§ 2. Communication with Unbelievers and Non-Catholics

— 1. Who in this place are understood to be unbelievers. The question is posed concerning those who profess a false worship or have adhered to a non-Catholic sect. For concerning unbelieving Catholics no special prohibition exists. The common laws of prudence are to be observed.

2. But communication signifies a common action. Therefore to ask concerning licit communication with non-Catholics is to ask whether it is lawful or not for Catholics to perform certain things in common with them. Communication, therefore, is a certain genus of cooperation which consists in moral participation in some action. Thus in the celebration of Mass those communicate who have asked for that Mass by stipend, who minister to the priest, who respond to his prayers or chant, who formally hear it. But they do not formally communicate, but merely cooperate, per se, who during Mass play musical instruments or the organ, who announce Mass by bell, words, or writings, nor those who assist the chant with the organ. In this place we are treating only of communication; afterwards we shall consider cases of cooperation.

3. What communication is attended to. Today communication in civil matters with non-Catholics is forbidden by no law per se. Therefore the question is restricted to communication in sacred matters. But the matters can be the sacred functions of Catholics, private Catholic prayers, and the sacred things of non-Catholics. It is useful here to separate carefully positive law from natural law.

a) In the sacred things of Catholics. These things can be private prayers: scandal being excluded, today we are in no way forbidden to pour forth with non-Catholics private prayers which are good in themselves.

They can be solemn functions. In these, no more than other excommunicated persons, non-Catholics can have a formal or active part. Wherefore we cannot admit them to minister at sacred things, to respond to the prayers of the priest. Observe, however, that baptized persons before the completed age of fourteen years are not formally held as non-Catholics. - To passive assistance we are not forbidden today to admit non-Catholics. Thus it is tolerated that in Catholic colleges, where non-Catholics are instructed mixed with Catholics, the former be present at the sacrifice of the Mass. But they can be formally invited to hear sermons. They are not prevented from playing musical instruments or the organ. From receiving the sacraments they are per se excluded, except matrimony and danger of life. Cf. III, 195.

b) In the sacred things of non-Catholics. alpha) By the very law of nature, it is intrinsically evil to celebrate a rite properly non-Catholic or erroneous worship, or to profess or seriously simulate erroneous worship, or formally to ask for the celebration of erroneous worship. For in a rite, insofar as it is heretical, superstition properly so called is contained. But if non-Catholics perform certain things altogether rightly, just as Catholics do, grave authors deny that communication in these sacred things as such is illicit. Cf. Suarez, De Fide, 21, 3, 4; Lugo, De Fide, 22, 1 and ff.; Benedict XIV, De Syn., 6, 5, 2.

beta) Because of connected harms, whether one's own or the neighbor's, the same communication will be illicit. But the evils to be feared are: authority added to heresy or falsity, propagation of indifferentism. These evils per se are those of many: which must be observed in estimating an excuse.

gamma) Then by positive law, because of the common good, more severe prohibitions accede.

4. Can. 1258 § 1 has this: "It is not lawful for the faithful in any way actively to assist or to have part in the sacred things of non-Catholics." Therefore, at least by positive law, that commerce in the sacred things of non-Catholics, even when rightly performed, is forbidden, which several approved theologians and canonists deny to be illicit per se.

Corollaries. — 1. Not even in the agony of death is it lawful to admit a non-Catholic minister who in his own non-Catholic rite brings or ministers sacraments even validly.

2. Outside danger of death, in which, scandal being excluded and another being lacking, this will be lawful, we are forbidden to ask from non-Catholics sacraments administered in the Catholic rite, for example baptism; to hear the Mass of a schismatic; to receive communion from his hands; to confess our sins to him. Wherefore, neither is it lawful to act as godfather in a baptism which a heretic confers: for the godfather asks for baptism.

Matrimony is excepted, which, after dispensation has been obtained for a grave cause, is permitted to be contracted with a non-Catholic, although, if both have been baptized, both spouses, and consequently the non-Catholic, are ministers one to the other. Yet this is not lawful to contract before a minister as such (otherwise if before him as a civil official). But if this is done, a Catholic cannot be a witness properly so called.

On Merely Material Presence. — 1. From c. 1258 § 2: "Passive or merely material presence can be tolerated, for the sake of a civil office or honor, for a grave reason to be approved by the bishop in a doubtful case, at the funerals, weddings, and similar solemnities of non-Catholics, provided the danger of perversion and scandal is absent."

Therefore in acts which d'Annibale, I, 110, calls mixed, because they are also accustomed to be performed for the sake of a civil office, passive presence can be tolerated for a grave cause. But if, with attention given to the quality of the person, for example of a priest, or to the circumstances, honesty, because of scandal, has become doubtful, the Ordinary of the place will have to resolve the doubt.

That doubt will more easily occur in merely civil funerals of those who, having been baptized Catholic, have rejected the sacraments, especially if the insignia of a condemned sect are also displayed, or, what is worse, are placed upon the bier itself. The ceremony itself then not rarely ends in formal impiety. And it is clear that in cases of this kind it belongs to a Catholic soul that we incline toward abstention, as far as can be done. Once the signification of impiety is excluded, concerning merely civil funerals the things said concerning the funerals of non-Catholics are valid.

A grave cause of assistance can be furnished by service itself, provided that the non-Catholic temple is not frequented in such a way that the servant or maidservant appears to be non-Catholic. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 809. Wherefore Genicot, I, 200, and R. P. Wouters, Ned. Kath. St., 1919, permit that a Catholic maidservant hold a little child while he is baptized by a minister.

Passive assistance is tolerated. Therefore it is not lawful actively to cooperate in the rites themselves. Yet genuflection before a tabernacle where there are true consecrated hosts is not participation in a non-Catholic rite; nor is private honor rendered to a sacred image of the Blessed Virgin Mary; nor even, as it seems to us, an act indifferent in itself which urbanity itself almost demands: as if in a temple you bare the head, or rise when others rise, lest by sitting you be judged injurious. Wherefore, in non-Catholic places, all scandal being excluded, a visit to the Most Holy Sacrament in a church of schismatics can be made privately. And if someone, for a grave reason, assists at a funeral function of which a Mass is a part, he will not be able to omit the reverence due to Christ present at the consecration and after the consecration, while taking care that, as to the rest, he separate himself sufficiently from the minister.

2. Even where a grave reason is lacking, he who, scandal, danger of faith, and active participation being excluded, should wish from curiosity to be present at the functions of non-Catholics and to observe a sermon, will have committed nothing grave per se, although regularly this is not lawful.

But the circumstances can suggest a stricter prohibition. Thus the Instruction of the Cardinal Vicar of the City, 12 July 1878, n. 5, most strictly prohibited anyone knowingly, from mere curiosity, from entering the halls and temples of Protestants at the time of conversations or conferences; and declared that those sin gravely who from mere curiosity hear the conferences of Protestants, or even purely materially assist at non-Catholic ceremonies. Observe that, in that decree, schismatics are not named.

— Concerning the admonition to be made when we are asked, and concerning the good faith not to be disturbed of those who in very difficult circumstances do, without danger of their own ruin, things which in themselves are not lawful, the general rules are to be applied. And the Holy Office applied them on 26 April 1894 to children who in Russia were compelled to participate in non-Catholic rites (Coll. P. F., n. 1868).

Concerning these points, the following are to be read attentively in Coll. Prop. Fid.: Instr. P. F. 1729, n. 311; and S. Off. 1752, n. 384; resp. 22 Aug. 1900, n. 2093; and the things which Lehmkuhl has, I, 809 ff.