Article II: On Troublesome Cases Which Occur in Matters of Lust

First case. 1. Certain persons, in whom neither piety nor the study of virtue is lacking, during the day abstain rather easily from every depraved action; but at night, after they have retired to bed, they seem to indulge an evil habit. For they are accustomed not immediately, but after a long delay, to be overcome by sleep; or certainly, after some hours, released from sleep, they experience nocturnal wakefulness. During those parts of the night which they spend sleepless, they are vexed by impure phantasms, they feel nervous excitations, until they have brought on pollution by masturbation. Moreover the frequency of these acts varies, since some defile themselves twice in a month, others almost every night, indeed several times in the same night. If any have not done the evil exterior act, they, from the very omission of the act, are shown to be immune from mortal sin, although they have experienced a completed temptation in which they seem to themselves to have had complacency.

After pollution has been procured, some immediately grieve and do penance, while others remain with tranquil mind.

Some spontaneously confess themselves guilty; others, on the contrary, think that, although awake, they can scarcely use their disturbed mind, and are placed in an unusual condition. Yet they are not relieved from fear of sin, and they readily protest that they doubt about the matter and do not wish to resolve it. Depraved practices of adolescence are for the most part to be blamed as the cause. Yet it also happens that, after an innocent youth, this vice takes its beginning from adult age.

Concerning the just estimation of the cause and concerning a prudent manner of acting, what shall we say?

a) First, the confessor must inquire whether they truly perpetrated these things while awake, or while half-asleep and in an almost somnambulant condition. If some hallucination or deception is discerned; if some absurd error (for example, that now they can indulge these things without sin) or strange reasons demonstrate imperfect wakefulness, these persons are to be judged without ambiguity to be immune from grave guilt. And, in doubt, those to whom the presumption is favorable are rather to be excused.

But for those who, being awakened, practice such things, certain points favor them and certain points are contrary. In their favor are the pure character of their daily life, the best habit of the will, and that inefficacy, as you might call it, of prayer, if before lying down and in the temptation itself they have poured forth prayers. Yet contrary considerations are the state of wakefulness and the struggle itself from which they departed conquered. For there is question of persons who are even healthy. Is not the daily purity itself partly explained because, on account of nocturnal satisfaction, the appetite has been made more remiss? Then in bed heat and a more convenient position stimulate the flesh; but phantasy, released from daily cares, lies more open to temptations. Moreover a good will, prayers poured forth for a long time without manifest utility, are observed also among those who are accustomed to sin during the day, among whom even not a few will say that while they are pressed by temptation they are affected in various ways, and that an entirely external sin, indeed one perpetrated with an accomplice, does not seem mortal to them. For there is in us a lesser aversion from a disorder which is admitted without injury to another; and in the heat of concupiscence the body and disposition are affected in a peculiar way and are almost changed. And since in all there is per se a great propensity to such acts, we cannot here appeal to the ineluctable force of a perverse instinct.

For this reason, this will be our conclusion. Such persons in general and per se cannot be excused: what a wakeful man has done, he must be presumed to have done while master of himself. Nevertheless signs of lesser fault can be had: a disposition which from other sources appears badly tempered or hysterical; the speed with which the action followed the thought; great disturbance of mind from the beginning, which allows only a slight space or opportunity for deliberating; great temptations during the day, which have been strenuously overcome.

It will also help to question them as to with what conscience they acted, with what moral reflection, with what persuasion of free choice. I mean a persuasion that is spontaneous and, as it were, immediate, not one obtained by a longer reasoning or by another's counsel. For guilt will be absent from him whom conscience of its own accord has absolved.

The supply of a certain judgment will not so rarely be lacking. But since the morality of the act done depends entirely on subjective consent, and therefore is not affected by our opinion, there is here no place for probabilism; and by a similar obligation we must flee the proximate occasion of certain and doubtful consent.

A prudent manner of acting. The confessor must diligently take care that these persons be protected at the same time from excessive security and from dejection of mind: he who thinks himself empty of fault and he who loses heart both cease to strive against the habit. Wherefore the confessor should neither be severe in absolving relapsers of this kind, since the difficulty of resistance and their general good will render them at least worthy to be treated with great kindness and mercy, and to be strengthened with much patience in a vigorous struggle; nor will he induce them to judge themselves innocent. For that persuasion often lacks a sufficient argument, while confidence is accustomed to increase the force of concupiscence and to impel toward more and more rash acts. The confessor will not call them away from frequent, indeed daily, Communion, or from the celebration of sacred things; yet regularly he will not permit them to perform sacred things or be refreshed by the Eucharistic banquet without sacramental confession. For besides the power of sacramental grace, frequent detestation of the thing and renewal of purpose are among the best means of amendment; and the very inconvenience of approaching a confessor can call the mind away from spontaneous propensity. Yet what remains of doubt in judging the guilt itself allows you more easily to think that there is present a lack of a confessor which excuses access to holy Communion, with only an act of contrition set before it. But it is evident that those are to be gravely corrected who during the day, by reading lascivious things, shameful conversations, and morose delectation, as it were prepare evening excitations. Nor does it now cause a light detriment if, by reading, imagining, or thinking again, especially in the evening, soft and tender affections are fostered, although they are not strictly shameful. Therefore the confessor should strive both to find these things out and to cut them away. It will be very useful, besides, that these persons exercise the will in every way toward strength and greatness of mind. Often, especially in the evening, let them join an express and serious purpose with prayer; let them procure for themselves the firm execution of any purpose; and let them not remain long hesitant in deliberating. Let them read writers and frequent companions who are firm in mind. Let them season daily acts with a certain salt of mortification, so that thus the body may be exercised toward obedience, and the will toward command. Nor are physical means to be neglected: abstinence from food and drink in which there is an excitatory force; the use of a harder bed; a certain tempered fatigue of the body; mental occupation (yet in the evening after supper, they are to be dissuaded from intense labor, as also from every excessive weariness or anxiety of mind); indeed certain medicines (lupulin, bromides, hydrotherapy, suggestion). Wherefore, if it can be done, it will be very useful that an upright and skilled physician together with the confessor contribute his work to the treatment.

More easily, as is evident, there is to be excused a certain nervous motion (say, a tighter joining of the legs, rigidity of the body), which, in the midst of excitation, can be explained by the nerves themselves or by a brief distraction of mind, than exterior acts which require either walking or handling with the hands: as if they strive to embrace solid bodies, or have committed masturbation properly so called.

Another case. There are some who, after intervals, for a long time are driven as if by physical necessity toward venereal pleasure. You would say that they as it were need this satisfaction. They are pressed by a continual invitation until, after a struggle, sometimes prolonged through several days, by a sinful act they are restored to peace and quiet.

This kind of men is often affected by a nervous and hysterical disease. Nor rarely do women experience such things at that age at which they are accustomed to become sterile (menopause).

Yet not all are placed in a morbid state. But all are worthy of the greatest mercy. And indeed it can happen that, after a long struggle, they have been made almost impotent in mind, and, raving for an hour, have completed the evil thing. But, this case excluded, or per se, they do not seem to be deprived of free choice. Therefore let the confessor be kind and courteous; let him command them to be of good courage; let him take care that they apply moral and physical medicines, and let him not deny frequent absolution.

N.B. Those who experience propensities of this kind are to be dissuaded from entering religion, and especially from seeking the priestly state. Indeed, where fault seems certain and sufficiently frequent, they are per se positively to be forbidden to undertake the priesthood, since they do not have a sufficiently proximate aptitude for fulfilling the duties of due chastity.

General observation. There are several cases which a prudent confessor will have to commit to the divine judgment, while at the same time taking care that he add strength to souls and obtain from all the greatest resistance which can be hoped for. With physicians, indeed, he will admit fault diminished by depraved habits, by propensities and diseases of mind, yet not so that he rashly pronounces all the sick immune from grave guilt. And this, at least to healthy persons, he will strongly inculcate: that there is no habit which cannot be overcome by a constant will. Cf. on the same argument Noldin, Principia, n. 61, 62 and the authorities alleged by him.

Distinction of each forum. In this matter one must also observe what difference there is between the civil penal forum and the forum of conscience. Belgian laws, for example, among the conditions of a delict require that it be committed by a man who is of sound mind. Wherefore, since no one is of sound mind who labors under a definite psychological disease, all who are affected by a habitual disease are accustomed to be excused from every delict. Let there be, for example, a man affected by a delirium of persecution (delire de la persecution): in the penal forum he will go away immune, even if he has committed a delict in a way which has nothing in common with his own subjective error. Although recently dispute has begun concerning another way by which society may effectively be protected from harmful men whom it refuses to condemn.

I. Psychological liberty is taken away or diminished by various diseases, which are called diseases of the mind because, on account of badly affected centers of the brain or sensitive powers, the higher faculties are impeded in their action.

Organic diseases are found in a material lesion of the organ, while no lesion appears which betrays functional diseases.

The kinds of diseases are apparently two, since some are manifested by direct weakness of the higher powers, others by the impulse of the lower. But the impulse itself is so great because it is not restrained by the weakened higher faculties; so that in reality there is one kind of diseases.

II. Phrenetics are deceived by hallucinations. Wherefore in every delirium, even if it seems partial (monomania), they lack all liberty. The demented, by incurable imbecility and dullness of mind, are deprived of the use of free choice. The command of obsessions and impulses can be invincible. Yet impulses which conspire with natural concupiscence are not easily to be pronounced invincible; and occasions sometimes can and must be avoided freely. Aboulia can excuse from fulfilling certain positive duties. Nor is liberty combined with epileptic agitation, even masked agitation; nor with the true hypnotic state (concerning which new investigations are being made). Neurasthenics also can rather easily be excused when because of weariness they neglect certain duties.

III. There occur also troublesome cases of persons who, being generally affected toward the good, either perpetrate indecent things at night or, after certain intervals, feel a prolonged impulse toward venereal satisfaction until they have yielded to it. The confessor must act prudently, so that the sick may fall into worse things neither by despair nor by false security. Let him strive to obtain the greatest resistance possible. But he will have to commit many things to the divine judgment.

Moral excuse on account of morbid difficulties is often only partial, while in the external forum the same excuses not rarely liberate the badly affected completely from penalties.