§ 1. On Words and Writings

394. - 1. Tender words, whether uttered orally or written:

They are most excellent between spouses, between parents and children, between brothers, indeed between friends, when they are dictated by a noble friendship and not by love;

They are honorable between betrothed persons;

They are reprehensible and dangerous among others if they express a futile, vain, sensual love;

They are certainly gravely blameworthy between persons who love one another lustfully. Among these persons, prolonged and unnecessary conversations already create a grave danger (St. Alphonsus, book 3, no. 422).

2. Prolonged conversations and narratives concerning gravely obscene things, for example concerning seminal emission or the manner of intercourse, held between unmarried persons, are of themselves to be regarded as gravely unlawful, especially among younger persons and if the matters are described. Custom, however, and related studies can diminish the force of conversations of this kind.

3. Isolated words or base jests, such as are uttered, for example, by reapers and muleteers, are not judged mortal. For these things are generally uttered in sport.

4. One who out of boasting recounts his own base sins easily sins by the sin of scandal; and if, as is likely, complacency in his own sin and, as it were, a new approval of it was present, there will be a new sin, whose gravity and species to be accused are determined by the object. Cf. what was said in no. 362.

5. To sing gravely obscene songs before others will be grave, at least because of scandal; it is otherwise if you sing alone and attend more to the melody (Palmieri, Opus theologicum, vol. 2, treatise 6, no. 989).

Wherefore, we judge that those who in the theater or in a public hall sing base things which, as such, will be received with applause can never be excused.

Nevertheless, as regards the proximate cooperation which by acting or singing is afforded to comedies not absolutely gravely base but notably immodest, they "excuse him who takes part by the acting itself or by singing, a depraved affection being excluded, because of the very grave poverty in which he would otherwise be placed, for a short time - Sanchez, Pontius, Castropalaus, Tamburini, In Decalogum, book 5, chapter 1, § 4, no. 28 - provided that, as much as he can, he moderate the lasciviousness ¹." Cf. also no. 408.

¹ Sanchez, De matrimonio, book 9, disputation 45, no. 37; Lehmkuhl, I, 1034, approved by Palmieri, vol. 2, no. 990.

As regards hearers, unless the base matter itself pleased them in itself, or unless by exciting and encouraging they were the authors of such a conversation or of its continuation, or unless, because of the position they hold and the authority with which they are clothed, they ought to have prevented it or at least could easily have done so, it is not imputed to them as a grave sin that, from a certain shame and human fear, they abstain from reproof, or indeed smile, especially if laughter is excited by the artifice of the speech rather than by the base matter itself ². As is evident, they sin in no way if they have a just cause for tolerating the matters, for example, because rebuke would move others to say or do worse things.

² Lehmkuhl, I, 826. Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 3, no. 427.

But let them endeavor at least by a certain manner of silence to disapprove such things. It can also happen that from one's personal condition, for example that of a priest, a special scandal may arise unless he testifies that he is averse to these conversations.

6. Finally, you should observe that in workshops and offices where several young persons are gathered, the danger of conversations of this kind is so common that a change of place will scarcely be useful. Wherefore, rather let the confessor commend to workers and clerks, urging it gravely, that they not provoke these things nor have a notable part in them. Moreover, having observed the quality and authority of the persons and their natural fortitude, let him give them courage so that they may decline these things not fearfully and timidly but firmly and simply.

But a fuller remedy is to be sought either from the master of the workshop or the head of the office, if he possesses authority by which he can efficaciously restrain these things; or from an association of good men who are more numerous in the same workshop and mutually assist one another in correcting and removing this.

395. - 1. Those who write, or indiscriminately sell to all, books or newspapers which incite to lust or are hostile to good morals sin mortally, because it is certain that many will sin mortally therefrom.

Nor can it be tolerated that obscene newspapers be displayed in taverns and public places.

Sellers can be excused for a short time by the gravest necessity.

2. Without a sufficient cause, which literary studies or dealings with literature can furnish, to read base books, even from curiosity alone, will be at least venial, even with the proximate danger excluded, because a remote danger is certainly incurred.

But if, as wholly obscene books commonly do, they proximately dispose one toward carnal pleasure, this is to be judged rather mortal in unmarried persons. Those, therefore, can be excepted who by age or custom do not incur a danger of this kind.

Rarely, however, will there be a just cause for reading wholly obscene books, and younger persons are greatly to be turned away even from lightly immodest readings: anthropologists themselves testify that these are incentives to lust. And prolonged reading often ends in lustfulness.

And girls and women are especially to be turned away from novels in general, lest they hope for a chimerical life or, given over to vain dreams, lose time and moral vigor.

The ecclesiastical law must also be observed, which by the law itself condemns both books "which deliberately attack good morals" and books "which professedly treat, narrate, or teach lascivious or obscene matters" (canon 1399 of the Code of Canon Law).

Adolescents who, moved by curiosity, seek certain obscene words in dictionaries in order that they may know their meaning better commonly do not sin except lightly. Thus also Noldin, De sexto, no. 59.

396. - What has been said concerning words can generally be transferred to less decorous gestures, since these also are signs. Cf. Palmieri, vol. 2, treatise 6, no. 990, at the end.