Duty of Repairing Scandal

Duty of Repairing Scandal.-The paragraphs immediately preceding have spoken of the duty of avoiding scandal. There is also a duty of repairing scandal that has been given. (a) Thus, there is a duty of charity to repair the scandal one has given; for, if all are required to practise fraternal correction, those especially are bound to this who are responsible for the sins of others. (b) There is sometimes a duty of legal justice, as when superiors, who are bound from their office to give good example, give scandal to their subjects. (c) There is sometimes a duty of commutative justice, as when the scandalizer has employed unjust means (such as force, fear or traps) in order to lead another into scandal.

Ways of Repairing Scandal.—(a) Scandal is repaired publicly or privately. Reparation is public, when it is made before the community, and private, when it is made before individuals. (b) Scandal is repaired explicitly or implicitly. Explicit reparation is made by retractation of one’s words, by condemnation of one’s acts, by the destruction of one’s scandalous writings, by efforts to bring back to virtue those whom one has misled, etc. Implicit reparation is made by reformation of one’s conduct, the abandonment of that which gave scandal, the practice of good example, prayer for the person scandalized, etc.

Particular Kinds of Scandal to be Repaired.—(a) Scandal is public or private. Public scandal is given before the community at large, as when one openly apostatizes so that it is the talk of the whole neighborhood or town, or writes a signed article favoring atheism, or makes a disedifying speech before a gathering of people. Scandal is private, when it is given before a few persons, and when it does not tend to become generally known, as when husband and wife quarrel before their domestic circle.

(b) Scandal is ordinary or extraordinary. Ordinary scandal is given by bad example alone; extraordinary scandal adds to bad example injury or injustice, or the debt of punishment for a crime. Thus, one who becomes slightly intoxicated at a party gives ordinary scandal; while one who by trickery schemes to get another into a situation in which he will be effectually scandalized, or who strikes an inoffensive priest, or who spreads disedifying printed matter, is guilty of extraordinary scandal.

It rests with the prudent judgment of the confessor or ecclesiastical authority to decide in particular instances the way in which scandals are to be repaired. But in general the following rules may be given:

(a) Public scandal should be repaired publicly, even though it has not actually seduced those who are aware of it; for otherwise the evil influence remains. Thus, a drunkard should take the pledge of total abstinence, or else give an example of sobriety; an apostate should renounce his errors as openly as he defended them.

(b) Private scandal may be repaired privately, that is, before the few persons who were scandalized. Thus, the husband and wife who quarrelled before their children make reparation when they tell the children not to quarrel, and when they strengthen this advice by good example.

(c) Ordinary scandal may be repaired implicitly, that is, by turning over a new leaf. Thus, one who has been away from Mass and the Sacraments for a long time makes reparation when he appears at church, goes to confession, and receives Communion; one who has been keeping bad company makes reparation when he separates from his former associates.

(d) Extraordinary scandal is repaired explicitly, that is, by making the restitution or satisfaction which justice demands, or by performing the penalty required by the law. Thus, if through treachery a person has seduced another from virtue, he must either himself or through others endeavor to recall the scandalized person to his former virtue; if a person has been guilty of laying violent hands on a cleric, he must perform the penance prescribed; if a person has distributed scandalous literature, he must try to stop its circulation, or to distribute contrary literature.

When satisfaction requires public apology or retraction, this can be made in various ways. (a) Thus, one may withdraw through the press false statements publicly made; (b) one may apologize before a number of witnesses authorized to make this known; (c) one may retract before the pastor or confessor, with the understanding that the priest will later declare that all due satisfaction has been made.

849. 3. Reparation of scandal. (A) That there exists some obligation of repairing scandal, insofar as this can be done, can be inferred from what has already been said: for if by fraternal correction we are bound to procure the amendment of the one sinning and to forestall his relapse, a fortiori when we ourselves by scandal furnished the occasion of sinning.

We incur this obligation from charity alone, if we have seduced others only by persuasion or bad example; but from justice, if by unjust means, for example by deceit, force, fear, or false doctrine, we have drawn them to sin; from office, if superiors have induced to evil subjects whom, by force of their office, they were bound to edify.

850. (B) The mode of reparation is diverse according to diverse circumstances. (a) If the scandal was public, it ought also to be repaired publicly, so that the reparation may become known and profit all to whom it was given. (b) If the scandal was given by depraved counsel, false doctrine, or bad books, one must strive first that the further influence of the scandal be removed, and second that the evil already caused be compensated by good example. Thus, if wicked counsel was given and still remains efficacious, it is necessary to revoke it, by oneself or by another, by suggesting good counsel. If certain persons were seduced by false doctrine, the errors ought to be retracted and corrected by an exposition of the truth. If many have been corrupted by depraved books, their diffusion must be impeded, insofar as this can be done, and good books written or spread.

(c) Ordinary scandals, which are furnished only by bad example, are usually sufficiently removed by cessation from the scandal, by public frequentation of the sacraments, by good example, by prayer for the one scandalized, and by other similar means.

Moreover, in order that sins opposed to charity may be avoided more securely, nothing is more efficacious than assiduously to cultivate kindness,¹ mercy, and patience, according to the words of the Apostle: "Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another; even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so also do you. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection."²

¹ Cf. Faber, Spiritual Conferences, Kindness; rendered in French as Conferences spirituelles, Bonte; Guibert, La Bonte, Paris, 1904.

² Col. 3:12-14.

4. Damage or loss caused by active scandal entails the duty of restitution, to be made either in the form of admonition, or instruction, or good example, or prayer, according to the nature of the case. If the damage done was material, material restitution is a duty, provided the damage was, or could have been, foreseen.

612. Reparation of scandal.

There exists a true obligation of repairing scandal, because through scandal the charity of neighbor has been wounded, and not rarely also the public good. Wherefore he who has given grave scandal cannot be admitted to the sacraments unless he has repaired the grave scandal given, or, if there is question of sacramental absolution, unless he has at least seriously promised the reparation of that scandal. This obligation arises from the virtue of charity, or even from the virtue of legal justice, but not from the virtue of commutative justice, unless neighbor had been seduced by means truly unjust, e.g. by threats, coercion, fraud, etc.

1. Public scandal must also be repaired publicly. The reason is obvious, namely because otherwise its evil influence is not eliminated. It is to be noted that this obligation of public reparation exists even if from the active scandal given no ruin of neighbor in fact followed. For the public good requires that the individual members of human society lead a morally ordered life. But if they have publicly neglected this obligation, they ought also publicly to return to good conduct. This return is sometimes had sufficiently if he who gave scandal now gives good example; e.g. if a notorious adulteress publicly receives the sacraments, devoutly assists at the exercises of religion, and diligently fulfills the duties of her state. Sometimes, however, good example publicly given is not sufficient for the due reparation of scandal, but besides this an express retraction is required. Thus, e.g., he who spread false doctrines ought publicly to revoke them; he who publicly gave his name to the Masonic sect is bound expressly and notoriously to retract his adherence, etc. It belongs to a prudent confessor, or parish priest, to determine the mode of reparation of public scandal. In graver cases recourse must be had to the Ordinary or to the Holy See.

2. Secret scandal must be repaired before those persons who have borne some damage from it. Hence, e.g., a seducer is bound in the best way he can to see that the seduced neighbor recover his former salvation. If from secret scandal no true damage has befallen the neighbor, then it suffices that he who gave scandal show thereafter, by his good example, the amendment made.

Scandal in Certain Particular Cases.

The whole world indeed is set in evil,¹³⁷ and there are very many things which cause scandal. But there are certain things which more frequently entice to sin, and concerning these it is usual to treat specially in the treatise on scandal. Now these things are: 1. the adornment of women, 2. obscene images and statues, 3. dances and spectacles, 4. bad books and evil newspapers.

¹³⁷ Cf. 1 Jo. 5, 19.

IV. The reparation of active scandal comes to be considered especially. It, insofar as it can be done, is obligatory: for if from charity we are all bound to guard against the fall of the neighbor and to procure the amendment of one sinning, a fortiori he who by scandal was the occasion why another sinned is so bound. The obligation arises of itself from charity alone, because the neighbor sinned knowingly and willingly, and to one knowing and willing no injury is done; and therefore the scandalizer is not bound from justice or office, unless he used unjust means, for example deceit, force, fear, or unless a superior gave scandal to subjects whose spiritual good, by force of his office, he ought to care for.

Moreover reparation generally demands two things: a) that the further influence of scandal, insofar as it can be done, be taken away; b) that the amendment of him who suffered scandal be efficaciously cared for.

To this the following principles are valid, which of themselves bind under grave obligation:

1. He who gave direct scandal and by persuasion, counsel, prayers, etc., induced the neighbor to sin or into harmful error, is bound explicitly and especially to repair it, and therefore to take away its further influence; otherwise he would persevere in being the voluntary cause of those things. Thus, for example, he who gave unjust counsels still efficacious must render them inefficacious by a revocation to be made known by himself or by another; he who proposed false doctrine must retract it; he who wrote or spread evil, impious, or obscene books is bound to impede the diffusion of the books and publicly retract them, or, if he can, to take them from the hands of others; he who ordered a plot against the Church must detest it, etc.

2. He who gave ordinary or indirect scandal by evil example alone, which is wont to cause not full perversion but only passing sins, of itself suffices to repair it implicitly and by general reparation, which is contained in the cessation itself from scandal, in good example, in public reception of the sacraments, in prayer for the one scandalized, and in other similar things.

3. He who induced the neighbor into stable perversion is bound to labor for his conversion, so that he may lead him back to virtue, whether by himself, or through others if that can more opportunely be done; namely so that the evil caused may thus be compensated.

4. He who gave public scandal is bound to repair it publicly, both so that the further harmful influence of it may be taken away, and so that the reparation, by which they are warned concerning the evil, may become known to all the scandalized and be of use to them. Wherefore notorious excommunicates and interdicted persons, or manifestly infamous persons, such as prostitutes, concubinarians, or other sinners of that kind, are to be constrained to public reparation of scandal as far as they can, if it can be done; nor can they be admitted to the sacraments unless first they have left the unspeakable business and its occasion and have publicly removed the scandal.

But the manner of public reparation can be diverse according to various circumstances: either a retraction drawn up in writing and to be spread by public papers; or pronounced before two witnesses who will afterward spread the matter; or also before the pastor or confessor, who will make known that the sinner has satisfied his obligations, etc., provided it suffices for taking away the scandal. As to the manner, it is often better to consult the Ordinary.

5. Superiors who gave scandal to subjects are bound from office to repair it. Thus, for example, the father of a family or master who scandalized his domestics is ordinarily to be bound to repairing the scandal, if it still exercises a harmful influence, so that he manifests to them displeasure concerning his evil example and paternally exhorts them not to follow it in the future.

6. He who by an unjust means, such as force, deceit, fraud, or fear unjustly inspired, induced another to sin, is bound from justice to restraining the influence of scandal, namely: a) to take away the unjust means; indeed b) also to recall the other to good, if he cannot of himself return to his former state: for although by sinning he consented, nevertheless the consent is not full, because he did not consent to the deception or violence employed. Namely each one has a strict right not to be injured unjustly in spiritual goods.

S. Th. II-II, q. 78, a. 4; q. 98, a. 4; q. 169, a. 2.

That the doctrine stated above concerning scandal may be better understood and easily brought into practice, it is useful to apply it to certain special cases and determined examples more frequently occurring, so that it may thus be expressed by rules more concrete, whether general or special.

968. General rules concerning guilt of scandal.

I. He will be guilty of active scandal, and indeed always, who asks, counsels, commands, etc., a work which cannot be done by another without sin, even if that person is prepared to sin, because this is intrinsically evil, as directly inducing to sin, or at least to the exercise and continuation of sin.

Thus he who asks sacraments from an excommunicated priest to be avoided, or absolution from a priest lacking jurisdiction, from an unbeliever that he swear by false gods, from a usurer that he lend at unjust usury, from a notary or guardian what is against his office, from a prostitute fornication, from a man onanistic intercourse, etc. Nevertheless:

a) he who asks, counsels, commands, etc., a work which indeed can be done by another without sin, but which certainly or probably will not be done without sin, for example, a loan from a usurer, is not guilty of active scandal, although he can sin against charity by reason of passive scandal, as will be said below under II, and is clear from n. 965;

b) if someone is already prepared to commit a grave evil, and cannot be drawn away from the proposal (for otherwise the persuasion would not be good), it is licit to furnish to him the occasion of a lesser evil and to permit this, indeed probably also to persuade him, but precisely as lesser, unless nevertheless an unjust damage of a third party would follow. For it is not to seek evil but good, namely, the election of a lesser evil; to draw back from a greater evil and conditionally to propose a lesser;

c) he who sins with an accomplice probably is not bound explicitly to confess the sin of scandal of which he has become guilty by seduction, because the other party, by consenting, is guilty of scandal of the same species; whence he sufficiently accuses the scandal by confessing the sin committed with the accomplice.

II. He is generally guilty of passive scandal who asks, counsels, commands, etc., a work which indeed can be done by another without sin, but which the other certainly or probably will not do without sin. He is excepted if it is done from a sufficiently grave cause.

Hence on account of necessity or sufficiently great utility it is licit to ask sacraments from a sacrilegious priest, especially if he is the parish priest; a loan from a usurer; an oath from one who is going to swear by false gods; and a wife, on account of danger of incontinence, can ask the conjugal debt from an onanistic husband (not completing intercourse).

III. Likewise he is also generally guilty of passive scandal who deliberately places something which will be an occasion of sin for another. He is excepted if it is done from a just and proportionate cause, provided the action is not actively inducing to sinning and is indifferent.

Hence it is licit for the father of a family deliberately not to remove, or even to furnish, to children or servants inclined or prepared for theft a mere occasion of sinning (for example, by exposing money or keys, or by leaving open the chest in which money is kept), not intending but permitting one theft so that several may be avoided; likewise for guards of fields, vineyards, and woods to hide themselves so that they may catch those doing damage and, once punished, turn them away from inflicting further damage, but not for this sole end, that they may catch someone from whom they may receive a fine or exact a penalty; likewise for a husband to furnish to a suspect wife a mere occasion of adultery for correcting her, or catching her, or proving infidelity.

969. Examples of active scandal. - The following are to be held guilty of very pernicious active scandal:

1. Those who retain the custom of blaspheming, especially before the younger, most of all before children.

2. Those who, after hearing grave detraction, report the matter to others: for from this arise hatreds and quarrels.

3. Those who, without the end of marriage, are messengers of love to some woman, whether married or unmarried; thus servants and domestics sin who furnish help to children of a family for fostering shameful loves.

4. Those who compose, publish, spread, indiscriminately sell to all, or hand over to others to be read, books or other writings of harmful reading.

5. Those who make, spread, or publicly sing shameful songs or poems.

6. Those who introduce into schools a pernicious method of teaching, or dangerous books. Without scandal there cannot be handed into the hands of boys anatomical or surgical books, or also books of pagan authors not sufficiently expurgated.

7. Those who establish and prolong, whether with clear words or equivocal words (sufficiently understood by the hearers), truly lascivious conversations (for example, concerning the marital act, concerning shameful ways of impeding generation, concerning those things which they have seen and done in brothels), especially before persons of diverse sex or before young persons or innocent children; - otherwise if they are said jokingly by common people, harvesters, plowmen, and other workers among themselves, because from them they are not much moved.

8. Clerics who, by retaining a person suspect to the people, furnish occasion for sins of detraction, calumny, and contempt for the clerical state.

9. Likewise wives who, by admitting handsome lovers to familiar conversations, are an offense to their husbands and others; likewise a husband who retains a maidservant suspect to the wife not without reason.

10. Likewise, in itself, parents and masters who permit to daughters or maidservants conversations in hidden places with betrothed men and lovers; they are guilty on account of their cooperation in scandal.

970. Especially in the matter of lust, they are guilty of active scandal:

A. As regards obscene images and statues, and indeed the following sin gravely:

1. Painters, sculptors, photographers, etc., who fashion images or statues truly obscene and commonly incentives to lust; unless it is done from a just cause, for example, for the study of anatomical science. Now those are obscene which intend to exhibit the altogether immodest parts of an adult person naked or covered only with a thin veil, or represent gravely impure acts, or altogether lascivious forms.

2. Those who expose images or statues of this kind publicly to the eyes of all in shops or in houses or gardens; likewise those who sell them, unless it is done to those who devote themselves to anatomical science.

3. Those who spread them, carry them around, or furnish an occasion of seeing them.

But images of eminent art, in viewing which those looking are moved especially by the artistic mode of representing or by the idea represented rather than by nudity, it is licit to keep in collections and museums; nevertheless it would be necessary that they not be handed over indiscriminately to all to be viewed, but to experts in art and persons of mature age. Therefore it also seems licit to make and reproduce the aforesaid images, and to sell them to experts in art or serious persons.

B. As regards spectacles and dances, which in themselves are not illicit, although they often are an occasion of sin; whence one must dissuade from these and take care lest they be introduced:

1. Authors and actors of plays in which virtue or good morals or religion is not spared sin gravely; or of very shameful theatrical dances in which, on account of immodest clothing, obscene modes of dancing, or lascivious gestures or touchings, great turpitude appears.

2. Likewise those who hold at their houses dances or very shameful and lascivious dances, such as generally are meetings which are called masked balls.

3. Likewise those who promote or approve them with much money or applause.

4. Likewise musicians who cooperate by their music, or owners and inhabitants by renting the place, unless it is done from a graver cause, for example, by reason of grave damage.

5. Indeed those who assist at or participate in such things, unless they are not moved from them to sin and are not a scandal to others by evil example.

C. As regards the concession or procuring of a place for sinning:

1. Innkeepers sin most gravely who furnish secret rooms for lust; likewise a private person who grants a place to those requesting it for sinning, unless perhaps, says Lehmkuhl, a wholly grave necessity is present, in which case he ought still to manifest displeasure.

2. To rent a house to prostitutes (likewise to usurers) in villages and small cities is illicit; but in great cities, in which, for avoiding a greater evil, prostitutes are permitted, it is not illicit (especially if other tenants are lacking), unless this would gravely harm the neighbors, or by reason of the location there would be a special convenience for sinning so that seductions and sins would be multiplied, or it would be grave scandal to others, as also easily happens.

3. Drivers conveying others to a brothel are not excused by reason of wages, but only on account of grave damage to be avoided, for example, if they fear lest they be dismissed and not easily find another master, or if by civil precept they are bound to convey travelers wherever they wish. They can never exhibit service for leading someone more securely or more secretly, or indicate to one ignorant where the brothel is; unless perhaps on account of the greatest damage (cf. n. 492, B).

D. As regards concubinage and merely civil marriage, see our little work De Variis Peccatis in sacramentali confessione medendis, c. II, § B, q. 2, n. V-VIII.