§ 2. General Principles and Rules

I. General Principles. 1. Concerning these acts, theologians, while they charge some with light sin and others with grave sin, render judgments which must be explained through a twofold presumption: one, of the danger of consent, which can be proximate in varying degree; the other, of self-deception, by which, in the absence of another cause, the act was really done from lust, which, in an unmarried person, is always grave. Wherefore we have ascribed these things to masked lust, or true lust, but covered over by a more honest appearance (camouflée).

2. But human presumptions can fall short of the truth. Wherefore rules are not proposed as universal but as general, so that a prudent confessor sometimes ought to turn aside from them in solving cases. Self-deception also can be excused by some good faith, so that before experience or admonition there may be place for the more benign explanation.

To both mentioned causes of dishonesty there accedes a third in persons who by their vocation ought to be examples of purity, sowers of immortality - that is, the reason of scandal, which is already grave if words or deeds notably diminish the estimation of the priestly order or religious state.

3. The pretexts which are customarily adduced are most often scientific study, but alien to one's state, some work of mercy, whether of caring for the body or consoling, indeed of spiritually helping the soul, or of dissipating ignorance, timidity, or scruples.

But they are chiefly employed by those who are drawn by sensual love, that is, by a love which is founded on bodily sympathy. This love, which is greatly distinguished from simple friendship and imitates the affection by which two spouses love each other, is so dangerous that, unless its vehemence is lessened by imposed moderation or by precautions employed, those who deliberately foster such love can be treated as constituted in a proximate and voluntary occasion of grave sin. (Cf. St. Alph., Praxis Confessarii, n. 65.)

These loves are most frequent among young persons of different sex (flirt), and not rarely then end in a bitter and harmful deception of the girl; among adolescents of the same college of boarders or of a girls' conservatory.

Here, however, a twofold kind must be distinguished: some wish to imitate love by way of a certain game, while others truly burn lustfully. Both kinds must be firmly attacked; but the latter (who are for the most part older, taking the active parts) are more strictly situated in a proximate occasion of grave sin.

They are, moreover, especially to be detested between a priest or religious and a person of different sex, or an adolescent committed to their care; between one spouse and an outside person. (Cf. what was said De amore platonico, n. 78.)

II. The rules can be proposed summarily thus: a) He who, without an adequate cause, does that from which, of itself or almost directly, he experiences either pollution or pleasure sufficiently proximate to pollution, is judged, practically and of itself, to sin gravely, on account of the true intention by which he is led or the proximate danger of sinning.

But such efficacy toward a grave carnal movement, partly relative or varying in various persons, is judged to be especially present in a truly immodest thing and in the lingering manner in which a look, touch, etc., is made.

Under this respect, they also distinguish decent parts of the body, which, in the region of which there is question, are displayed to all without offended modesty: among us these are the face, hands, feet; less decent parts, which from received usage and just custom are accustomed to be covered: the breast, legs, arms at least in part; finally indecent parts, which, morally everywhere from natural modesty, are covered with clothing: the genital parts and those proximate to them.

But acts which are condemned as mortal, at the same time, when they are done from lust, are judged grave under the notion of an exterior act. This must be attended to for certain censures, for example of one absolving an accomplice.

b) But the more an exterior act bears the appearance of a lustful demonstration, the more error of mind, assent to a carnal movement about to arise, and the seduction of another are to be feared. On the contrary, the more a just and honest cause explains our manner of acting, the less the action has departed from ordinary and customary things, the more easily it will have an honest explanation.

Now a few things must be said concerning individual applications.