Article II: On Blasphemy

I. Notion and division. 1. Notion. Directly opposed to the will of worshiping God is a will insulting toward God, which blasphemy betrays. For blasphemy is an insult brought against God.

2. Division. a) Since God can read an insulting affection in the heart, a man can be blasphemous without any exterior sign; and he can manifest or exercise that mind exteriorly, either by signs of words, formal or equivalent, or by an insulting action. Hence blasphemy of heart, of mouth, and of deed.

Yet that division is not formal. When blasphemy is reserved, only that is understood which is done through speech, oral or written.

b) Direct blasphemy proceeds from a formal intention of dishonoring God; indirect blasphemy contains a virtual intention in the will of saying or doing things which are insulting toward God ¹. The former differs from the latter in degree, not in species.

c) Blasphemy can be either simply insulting, or heretical, which at the same time, at least exteriorly, denies a revealed truth; or imprecatory, by which evil is wished to God. And in its own genus it is completed by an affection of detestation or hatred, which at the same time is a most grave violation of charity.

d) God can be blasphemed in Himself, or in His saints and in sacred things. The former is graver, although, as blasphemy, it does not differ in species from the latter. But, according to the intention of the blasphemer, it can at the same time touch the Saints themselves or the Blessed Virgin in their own excellence, for example in the Immaculate Conception: then at the same time it will be against dulia or hyperdulia. St. Alphonsus judged that this regularly, in his time, did not happen. St. Alph., l. 3, n. 132.

e) Finally blasphemy is distinguished as vulgar, which is uttered in very customary formulas, often after the manner of an interjection, so that the blasphemer himself did not compose the words or arrange them into the form of a sentence; and deliberate, whose formula was invented or composed by the blasphemer himself.

¹ Under another respect, formal is called culpable; material, excusable.

II. Gravity. Of the sins which are opposed to religion, blasphemy is of its genus the most grave, so that true blasphemy does not admit slightness of matter.

An insulting word pronounced against the Saints in jest, not from contempt or hatred or indignation, is thought to be venial. But this is not done in jest except when the things treated are of lesser importance and give occasion to pleasantries, as if you call Saints Crispin and Crispinian cobblers.

The root of direct blasphemy, i.e., the impulsive cause which is accustomed to induce a man to formal blasphemy, is of itself the appetite of vengeance against God. Namely, bearing indignantly his lot, which he knows to be subject to God's judgment, an angry man seeks that vengeance of which alone he has the supply; and he attacks the honor of Him whom he cannot harm or touch. This root appears also in the selection by which, in various adversities, he blasphemes the saints who are invoked as protectors against definite calamities: as if, because cattle have been lost or are sick, you blaspheme St. Paschal, and because of pestilence, St. Roch.

The root of indirect blasphemy is too swift anger or impatience, together with a defect of reverence toward God or the Saints. The same defect of reverence also gives place to jocose blasphemies.

III. Examples. 1. As many as deny that God exists or are unwilling to worship Him are in reality, objectively, guilty of most grave blasphemy. Atheists hold the highest degree among infidels; then those who break off every positive relation between God and man, so that they put God as if outside intercourse. Those succeed who admit only natural religion; finally, those who wish to render to God only the diminished worship of Mohammedans, Jews, or heretics. This blasphemy becomes graver if there is added, through formal temptation of God, a certain provocation, as: "If He exists, or if He can, let Him punish the denier of the faith, of the Eucharist," etc.

2. Very grave, formal, and scandalous blasphemies are committed through impious books and newspapers.

3. He blasphemes not only who, raging against God, curses Him, or denies His wisdom and goodness in words, or has doubts; but also he who, without anger against God, seriously and knowingly utters things which, from their signification or from the manner of speaking and the circumstances, bring diminution upon the divine honor or rule. And other signs against God, such as spitting toward heaven, are blasphemous just as words are.

Criteria. In judging blasphemies, account must be taken of the signification of words according to the common understanding of men. Wherefore certain formulas which of themselves sound like heresy, because they are not apprehended as such, will be free from the stain of blasphemy. Thus, at least today, when angry men say: "May the blood of Christ destroy you," they do not seem to ascribe any power of destroying to the Blood of the Redeemer, but think merely of imprecating against a man. Wherefore we judge that those err who judge these sayings to be blasphemy: milliard de dieux, tausend Sakrament, as if someone thought of the true God as multiplied or of more than seven sacraments, when so easy an explanation lies beneath: "take the word once said as if pronounced a thousand times and more often." On the contrary, formulas which are not blasphemous of themselves will have this note from common interpretation. Thus for a long time, because of common estimation, those blasphemed who used the Flemish imprecation: "God damn me." - And the same must be said of an interjection ambiguous of itself: Haere nam de Dieu.

Yet this must be observed. When a formula, as in Flemish, conveys a complete sense, an error can be demonstrated and more easily corrected. But where there is only a certain interjection, no error can be demonstrated, but the sense of the word must as it were be changed. For words are arbitrary signs.

Wherefore, in the year 1903, the bishops of Belgium by common counsel denounced the error concerning the Flemish formula and soon changed the common persuasion. Concerning the French formula there was greater doubt. But since the words themselves did not seem everywhere to be taken with an insulting signification, the bishops and several authors began to inculcate another interpretation and to purge those words of the note of blasphemy. Wherefore, today, this advantage is had, that no formula is established as blasphemous either in Belgium or in France. Penitents indeed will have to be judged according to their past conscience; but they can be admonished that they should indeed omit those words as rather uncivil and sometimes scandalous, yet should not consider them as blasphemous unless from the adjuncts it is shown that they uttered these things in anger against God Himself.

Truly blasphemous, indeed objectively containing heresy or impiety, are several formulas used in certain parts of Italy, by which evil is wished to God, mannaggia a Dio, or to the Blessed Virgin, or by which the purity of the B. V. M. seems to be denied. Yet rather than deny purity, they seem to express indignation concerning the mode of acting of God or of the B. V. M. Madonnaccia, which word can be said innocently of an inelegant painting, becomes blasphemous when it is referred to the B. V. M. As to the words mannaggia ai morti tua (literally: may it be ill for your dead), these are not blasphemous, nor do they signify a serious curse of a dead man. Those who utter them commonly intend only "to reproach the living, to whom they direct that curse after the manner of an insult" (St. Alph., l. 3, n. 130, who does not estimate it as anything but a light sin).

St. Alphonsus admonishes that formulas, in doubt, are to be held as not blasphemous. Contrary to what certain severe men have taught, corrupted formulas are not to be held as blasphemous.

V. Subjective guilt. 1. In order that there be blasphemy, words must be used significatively, not merely historically or by way of jest. Hence he does not blaspheme who reports, in the blasphemous words themselves, a blasphemy heard or said by himself.

2. Those are to be judged guilty of formal blasphemy: a) who with clear mind or deliberately write impious things; - b) who, sufficiently in possession of themselves, from impatience at an evil which God or a saint could have averted, utter words which they know to be insulting toward God or the saints, or who wish evils to God or the saints; - c) who, to mock priests or pious persons, vomit out blasphemous words. Indeed, the heretical irony of this sort easily aggravates the blasphemy, since it adds contempt of faith or religion.

3. Those are excused from formal blasphemy who do not advert that what they say is blasphemous.

Those are judged immune from grave guilt who in great sadness utter sentences which, taken literally, would be blasphemous and heretical; for example: "God afflicts me too much; God has abandoned me; God is not just."

5. But what must be said of those who, from anger against creatures or from custom, without an intention insulting toward God, advertently pronounce formulas which are in themselves blasphemous, yet not according to a blasphemous signification, but merely by way of a certain interjection to which every definite signification is lacking?

Not a few condemn them for formal blasphemy, because blasphemy can be committed by an indirect intention of wounding the divine honor, and this intention is contained in the formal utterance of a blasphemous word. Yet, when the intention of signifying has been removed, words are mere sound. Therefore material blasphemy does not remain except apparently. Thus there is no formal speech, although perhaps it is thought to exist by hearers. And since God looks upon the heart, just as interior blasphemy can exist without exterior blasphemy, so exterior blasphemy can be corrected by the interior mind. Therefore formal blasphemy seems to be denied. Of course the scandal of blasphemy will easily be given among hearers; wherefore a grave obligation must be urged of avoiding those words, which always notably derogate from reverence, or of laying aside the custom of saying them, by a firm purpose repeatedly renewed and by flight from the proximate occasion. Yet, when vulgar blasphemies from mere custom are said mixed with other formulas which are not blasphemous, either without anger, or even from anger, but openly without any respect to God, are not those formulas sufficiently shown from the adjuncts to be uttered without a blasphemous intention, or to be empty of blasphemous signification? Wherefore more often than has customarily been said, men of this sort seem to be excused from grave sin. They themselves, spontaneously or when questioned, are accustomed at once to say that they were not thinking about God. And when they mixedly utter and accuse in the sacrament formulas truly and falsely blasphemous, they themselves seem to reveal a conscience immune from the guilt of blasphemy. Nor does the horror of the faithful, when they hear blasphemous words, suggest a different conclusion. For the faithful experience a similar thing when vain usurpations of the name of God are accumulated in anger. Cf. Baller. ad Gury, I, 303, note 10.

6. Some excuse from the sin of blasphemy blasphemies uttered in drunkenness, because it belongs to the ratio of blasphemy that it be uttered knowingly. Thus Vasq. in 1.2, d. 127, n. 11; Gobat, Quinarius, tr. 5, c. 9, n. 19; and 19, n. 34-39; Salmanticenses, tr. 25, c. 2, n. 30-32. Others, for example Sanchez, Decal., L. 1, c. 10, n. 44, judge that drunken men are guilty in a foreseen cause, since the words retain their objective signification, or because drunken men have true concepts, so that the whole essence of material blasphemy is had. We think a distinction must be made between blasphemies which drunken men utter as if mechanically and without advertence to the signification, and blasphemies which, seized by anger, they direct against God. In the former case, for the bystanders themselves, the objective signification seems to perish, so that they are not even in the cause of blasphemy; in the other case, if there has been at least confused foresight, we judge that they have committed an insult imputable in its cause. Cf. I, 483.

N. B. It would be unlawful to provoke drunken men to blasphemies. For if you have provoked directly, you blaspheme through them as through an instrument, which is grave. If indirectly, at least a venial irreverence against God will remain, whose name is usurped in a vain and sufficiently hateful manner. Cf. Lehmk. I, 226.

You ask what vain usurpation of the name of God is, and how it is to be estimated.

1. A usurpation is vain when it is done without utility and without reasonable cause, of which sort already is any expression or manifestation of pious affection.

Vain usurpation of the name of God is a venial sin which, according to the adjuncts and affection, must be placed among graver or lighter sins. The words "By God - Name of God," uttered in anger against men, sound almost like blasphemies; they bring some danger of blasphemy, so that they are grave venial sins. In anger against God, they would be truly blasphemous, interiorly however, not exteriorly. Without anger, from a certain small impatience ("Therefore, God, leave me in peace"), or as a sign of admiration, or by way of a frequent interjection, the words: "Mon Dieu, good God," and similar words savor of a certain light irreverence prohibited in Ecclus. 23:10. Although they are often excused by inadvertence. If there lies beneath a certain ratio of invocation, as sometimes, "Jesus, Mary!" every fault will be absent.

This case being excluded, because words draw their force from common usage, and the speaker by himself alone cannot change their signification, the guilt of vain usurpation is not removed by the fact that the name of God is uttered without sense by way of some interjection.

Nor does it befit a Christian to pronounce the name of the demon continually. In itself, however, the use of that name is not a sin.

Imprecations of grave evil uttered against men will be grave, if seriously willed, or if they are uttered by children against parents or by subjects against Superiors of similar authority. If not, they do not seem to contain grave guilt. Wherefore penitents will have to be questioned concerning their intention.

Action of the confessor. 1. He will unteach particular errors concerning formulas which are judged blasphemous while they contain only a vain usurpation of the Name of God.

2. Those who use blasphemous formulas and at the same time excuse themselves from grave sin, because they merely signified anger and a serious will, will better be turned away from these habits by other arguments than by injecting consciousness of mortal sin. Let the confessor also invoke the ratio of civility, and insist upon the opportuneness of greater patience and meekness.

3. Let him suggest suitable remedies against the custom. Such are a fervent renewal of a daily purpose, with the addition of some small penance, for example beating the breast, reciting the Gloria Patri, giving a modest alms; the substitution of another sonorous formula in place of the blasphemous one. Nor let him omit to admonish that this is the immediate fruit of such an effort: that it takes away fault from acts which through custom are done indeliberately.

4. Let him gravely rebuke parents or masters who blaspheme with greater scandal before children or workers. - Indeed, formulas which, because they are similar to blasphemies, give occasion among children to grave sins must also be avoided.