Article IV. On Speeches and Songs

I. Commonly it will be mortal:

1. To speak about very shameful matters, as about the genitals, about intercourse, about the ways of performing it, etc. (St. Alphonsus III, 426); if it is done among married persons, grave fault will more easily be absent.

2. To speak shameful things with a person of the other sex, especially a younger person; likewise prolonged and vain conversation with a girl loved inordinately (St. Alphonsus III, 422);¹ to speak shameful things with persons of the same sex, if the shameful conversations are prolonged.

3. To narrate one's own shameful acts boastfully (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).

4. Finally, those are commonly to be judged to sin gravely by speaking shameful things who speak shameful things on any occasion whatever, or continue conversations for a long time, likewise those who are very corrupt.

II. Commonly it will be venial:

1. To speak shameful things in passing, for the sake of a joke (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).

2. To institute tender conversations with a person of the other sex.

Note. Penitents who accuse themselves of shameful speech are to be asked: 1. only generally, whether they instituted very shameful conversations; 2. by reason of scandal, whether they held conversations in the presence of married or unmarried persons, adults or boys or girls. "For girls and boys are more easily scandalized than adults, especially those who are habituated in this vice" (St. Alphonsus, Praxis Confessarii, n. 40).

III. Those who hear shameful things sin thus:

1. They sin gravely: 1. who linger with pleasure over a shameful thing heard, or expose themselves to grave danger of lingering pleasure; but not those who are pleased only by the elegant manner of speaking; 2. who, by manifesting their pleasure, cooperate in the grave sin of the speaker, or do not prevent shameful speech, although by office they are bound to prevent it. Others, who do not prevent such things out of embarrassment, commonly do not sin gravely. Indeed, if hope of fruit is lacking, all sin can be absent.

Note 1. The things said about speeches must also be applied to songs.

Note 2. The reading of shameful books is commonly gravely sinful; the reading of somewhat shameful books is venially evil; nevertheless even the reading of these latter is more often grave sin for younger persons.

Note 3. To smell menstrual blood, semen, and other things of this sort is judged a grave, light, or no disorder, according as the danger of falling into an external venereal act, or into internal sin, is grave, light, or none.

¹ St. Thomas (Opusculum 64, section 8, De Fluxu libidinis), speaking of distillation, says that vain conversations with those loved inordinately are to be fled under pain of mortal sin, if distillation proceeds from them.