Chapter I. On Injustice in Common

I. Notion. Injustice, also called injury, is the violation of another's strict right. From this very definition it must be deduced in what sense Rule 27 of law in the Sext is to be understood: No injury is done to one who knows and consents, namely:

1. If someone freely consents, and there is question of a right which he can validly renounce, injury is absent.

2. If someone freely consents, and there is question of a right which he cannot validly renounce - suppose if someone consents to his own killing, or a husband consents to intercourse being had with his wife - it is disputed whether injustice is committed with respect to the one consenting.

But now, against many, it seems that this must be affirmed; since, while the right persists, the violation of the right, or injustice, persists. But in the hypothesis posited the right persists, because the renunciation is invalid. There is added proposition 50 condemned by Innocent XI: "Intercourse with a married woman, with the husband consenting, is not adultery; and therefore it suffices in confession to say that one has fornicated;"¹ this is explained with difficulty by the adversaries. They do indeed speak of an injury inflicted on the marital state, etc.; but the marital state is not a moral person which enjoys strict rights.

Objection. In order that injustice cease, it suffices that someone not oppose his own right.

Response. I deny the assertion, in the case in which the right persists, even if someone does not oppose his own right. But in our hypothesis the right persists, whether someone opposes his own right or does not oppose it.

Still, it must be said otherwise concerning rights which the one consenting can validly renounce, and which would be violated together with the right which he cannot renounce. Thus, for example, one who, with the husband consenting, committed adultery is not bound to restore to the husband damages that would follow from the adultery.

¹ Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1200.

II. Division. Injustice is divided:

1. Into formal and material, according as another's right is violated with or without theological fault.

2. Into personal and real, according as someone is harmed in goods of the soul or body, or in external goods.

III. Morality. Injustice is a grave sin by its kind, that is, grave or light according as it regards grave or light matter. Injustice which regards grave matter is a grave sin, because it is simply or gravely opposed to the good of one's neighbor and of society, and therefore to charity (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 59, a. 4; q. 66, a. 6; St. Alphonsus, III, 700). Furthermore:

1. The gravity of the matter must be drawn both from damage that is relatively grave, or which is grave when the condition of him to whom it is inflicted has been considered, and from the relation which exists between the one causing damage and the one damaged, so that if, for example, there is question of a son of a family, a graver matter is required for mortal sin than if there is question of another.

2. A sign of grave matter is present when the damage inflicted, with attention paid to the common disposition of men, is apt to move great sorrow or indignation.

3. In doubt whether the thing or quantity to be taken away or consumed by you is grave, you are bound under grave obligation to abstain, because, once another's certain right to some thing or to a certain quantity has been posited, it is gravely illicit for you to expose yourself to the danger of inflicting grave damage on someone.