Title III: On the Duty of Professing the Faith

— 1. By leading a Christian life, the faithful person in reality sufficiently signifies his faith and makes that profession of it which is called material.

2. From c. 1325 § 1: "The faithful of Christ are bound openly to profess the faith, whenever their silence, evasiveness, or manner of acting would carry with it an implicit denial of faith, contempt of religion, injury to God, or scandal of neighbor."

Therefore: formal profession, by the law of nature, is to be made when, unless it were made, great honor due to God or great utility to be procured for the neighbor would be withdrawn, privatively or contrarily. - Privatively, I say, if for that reason great honor of God, or great utility of the neighbor, would cease; which case will be rare. Contrarily, if, because of the omitted profession of faith, God would be affected by injury, the neighbor would suffer grave detriment: for example, religion would be contemned, the neighbor would thereby be turned away from conversion. Charity then commands the profession; indeed faith itself does so, if the detriment would be to faith itself.

Therefore, as often as silence or evasiveness would be equivalent to denial, or would denote fear or inconstancy or shame, faith is to be professed by us, lest we fall into that saying: "He who shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed when he shall come in his majesty" (Luke 9, 26. From the parallel place itself, Matt. 10, 33, it appears that there is question of shame which is morally equivalent to denial). Wherefore, to signify that necessity of fortitude, the Christian to be confirmed is anointed with sacred chrism on the raised forehead. Cf. Lugo, De fide, d. 14, n. 377. To manifest mere fear is not of itself grave, contrary to giving an indication of denial or inconstancy.

Wherefore they regularly judge that an answer is to be given with open profession of faith to a public authority questioning concerning religion, at least if the legal order is observed by the one questioning. Cf. proposition 18a condemned by Innocent XI: "If anyone is questioned by public authority, I counsel that he ingenuously confess the faith as glorious to God and to faith; to be silent I do not condemn as sinful per se" (Denz., n. 1168). For if the law itself has forbidden inquiries into matters of conscience, it will be enough to decline an answer for this reason. And a private man who asks about religion can also be repelled.

This doctrine is confirmed by the cited c. 1325 § 1.

— By ecclesiastical law (cc. 1106-1408), a contrary custom being reprobated, the following must personally and according to the formula approved by the Apostolic See (such as is exhibited at the beginning of the Code) profess the faith:

1. Before the presiding officer, or his delegate: all who are present at a council or synod, even with merely consultative vote; but the presiding officer before the same council or synod;

2. Before the Dean of the Sacred College, the first Cardinals in the order of priests and of deacons, and the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church: those promoted to the cardinalitial dignity;

3. Before one delegated by the Apostolic See: those promoted to an episcopal See, even non-residential, or to the government of an abbacy or prelature nullius, of an Apostolic vicariate, or of an Apostolic prefecture;

4. Before the cathedral chapter: the capitular Vicar;

5. Before the Ordinary of the place, or his delegate, and before the chapter: those who have been promoted to a dignity or canonry;

6. Before the Ordinary of the place, or his delegate, and before the other consultors: those assumed to the office of diocesan consultors;

7. Before the Ordinary of the place, or his delegate: the Vicar general, pastors, and those for whom provision has been made concerning any benefices, even manual benefices, having the care of souls; the rector, professors of sacred theology, canon law, and philosophy in a seminary, at the beginning of each scholastic year, or at least at the beginning of the office undertaken; all who are to be promoted to the order of subdiaconate; censors of books ex officio in diocesan curias (c. 1393); priests destined for receiving confessions and sacred preachers, before they are endowed with the faculty of exercising those offices;

8. Before the Ordinary or his delegate: the rector of a University or Faculty; but before the rector of the University or Faculty, or his delegate: all professors in a University or Faculty canonically erected, at the beginning of each scholastic year, or at least at the beginning of the office undertaken; likewise those who, after examination, are endowed with academic degrees;

9. Before the chapter or the Superior who nominated them, or their delegate: Superiors in clerical religious institutes.

N. B. "Those who, after relinquishing the former office, obtain another office or benefice or dignity, even of the same species, must again emit the profession of faith" (c. 1406 § 2).

Although c. 1406 now imposes the direct obligation of professing the faith, nevertheless from the old law it can still be said that the Superiors before whom the profession is to be emitted are primarily held by the obligation of seeing to it that the promise of faith be made (Genicot, 197; Arregui, n. 121). Indeed if they themselves refuse to receive the profession of faith, the subjects will be excused by impossibility.

— From the response of the Holy Office, 22 March 1918, the abjurations of modernism prescribed by the decrees of Pius X continue in force until the Holy See shall determine otherwise. Wherefore, the profession of faith having been premised, the following must abjure modernism and hand over the signed formula of the oath:

To the ordaining Bishop: those to be ordained in sacred orders, at least before the subdiaconate; - to the approving Ordinary: future confessors and sacred preachers, before they are endowed with the faculty of exercising those offices (but not when the faculty is prolonged for them); - to the nominating Ordinary: pastors, canons, beneficiaries before entering upon possession of the benefice, and consequently as often as they accede to a new benefice; Lenten preachers; - to the Ordinary of the place or to the Cardinal Prefect or Secretary: officials of the episcopal curia, not excepting the Vicar general; of ecclesiastical tribunals, not excepting the judges; of the Roman Congregations; - to the nominating Superior or chapter: moderators of religious Families and Congregations, before they enter upon the office, and consequently as often as they undertake a new office; - to their own superior: doctors, or lectors, in seminaries and religious institutes, each year, before beginning the lectures. - This obligation primarily affects Superiors: they ought to call those bound to fulfill the obligation. Those who are unwilling to swear are to be reported to the Holy Office at once.

(These things are gathered both from the Motu Proprio, 1 September 1910, and from various declarations of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, 25 September, 25 October, 17 December 1910. - All are proposed in our Periodica, t. 5 and 6).

You ask whether the profession of faith through the formula of Pius IV, with the definitions of the Vatican Council added, must necessarily be premised to the abjuration of modernism.

There is no doubt that this is laudably done. Yet since in the Motu Proprio itself of 1 September 1910 the profession of faith is distinguished from the formula of the oath, and the Code c. 1406 defines by whom and when the profession of faith is to be made, this profession does not seem strictly to be appended to the abjuration, except when the profession of faith itself is prescribed by the Code. Besides, only the oath is mentioned in the declarations of 25 September 1910, by which annual abjuration is prescribed for Doctors who, from the earlier Motu Proprio Sacrorum Antistitum, had to swear only at the beginning of their office (Cf. Per., V, 200 and 229).

— In no case, whether by voice or by nod, is it lawful exteriorly to deny the faith.

But when profession is not prescribed, it is per se lawful, and sometimes expedient, to conceal the faith, and consequently to do so honestly and without a lie: as if, hidden among heretics or unbelievers, you could accomplish more good, or if more evil is to be feared from confession: disturbances, killings, the exasperation of a tyrant, danger of defection under tortures. Hence voluntarily to offer oneself to the persecutor is for the most part rash. - Nor must one per se obey a general edict by which the faithful are commanded to betray themselves, except, as has just been said, if he who does not appear is commonly regarded as an apostate. Nor is anyone forbidden to obtain by money that no inquiry be made concerning his faith. Much less does he deny the faith, but rather confesses it, who flees persecution. But the pastor must examine what is more advisable for the good of souls: either by the example of fearless confession, or at least by his presence, to confirm the others; or, on the contrary, to withdraw himself for a time so that from a safe place he may administer the territory and reserve himself for the good of more persons.

— It is no more permitted by clothing than by words or by another sign to profess superstition, or adherence to a condemned sect. Wherefore it is not lawful to use clothing which, neither of itself nor from the circumstances, has another immediate signification. But if the immediate signification is diverse, or this is ambiguous or twofold, there will be place for the prudent use of the principle concerning double effect.

Hence they distinguish sacred clothing from profane; among profane clothing, some garments which, as Lehmkuhl says, I, 405, by showing the inhabitants of an unbelieving region, materially distinguish unbelievers from the faithful; others which bear signs for recognizing unbelievers, and by which therefore unbelievers are formally distinguished from the faithful: as the distinctive garments of the Jews were in the City and in Poland. A graver cause indeed is required for using these latter than for the former profane garments. Yet the wearing of such clothing carries another explanation than apostasy. Wherefore only the garments which are used in superstitious functions fall under a sufficiently absolute prohibition, unless a different explanation is positively present.

Lehmkuhl, l. c., and also Genicot, I, 197, assimilate Masonic insignia to garments of sacred use. But we would wish this also to be understood prudently, when they certainly show adherence to a condemned sect. For garments, since in themselves they are indifferent things, easily have an uncertain signification. What, for example, if, to deceive Freemasons, many others momentarily adopt those signs so that true sectarians are not distinguished from false ones; what if, in a city where he is unknown, some traveler, without any scandal, wears the insignia so that he may observe the sectarians; what if, in a dangerous hour, when life is to be feared for, an unknown Catholic, not specially asked to manifest adherence by this sign, protects himself with those insignia in order to flee persecution? Does not the signification become ambiguous from the circumstances themselves, and consequently will it not be able to be tolerated for a proportionate cause?

This is the rule. The less the signification is definite of itself, the more easily, from the circumstances themselves, it is rendered uncertain. Genicot himself, I, 197, whom others follow, allows that whether to deceive them, or to obtain their benevolence, you may use gestures by which sectarians recognize one another, "because it does not seem equivalent to a profession of the sect."

— Since the eating of meats of itself says no profession of religion, and for various causes meats are eaten even by Catholics on a day of abstinence, it is altogether lawful, for declining grave danger - not however for fleeing mockery ¹ - to dissemble the faith by eating meats. Indeed, to avoid rashness, this per se is to be done. Except if that eating is demanded in hatred of the faith. Then, without protestation, they cannot be eaten. Suppose it to be established by the guests that he who is an enemy of Catholicism should eat meats: it would not be lawful to eat them unless by protesting the faith.

Nor otherwise, if in conversation someone presents you as an adversary of the faith, could you be silent, unless your whole bearing betrayed a different cause of silence.

¹ According to the cause or form of mockery, that shame could be opposed to faith or to religion.

Illicit Concealment. — Because faith must sometimes be professed, every concealment of faith which betrays the shame concerning which the Lord says in the Gospel is to be condemned: "He who shall be ashamed of me and of my words: of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty and that of the Father and of the holy angels" (Luke 9, 26). Nor is it lawful to receive into the Church someone who would wish to be merely a hidden Christian through his whole life. But the circumstances can be such that even a merely individual exterior profession would give occasion to excessive evil; indeed, that the public good would command silence. As long as such circumstances remain, it will be lawful to be a hidden Christian and to satisfy the debt of Christian profession through a posthumous revelation, committed to a trustworthy man, as soon as this can be done without common or prevailing harm.

— I. Besides the material profession of faith which a Christian life led entails, formal profession is to be made: 1. by the law of nature, when it is required lest God be deprived of great honor or the neighbor of great utility; much more lest God be affected by injury, or the neighbor by grave harm. The obligation is of charity, indeed of faith, if the detriment to be avoided would be of faith. Therefore as often as silence or evasiveness would be an indication of denial or inconstancy, faith is to be professed: this regularly happens when public authority, the legal order being observed, asks about religion (cf. c. 1325, § 1); - 2. by ecclesiastical law, a contrary custom being reprobated, those indicated in c. 1406 must personally profess the faith. Moreover, from the response of the Holy Office, 22 March 1918, the abjurations of modernism prescribed by Pius X continue in force until the Holy See shall determine otherwise. The profession of faith must be placed before these abjurations, whenever c. 1406 commands it to be made.

II. It is never lawful exteriorly to deny the faith; to conceal it is per se lawful and sometimes expedient. Wherefore it would be wrong to use garments which neither of themselves nor from the circumstances had another immediate signification than that of superstition. If the signification were ambiguous, the principles concerning double effect will have to be applied prudently. Nearly the same is to be said concerning Masonic insignia. Unless the eating of meats is demanded in hatred of the faith, to dissemble the faith by eating meats is not forbidden. - But, on the other hand, it is not lawful for one converted to the faith to conceal his conversion perpetually, at least from a private cause: he would sin against the obligation of professing the faith.