Article III: Sources of Moral Theology

The sources of knowing, from which moral theology must draw forth its arguments, are the same as those offered for use to theology in general.

Therefore the first place is owed to the Word of God, both that which is written and that which has been handed down by mouth.

Then comes the magisterium of the Church, to which the deposit of faith is committed to be guarded and proposed. This is exercised in an extraordinary manner in the solemn definitions of Councils.

Moreover, from the end of the persecutions to the year 1139, or before Gratian, ten ecumenical Councils were held, besides several particular Councils which obtained great authority. For several canons of the Oriental Councils were received universally. "In the Western Church, the Roman, African, and Spanish Councils excel by singular authority, such as the Council of Elvira (300-306) and the Councils of Toledo, likewise the Gallican Councils celebrated in these centuries" (Wernz, Ius Decretalium, I, n. 203).

Afterward it is known that ten other ecumenical Councils were celebrated, if you count the Council of Constance, of which the last, the Vatican Council, has not yet been closed.

The same magisterium is exercised in an ordinary manner in common preaching and instruction. Cf. canon 1323.

Then come human authorities. Approved authors together, as Koch astutely observes ¹, almost like the Holy Fathers, bear witness to the doctrine of the Church for us, and by their own reasonings and conclusions provide for the advancement of theological science. To desert their unanimous opinion would be rash; while he is secure who follows positions proposed by many notable authors.

Among these authorities, as regards our discipline, St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus stand out. Yet they are in an unequal place and kind. St. Thomas, "the illustrious ornament and light of the Christian world," Leo XIII "declared and established as heavenly patron of all Catholic schools" for "the increase of the sciences and the common utility of mankind" (cf. Lesson of the second Nocturn in the feast of St. Thomas). Therefore his philosophy is especially commended, and his principles are to be held. St. Alphonsus "among the complex opinions of theologians, whether laxer or more rigid, laid down a safe way, by which directors of the souls of Christ's faithful could walk with unoffending foot" (Pius IX, March 23, 1871, cited by Koch, loc. cit.). Therefore his practical prudence is commended and proclaimed. Yet no approval and commendation impose the individual opinions of a most approved Doctor. Indeed, after the Sacred Penitentiary, on July 5, 1831, declared that a confessor who, in the practice of the sacred tribunal of penance, simply followed all the opinions of St. Alphonsus was by no means to be disturbed, and pronounced that a professor who professes the opinions of the same Doctor is safe, it expressly added: "Yet without its being thought from this that those are to be blamed who follow opinions handed down by other approved authors."

And it is far from the mind of the Church that distinguished Doctors should, as it were, dispense later theologians from personal study and labor. Koch opportunely cites this saying from Lacordaire: "St. Thomas is a lighthouse, but must not be a boundary."

Finally, Reason must scrutinize and prudently apply the principles and documents of sound doctrine and philosophy. And it is to be desired that present-day moral theologians restore that splendid method by which the great moral Doctors of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century deserved so well of moral science, and that they not be content with ever smaller handbooks ¹, which have nothing in common with the handbooks which the scholastic Doctors of the Middle Ages adorned with the name of Theological Summa for the use of students.

¹ Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, Introduction, § 8.

¹ By these words, however, we by no means intend to detract from the merit and practical utility of summaries such as, with no mediocre art, the recent Fr. Arregui, S.J., and other Doctors have composed. But science of the true name cannot be restricted to works of this kind.