§ 3. Disputation with Non-Catholics, and Exhibitions of Religions

— Not indeed for investigating the truth, but for persuading others of it or for vindicating its honor, it is lawful to dispute concerning faith with heretics, when the circumstances of doctrine and persons are such that fruit can be hoped for at least among the hearers.

Yet because imprudent disputation can harm greatly, c. 1325 wisely enacts this: "Let Catholics beware lest they have disputations or conferences, especially public ones, with non-Catholics, without permission of the Holy See, or, if the case urges, of the Ordinary of the place." Already in the seventeenth century the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide more than once responded that, without consulting it, formally public disputations were not to be held even by clerics. And it is clear per se that the prohibition ceases when necessity, or, as it seems, great utility of faith, demands something else, and the Ordinary of the place cannot be approached. Nor rarely today will it be expedient, by a wittily spoken word, to blunt the audacity of the impious; yet per se it will be less opportune to admit longer controversies before witnesses, which take place without any intention of learning anything: in these, self-love itself impedes fruit. But the Code treats of a disputation which is entered into expressly concerning a dogmatic matter which non-Catholics deny. Disputations are not touched which occur incidentally, on the spur of the moment, when an occasion is given; nor private conferences which are directed not to conquering a person but to converting him. Concerning controversial writings, only the rules concerning the censorship of writings will have to be observed. Thus also Genicot-Salsmans, I, n. 201, VI.

— Much less do simultaneous exhibitions of religions, as they are called, regularly seem to be approved, in which each in his own order sets forth his own tenets, and then, without any refutation, they calmly hear apologies of other doctrines. For by these per se indifferentism is fostered, and, at least in appearance, truth and counterfeit religions are held with equal right and honor. Cf. the letter of Leo XIII to the Apostolic Delegate of the United States of America, 18 September 1895 (Nouv. Rev. Theol., 28, p. 79). The Holy See greatly opposes this assimilation. Wherefore by decree of the Holy Office, 4 July 1919, Catholics were ordered to abstain from a society for procuring the unity of Christianity, and the letters of 8 November 1865 on a similar argument were again published (A. A. S. 1919, XI, 309).

— Besides the prescribed professions of faith, the rules of the Index, and condemnations of propositions, the legal safeguards of faith are:

I. Penalties latae sententiae. 1. Apostates and canonical heretics who in a culpable way express exterior heresy even secretly are struck with excommunication which, in the internal forum, is specially reserved to the Supreme Pontiff. Yet in the external forum, the guilty person confessing the delict can be absolved by any Ordinary of a place or delegate, those things being observed which must be observed, so that afterwards his sin can be remitted by any confessor.

2. Those who are canonically suspected of heresy, unless they are amended within six months, to be counted from the sentence which, after admonitions, punished them, contract the penalties of heretics.

II. Prohibited communication with non-Catholics. 1. Non-Catholics are understood here as all those who, baptized or not baptized, are outside the Church because of the sect to which they have adhered. But formal adherence is not judged to have been completed before the completed years of puberty. Communication signifies not every cooperation, but an action done in common. Today, communication with non-Catholics in civil matters and in private prayers is lawful per se. Non-Catholics cannot actively participate in Catholic sacred things or receive the sacraments (outside the necessity of danger of life), if you except matrimony. Today they can be admitted merely to assist at sacred things, indeed even, with attention also given to ancient laws, be invited to hear sermons. It is never lawful to receive sacraments in a non-Catholic rite, or actively to participate in the sacred things of non-Catholics. By natural law it does not seem forbidden per se that you communicate in sacred things which non-Catholics perform rightly, as Catholics do. But this is forbidden by positive law, outside danger of death, in which the sacraments are to be received. Except also matrimony contracted with due dispensation, which, however, is not lawful to celebrate before a minister as such. Passive presence of Catholics in the sacred things of non-Catholics is permitted for a grave cause, to be approved by the bishop in a doubtful case; indeed one who from curiosity is present at them commits nothing grave per se.

2. Disputation with non-Catholics concerning a dogma which they deny cannot be entered into expressly, especially publicly, without permission of the Holy See, or, if the matter urges, of the Ordinary of the place (c. 1325, § 3).

Nor, because of the danger of indifferentism, is a simultaneous exhibition of religions regularly approved.