Article III: Concerning Joys

— Morality of joy. 1. Complacency in an evil action done, or joy concerning a committed sin, necessarily participates in its theological and moral malice.

2. Joy concerning a work evil according to itself, but which, because of sleep, ignorance, drunkenness, was without fault, will sometimes but not always be excused. If the work was not a material sin, the object will be honorable: as if someone rejoices concerning a nocturnal pollution by which daytime temptations are hindered. But if it was a material sin, for example pollution procured by touches in sleep, in order that you may be able to rejoice about that act, the same cause is required on account of which you could permit it. That is, in order that you may licitly rejoice about that action because of the good effect, it is necessary that the good effect have proportion to the evil which is always a material transgression of the law.

Moreover, according to the variety of the precept, fault will vary in degree. Thus joy concerning a precept of abstinence violated without fault will be at most venial, even if you do not consider the proportion of the good effect. In this matter Innocent XI deservedly condemned this prop. 15: "It is lawful for a son to rejoice concerning the parricide of a parent, perpetrated by himself in drunkenness, because of the great riches thence obtained by inheritance."

3. Joy concerning the good effect following from an evil work is not about an evil object, and therefore is not to be charged as a sin. Thus we conceive a most honorable joy concerning the glory of the martyrs, concerning our redemption consummated through the crime of the Jews, concerning public peace after the death of a tyrant.

This holds of itself even if the effect flowed from one's own sin, provided you detest the cause: thus concerning a fault which has been the occasion of penance. But such joy will sometimes be dangerous.

— What if you rejoice concerning a physical evil. Concerning the ruin, sickness, death of a neighbor, or concerning his evil that is not moral, it will be lawful to be delighted, and to the same extent it will be right to wish these things for someone, insofar as this is congruent with the order of charity; therefore, insofar as his temporal evil "is an impediment of the evils of another whom one is more bound to love, or of the community or Church," or "insofar as through the evil of punishment the evil of his fault is frequently impeded" (S. Th. 3 S. d. 30, q. 1 art. 1 ad 4). But one must beware lest, "when we pursue our own hatreds, we be deceived under the appearance of another's utility" (St. Greg. M., Moral. 22, c. 11, n. 23).

— You ask, how is boasting about sin, and sadness concerning good, to be estimated?

1. True boasting, not fictitious boasting, superadds to joy a glorying concerning an offense of God and scandal.

Fictitious boasting, for example from human respect, besides a lie, contains malice of itself grave, in grave matter, against the obligation of Christian profession.

2. Sadness concerning the trouble of a good work, or concerning a good work as troublesome, is commonly only venial torpor, unless it generates a true aversion from the thing itself, according to itself, or induces grave danger of omitting a work owed under grave obligation.

Yet sadness concerning divine friendship itself is condemned as mortal sloth, because it must be preserved with struggle; or concerning a vocation to divine beatitude, to be acquired through labors. Cf. Lehmk. I, 359.

— I. Interior acts which are directed to a complete external act are often one sin with the complete act. If they must be estimated separately, they are in the moral species of the complete act, yet they differ from it in species on account of this other notion: that they are incomplete, begun. Here we consider incomplete acts, omitting fruition, which is necessarily one with the consummated act.

II. Morose delight, or simple deliberate complacency in an evil object, participates in the species and gravity of this object, if it is absolute. If it is conditional and of the rational order, its morality will depend on the nature and force of the condition added. But if it is a delight of the sensitive appetite, since it follows the phantasm, which is concerning the concrete thing, it regards the object as it is in the concrete. Wherefore sensitive delight concerning copulation with an unmarried person will necessarily be evil venereal delight. Intellectual delight concerning copulation with an unmarried person under this condition: if she were one's own spouse, will be dangerous, but not objectively dishonorable. Thought of an evil thing can be good, evil, or indifferent; thence the delight will have to be estimated. Delight concerning the mode in which an evil thing has been done is not necessarily evil. Morose delight is specified by the object. But, in a venereal matter, by this name there is for the most part designated consent into a present carnal commotion, so that it is rather a consummated sin of solitary luxury, for which imagination was the instrument.

III. Absolute desire necessarily participates in the species, both moral and theological, of the exterior act. Conditional desire will be sinful or not, according as the affection which the inefficacious desire places in the will is honorable or not. Wherefore the true desire: I would eat meat unless it were forbidden, will be honorable; but this will be dishonorable: if it were not a sin, I would fornicate.

IV. Joy concerning a committed sin necessarily participates in its moral and theological malice. Joy concerning a work evil according to itself, but which, because of a subjective condition, was without fault, will be dishonorable if it was a material sin, unless there was a proportionate cause on account of which it could be permitted. According to the gravity of the precept, the fault will be venial or mortal. Thus joy concerning a violated precept of abstinence without fault will be only venial. Joy concerning a good effect is not of itself sinful, even if the effect follows sin. Joy concerning a non-moral evil of the neighbor will be excused insofar as it is not repugnant to the order of charity.

V. True boasting adds to joy glorying concerning an offense of God and scandal. Fictitious boasting, of itself, contains grave malice, in grave matter, against the profession of Christian life. Sadness concerning a good work as troublesome commonly is nothing except venial torpor, provided that it is not concerning divine friendship itself, because it must be preserved with struggle, or concerning beatitude to be acquired laboriously.