Article I: On Complete Use According to Nature

I. Fornication. Complete use according to nature occurs in fornication, which, under the respect of lust, can be defined: natural, extra-conjugal copulation. And simple fornication is copulation which is vitiated only by the defect of marriage.

Concubinage, graver than accidental fornication, is had in the same species; it bespeaks a long-lasting carnal commerce, in intention and in fact, between the same persons, whether they have agreed expressly, or tacitly, concerning a habitual relation or custom. Where a concubinary relation is a reserved case, it requires a certain frequency of acts repeated not merely per accidens, but from a certain destination of the woman to the same man, or a certain custom of state.

Prostitution designates the condition of her who, prepared to give access to almost anyone, is accustomed to make gain from her body.

Every fornication, even when considered by the law of nature alone, is a mortal sin. This opinion, which must be held today on account of the common agreement of theologians, we confirm by this brief reason, that fornication deprives carnal commerce of the order which the good of the human species demands. On account of the necessity of the education of offspring, the good of the human species demands that copulation not be done except by two persons who have completed themselves as a principle of generation, which is done by marriage alone. Nor does the intention of the parties who wish to nourish the offspring in common well restore this order, nor does certain sterility of copulation restore this order, so that in every fornication this substantial violation of order is found. (Cf. the fuller and more ample demonstration in De castitate, n. 306.)

II. Additional Malices. Fornication, one species in the genus of lust, on account of various additional heterogeneous malices, receives diverse names and is ascribed to various species.

1. The conjugal bond having been despised, adultery is committed, concerning which see above n. 74-76.

2. When it is done with a person consecrated to God by a vow of chastity, at least by that vow which the Church has accepted, sacrilege is committed. He also is sacrilegious who fornicates (indeed who, in the Latin Church, uses marriage) with a person who is constituted in sacred order, even if this person has emitted no vow (cf. Cod. can. c. 132). And now, on account of complicity, he is sacrilegious who induces a sacred person to carnal sin, while he is not sacrilegious who, bound by vow or sacred order, impels a non-sacred person to sin with another, provided he himself remains free of lust. Violation of a private vow of chastity carries with itself only malice against religion; yet an extrinsically probable opinion makes violators of such a vow guilty of sacrilege, so that there is no practical obligation of distinguishing public vows from private in confession. And he who is bound to chastity from sacred order and as a religious contracts the same malice of sacrilege by a double title, which therefore he need not accuse distinctly in confession. But if both accomplices were sacred, this must be declared in confession.

Fornicatory copulation performed within a half-hour after Communion puts on the grave species of real sacrilege, just as solicitation itself in confession does. Performed in a sacred place, perhaps today it will not put on the malice of local sacrilege, because a sacred place is no longer polluted by it, unless it was so public that it constituted an impious use by which the sacred place is violated. A sacred place here is only a church or public oratory, dedicated to divine worship at least by solemn blessing.

III. Incest. Fornicatory copulation with consanguineous persons with whom, whether by natural law or by ecclesiastical law, nuptials cannot be made, at least without dispensation, adds to lust the malice of incest against piety.

And the same must be said of copulation with an affine. Indeed, since an affine is joined to another on account of a consanguineous person, "consanguinity and affinity make an inconvenience of the same character" (II-II, q. 154, art. 9, ad 2), so that each incest seems to be of the same species. Yet others deny this, for example Vasquez, in 3 p. q. 91, art. 1, d. 4, n. 11-12.

Neither line nor degree induces various species, since in all one specific piety is violated. Yet Lehmkuhl, I, 1050, after St. Alph., l. 3, n. 438, and others, wishes to except the first degree of the direct line, since the reason of piety is found in parents through itself, in others by participation. But when one thing is on account of another, both are of the same species. Nor, as Lugo observes, Paen. 16, 315, does it appear why they wish only the first degree to be excepted.

Yet it happens that another duty of piety, for example of right instruction, is violated, for example if parents sin with children constituted under their power: this will have to be declared. Thus also a son sinning with his stepmother while his father is living is atrociously injurious to the father himself.

— Special malice is contained also in carnal sin with a person spiritually related, and it is grave if there is a diriment impediment.

A special reverence also, distinct from the reverence of natural or spiritual relationship, is violated by fornication with persons legally related. But it is not certain that this is grave.

— Public honesty does not cohere with special duties of piety.

Wherefore the circumstance of violated public honesty by copulation with the mother, grandmother, or daughter and granddaughter, or with the father, grandfather, or son and grandson of the person with whom an invalid marriage had been contracted (knowingly or unknowingly), or with whom one sins by public or notorious concubinage (for example by merely civil marriage), is not to be declared under grave sin in confession.

— The oppression of an unwilling woman, whether she has been compelled by force or deceived by fraud, puts on the character of stuprum, which is opposed to justice. He is doubly injurious who at the same time takes away from an unwilling virgin the seal of virginity.

And besides, fornication which redounds to grave dishonor of the family or sorrow of the parents contains grave fault against charity.

When, however, stuprum is a reserved sin, it is understood as the unjust oppression of a woman who has preserved the seal of virginity. (Cf. Lehmkuhl, Theol. mor., I, 1048.)

— Raptus, in moral theology, means the injurious deprivation of liberty inflicted upon some person for fulfilling lust. That force can be brought either upon the person whom someone abuses, or upon those under whose power she is.

She also is morally abducted who by deceit and fraud is deprived of her liberty.

Canonically, from this raptus there must be distinguished the raptus which dirimently impedes marriage and the raptus which is a delict punishable in the external forum. For the delict there is required the violent or deceitful abduction of an honorable woman from one place to another, whether for the cause of entering marriage or of fulfilling lust. To violent or deceitful abduction is equivalent the abduction of a consenting minor woman, done without the knowledge of or against the will of parents or tutors.

— A carnal sin committed with a person whose spiritual or moral good one must care for from an obligation of justice which cannot be dissolved by the consent of that person is also opposed to justice: thus a bishop, as to his own diocesans; a pastor, as to parishioners; a tutor, as to a ward; an instructor or superior of a college, as to pupils entrusted to him by parents. Cooperators of the pastor or superior are not held by this obligation of justice, but easily will be at the same time gravely scandalous.

A confessor sinning outside the occasion of confession does not have an obligation of justice, nor does a freely chosen spiritual father, at least when he uses no coercion or deception: for by mutual consent the special relation of direction is removed or interrupted. But one must speak more severely concerning him who is deputed to exercise the office of spiritual father, for example to a monastery.