cf. also what was said above, no. 97.

310. - A few difficulties remain to be mentioned.

1. It has long been customary here to object to the precept given to the prophet Hosea: "Take to yourself a wife of fornications; make for yourself children of fornications ²¹," where God seems to have commanded fornication.

²¹ Hosea 1:2.

Cf. St. Thomas, II-II, question 154, article 2, reply to objection 2.

Response. a) First, that false exposition of the passage must be denied. Even if, as has long been disputed, the things were truly done and were not said allegorically, Hosea is commanded to take a corrupted woman as his wife and to beget children from her.

b) As to the matter in itself. It is certainly repugnant that God, the author of nature, should establish a general statute by which the natural order would be destroyed. Nor can He derogate from the supreme order of man toward Himself. But the remaining orders are subject to this one. Therefore, a particular exception by which, because of the immediate order of subordination to God, man is commanded to neglect a good of an inferior order neither removes the general law nor is repugnant to right reason. Cf. St. Thomas, loc. cit.

2. In order that a sin be mortal, it must be contrary to charity toward God or toward one's neighbor. For all the precepts are referred to the precept of loving God and neighbor. But fornication is repugnant to neither charity, not even to the offspring to be born, for whom it will be better thus to exist than not to exist.

Response to the major. A third must be added: man's charity toward himself, which also must be observed and is contained in the very precept of love of neighbor, since we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. Moreover, one's neighbor is not only an individual man, but also, unless you wish to deny the social nature of man, men in common or human society.

Now a man who fornicates, having abused his own body, violates the order in himself: this is against charity toward himself. But when offspring is to be born, the introduction of an illegitimate member also occurs, contrary to charity toward men in common or toward society. Wherefore, for the good of the human race that inviolable order has been established, that no copulation outside matrimony should be permitted.

3. Fornicatory copulation between sterile persons seems in no way to participate in the rationale of dishonesty which is taken from offspring. Therefore.

Response. The antecedent is denied: the proximate rationale of dishonesty is not the harm which is feared for the offspring, but the violation of the natural order natural. But this order was established in view of those things which human nature demands, so that generation may take place in a fitting manner.

Moreover, in our demonstration this difficulty is nonexistent.

But our conclusion is confirmed by the consequences of the objection. For by a similar rationale, when the hope of offspring has been removed, onanistic copulation or solitary lust would also have to be permitted by an equal right. If, when harm to offspring ceases, the order of carnal commerce could be neglected, it does not appear why only one violation, and not another at the same time, would be permitted.

But it is repugnant that nature should grant as it were a privilege of lust to those whose copulation cannot conduce to the primary end of the conjunction of the sexes.

Wherefore this must be well retained. The object of the precept in the sexual relation is not that we take care for the education of offspring: for then, in whatever manner it were provided for, the law of nature would be observed; rather, such a use of the sexual faculty is commanded as, insofar as it depends upon the action of the spouses, can both generate offspring and procure for it the protection of a right education.

311. - Corollary. Although fornication is said to be a sin which is consummated according to nature, nevertheless it is most truly repugnant to specifically human nature. The nature which it does not contradict is only that which is common to us with the brutes; but it is most rightly called a sin against rational nature. Cf. St. Thomas, book 3, Contra Gentiles, chapter 122.

312. - Scholium. Once fornication has been begun, so that orgasm is imminent, indeed so that the woman has already experienced her arousal, is it lawful for her to repel the man, or for the man himself, by withdrawing, to interrupt the copulation; or, on the contrary, must the evil work already begun be completed in a natural manner by the fornicators, who thus choose the lesser evil, lest they violate the very order of nature?

There are those who defend the latter position; and Palmieri ²² also inclines toward that position. Sanchez, however, with others, permits them to interrupt the copulation ²³. Indeed, he thinks that, supposing a new deliberation, a new guilt is more probably committed by those who complete the copulation. For it is morally right to desist from an illicit work; those who sin have no right to complete an evil work, nor, by interrupting it, do they choose a greater evil. For the pollution which will follow will occur apart from their intention and against their will. But for a just cause it is lawful, even with pollution foreseen, to interrupt the conjugal copulation itself, contrary to the prior intention, for example, because of a hostile invasion, bodily pain, etc. How could you exclude repentance for fornication already begun, that is, for a thing intrinsically evil, from the number of just causes?

²² Opus theologicum, vol. 6, no. 384. We do not deny the probability of his opinion.

²³ De matrimonio, book 9, disputation 19, no. 7.

Sanchez adds that it is also a grave cause "lest the fornicatory intercourse be consummated to the grave detriment of the education of the offspring ²⁴." Wherefore we do not contradict Alberti ²⁵, who asserts that generation can, in the case, be impeded by the expulsion of the semen; we do not contradict him, I say, at least if the woman has sincerely repented. This action seems morally to be equated with the preceding one. In either case there is, for an accidental cause, an interruption of a fecund operation before the conjunction of the ovum with the sperm. For, as is evident, it is never lawful on that account to procure an abortion.

²⁴ In the same place.

²⁵ De sexto et nono, no. 63.

Nor are those to be excused who, in order to sin more freely, determine from the beginning that they will exercise only sterile copulation in fornication.