Prostitution

16. Concubinage and prostitution are referred to fornication.

1. Concubinage is frequent intercourse of an unmarried man with one and the same unmarried person. It differs from fornication in this, that a concubinarian always approaches the same person with whom he lives as if he had been joined with her in marriage; but a fornicator approaches now one, now another. Nevertheless, it has no bearing on the nature of concubinage whether they live in the same or in diverse houses. Therefore the proper malice of concubinage consists in the purpose, at least virtual, of persevering in sin.

a. Because a concubinarian is occupied in a proximate occasion of sinning, which he is held under grave obligation to abandon, he cannot be absolved unless he casts out the concubine; or if he does not have her at home, unless he has seriously promised that he will no longer approach her. And if he has a concubine at home, he ought to cast her out, even if he is in danger of death; and only where death is now imminent and time is lacking for casting her out can he be absolved, after eliciting a firm purpose of casting her out as soon as it can be done.

b. If in some parish two persons live in concubinage, one must proceed against them in this way.

a. First, they are to be admonished privately by the pastor, or by others, so that they amend themselves and make an end of a depraved and scandalous life.

b. If the admonition lacks effect, the matter is to be referred to the ordinary, who by his office ought to admonish public sinners; this can also be done by the pastor in the name of the bishop.

c. But if this admonition also is fruitless, the ordinary is to inflict excommunication, either publicly, to remove scandal, or privately through the pastor. Those who do not amend themselves are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial.

d. If ecclesiastical admonition lacks effect, the help of the civil power can and must be invoked where this is offered.

2. Prostitution is the state of a woman prostituted to all, whether for the sake of gain or of satisfying lust. In order that she can be called a prostitute, she must admit at least more than two. The proper malice of this sin also consists in the depraved will of accumulating sins.

Note. Fornicators are to be asked whether offspring has been born from the fornication, whether they impeded generation or procured abortion, whether perhaps they neglected the offspring born. As regards prostitutes it must be noted that many and diverse seeds in the womb impede generation.

17. Malice. 1. Fornication is always a mortal sin: for it is gravely prohibited both by the law of nature and by positive law.

a. By the law of nature. Caramuel had said that fornication is illicit only by positive law, but falsely: for it is opposed to the good of offspring and therefore to the propagation of the human race. Certainly those who fornicate seek vague concubitus, i.e. venereal delectation of intercourse without the obligations and burdens of marriage; but vague concubitus tends to the destruction of human society. For offspring, whose apt education requires not only the care of the mother but also the care of the father, is not sufficiently provided for; therefore it is gravely prohibited by the law of nature. And although accidentally offspring might be educated well by a fornicator, nevertheless fornication is always a grave sin, because what happens commonly and ordinarily must be considered, not what happens accidentally.¹

b. By positive law. St. Paul, in the places cited above, n. 11, counts fornication among the sins which exclude from the kingdom of heaven; moreover, in 1 Cor. 6, 15 ff., he shows by many internal reasons the deformity of fornication.

2. Concubinage and prostitution do not differ specifically from fornication; wherefore the circumstance of concubinage and prostitution of itself need not be declared in confession. But accidentally, on account of the occasion of sin, it must be declared to the confessor, especially when he asks. From the great number of sins which are accused, the confessor can easily suspect that there is question of concubinage or prostitution.

¹ Therefore this proposition, 48, was condemned by Innocent XI: Thus it seems clear that fornication involves no malice in itself and is evil only because it is forbidden, so that the contrary seems altogether discordant with reason.

18. On prostitution. 1. Prostitution is lust exercised by women for pay. Public prostitution, which is distinguished from clandestine prostitution, is called that which is permitted by the civil power and is either unlimited or limited and moderated according to certain norms of morality and health.

Namely, only to women to whom a certificate of health is granted by physicians is permission conceded for exercising prostitution, and this only under certain conditions by which public morality is provided for.

Clandestine prostitution especially flourishes where public prostitution is not admitted by the civil power; but even in states which admit public prostitution, clandestine prostitution prevails.¹

2. But if the public power is said to permit prostitution, permission must be understood in such a way that it tolerates what it cannot impede without a greater evil; and the laws by which it moderates it tend to this, that harms to public honesty and health may be avoided.

a. The magistrate can admit clandestine prostitution as a lesser evil for impeding greater evils, pollution, sodomy, bestiality, etc.

a. Prostitutes certainly cannot be permitted by reason of the vehemence by which the carnal appetite inclines toward venereal matters, nor by reason of health, which would require that satisfaction be given to the rising carnal appetite; nor can they be permitted in any village whatever, but only in great cities and under certain conditions by which scandals are removed. Recent non-Catholic physicians judge each reason brought forward sufficient so that prostitutes can be admitted. But the will ought to resist the carnal appetite, however vehement, as it resists all other temptations; moreover, according to the authorship of physicians themselves, health is not endangered by the fact that the carnal appetite is repressed.

b. Whether greater evils are truly impeded through prostitution, or whether rather sins are increased by greater opportunity of sinning, is not established among experts. According to the mind of St. Augustine² and St. Thomas,³ they can be impeded through prostitutes.

b. There are those who judge that public prostitution must be reproved and abolished. For the laws by which it is moderated tend to this, that harms to public honesty and health may be avoided; but experience being witness, these evils, especially dangers to health, are not excluded. For even from those for whom a certificate of health is at hand, innumerable persons are infected with syphilis, which authors call the French disease, and from these the same plague is derived also into mother and offspring.

c. Brothels seem in no way to be tolerated: for first, through a brothel provision is not made for health; but great harm is brought to morality both because an easy occasion of sinning is offered and because sin appears as if permitted by law.

¹ In Berlin there are 5000 public prostitutes and 40000 clandestine ones; in Vienna 2000 public ones and 20000 clandestine ones.

² De ordine, l. 2, c. 4.

³ Cf. St. Thomas II-II, q. 10, a. 11, and the author of the work De regimine principum, l. 4, c. 14.

III. To fornication are referred concubinage and prostitution; likewise, in a certain way, the intercourse of a castrated man and of one who has undergone vasectomy, and onanistic intercourse.

1. Concubinage is carnal and habitual commerce between the same persons, whether they live in the same house or in different houses. The circumstance of concubinage does not change the species of the sin, so that of itself it need not be opened in confession; nevertheless, it must be manifested to the confessor if he asks.

Concerning penalties, they establish:

Canon 2357, § 2: Those who... publicly live in concubinage... are to be excluded from legitimate ecclesiastical acts until they have given signs of true repentance.

Canon 2359, § 1: Clerics in sacred orders, whether secular or religious, who are concubinarians, after a warning has been uselessly given, are to be compelled to withdraw from illicit cohabitation and to repair scandal by suspension from divine offices, deprivation of the fruits of office, benefice, and dignity.

Question: whether the public power can tolerate concubinage prevailing in colonies, in which, namely, officials both civil and military take an indigenous woman as a concubine, whom, when they return to their homeland, they abandon.

Response. In view both of the very great difficulty of removing that nefarious custom and of those things which will soon be alleged by some in favor of tolerating prostitutes, and which seem to have greater force for colonies than for other regions, the said concubinage can quite probably be tolerated.

Nevertheless Vermeersch rightly writes: "These things... the public power or magistracy ought carefully to guard:

a) That no legitimate wife, nor also any woman converted to the faith, be permitted to be admitted as a concubine, so that in this way due honor may be preserved both for marriage and for religion;

b) That every concubinage of a woman who has not fully matured, and every abduction and artful seduction of any woman whatsoever, be severely repressed.

c) That exterior decency be provided for. It cannot be permitted that these concubines as such be brought forward openly, and be led about as if legitimate wives and be treated with favors. On the contrary, it is necessary that the need of in some way veiling or concealing that shameful commerce contain a tacit reproof of the thing.

d) That those who preserve chaste morals be preferred, as being of themselves better for fulfilling offices, at least other things being equal.

Finally, it is to be wished that in Europe we prepare better cultivators of those regions; and that, by entering into a compact, those who there remain good may be better protected from human respect and from the contagion of vices."¹

2. Prostitution consists in this, that a woman is prepared to grant the use of her body to anyone. A woman given over to prostitution is called a prostitute; the house where - commonly with others - she dwells is called a brothel. Concerning the circumstance of prostitution, what has just been said about concubinage holds.

Prostitution is distinguished: 1. into public and clandestine, according as it is admitted by the public power, or is not admitted and is practiced clandestinely; 2. into brothel prostitution and free prostitution, the latter of which is practiced in streets and frequented places.

The public power cannot tolerate free prostitution, since it offers an occasion of sinning to those not seeking one. Nor can it tolerate brothel prostitution in smaller places. Whether it can do so, with the necessary conditions observed,² in great cities is disputed. Some affirm this, namely so that greater evils may be forestalled, such as pollution, sodomy, bestiality, the seduction of honorable girls, and venereal diseases.³ Others deny it, and judge that, on the one hand, greater evils are not notably diminished by tolerated brothels, while on the other hand sins are notably multiplied thereby. "Through prostitutes," says St. Alphonsus, "... greater evils are not avoided; because in lustful men, from easy and frequent intercourse with prostitutes, libido fixes deeper roots. And therefore, since this vice is increased more by frequency, they do not cease to commit pollutions and abominable sins, at least with the prostitutes themselves; nor for that reason do they abstain from soliciting honorable women. - Conversely, by the permission of prostitutes, innumerable other evils are added besides: namely more girls are prostituted, young men despise their parents, dissipate their goods, neglect scientific studies, stir up quarrels, and reject honorable marriages" (III, 434).

St. Augustine,⁴ whose words St. Thomas adduces (II-II, q. 10, a. 11), is commonly said to favor the milder opinion, to which also the author of the little work On the Governance of Princes⁵ adheres. St. Alphonsus, as is clear from the words cited above, already inclined to the more severe opinion, which today, because circumstances have changed, seems wholly to be followed. For - apart from the fact that brothels, as we have noted, always seem to have multiplied sins rather than diminished them - first, the crimes of which the adversaries speak are, because of the stricter public discipline, more forestalled. Next, brothels can now scarcely be relegated to the "meaner and remote" places of great cities. Moreover, in view of the greater ease of travel and the increased commerce with great cities, houses of prostitutes can easily be, and are, approached from everywhere, even from villages. Finally, the permission of brothels favors that detestable traffic in women and girls which internationally provides brothels of great cities continually with new victims of lust, not rarely unwilling or deceived; this reason alone has already impelled several nations, and even the League of Nations, both to oppose the system, hitherto quite commonly prevailing, of permitting brothels, and to promote "abolitionism," which reproves every connivance in this matter on the part of civil authority.⁶

3. The intercourse of a castrated man and of one who has undergone vasectomy⁷ (an unmarried man with an unmarried woman) is to be reduced to fornication. Onanistic intercourse of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman is pollution in effect, with an affection toward fornication added (n. 51).

¹ De castitate et de vitiis contrariis, n. 213.

² Namely, brothels must be relegated to the meaner and remote regions of the city.

³ Even prostitutes to whom a certificate of health has been granted infect very many with venereal disease.

⁴ "Remove prostitutes from human affairs: you will disturb all things with lusts" (De Ordine, l. 2, c. 4, n. 12; in Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. 32, col. 1000). It should be noted, however, that the aforesaid words do not so clearly express the opinion of St. Augustine. If we consider what the holy Doctor teaches in his Retractations and in his exposition against Faustus, he seems to adhere to the more severe opinion (Marc-Gestermann, Institutiones morales Alphonsianae I, n. 775, note).

⁵ L. 4, c. 14, after the middle.

⁶ Dutch law establishes penalties: 1. against pimps, that is, those who preside over a brothel (Penal Code, art. 250bis); 2. against those who take profit from a woman's lust, or souteneurs, as they are called (Penal Code, art. 452); 3. against those who for pay hand women over to prostitution (vrouwenhandelaars; Penal Code, art. 250ter).

⁷ Those castrated after puberty and those who have undergone vasectomy are capable of seminal emission in the first or second intercourse, namely until the epididymis has been emptied; after that emptying they can indeed preserve erectility and penetrate the vagina, and even ejaculate some liquid, but that liquid is not true semen.

45. Proposition. Concubinage and prostitution is not a special sin, but only a circumstance of sin, not per se necessarily to be declared in confession. - It is proved. For concubinage properly is frequented intercourse of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman. But prostitution is intercourse with a woman ready for every man who comes. Therefore, although concubinage and prostitution are a graver sin on account of the will persevering in sin, it is neither a special sin nor a circumstance of sin per se changing the species. Nevertheless that circumstance must be manifested per accidens: 1. by reason of scandal, when the concubinage or prostitution would be public; 2. for manifesting the state and kind of occasions, and it must always be opened to the confessor asking, as is clear from proposition 58 condemned by Innocent XI. L. 432; G. 421.

46. Note. 1. Prostitution per se does not impede generation, nor does it procure sterility, if no injury of the organs is had from frequent acts of lasciviousness. For prostitutes not rarely conceive, and even sometimes experience abortion, which they scarcely care about, a little mass of matter having been cast out. And this ordinarily has place in the earlier days of conception. Commonly, however, conception of offspring is not had; but a circumstance of this kind does not change the nature of the sin, since it is per accidens, just as if someone were to fornicate with a sterile woman or with an old woman. But that, if offspring is born, it is uncertain of what father it is, and from this is badly educated, this is a circumstance not specifically proper to prostitution, but to fornication, and therefore it is not essentially distinguished from it. Cf. here n. 43. But if uncertainty of offspring of this kind perhaps is greater in prostitution, nevertheless it is known that more and less do not change the species. - Billuart, diss. 6, art. 2, You ask first.

2. Men going to prostitutes use a certain means, lest they be affected by them with syphilitic disease. But by this means an impediment of generation is had, although intercourse on each side remains in species and externally normal, without any withdrawal of the man or woman. An obstacle of this kind is sometimes presented on the part of the woman, who intends only the impediment of conception, since she can in no way avert contagion by this mode. If, therefore, either by intention only, or also in reality itself, an obstacle is placed to generation, then indeed there will be a special circumstance, but an extrinsic one, necessarily to be declared in confession. Debreyne, Moechialogie, part 1, ch. 1, art. 2, Sect. 1.

47. Is it also a sin of scandal to seek fornication from a prostitute ready to sin?

R. "There are not lacking several doctors who say that it is not a sin of scandal, because since such a woman is always in actual or virtual will of sinning, he who furnishes to her an occasion of executing that sin is not judged to cooperate gravely but lightly. Thus Soto, etc. I venerate the authority of such doctors, but I would not dare to depart from the contrary opinion, which I judge must be followed, and which Sanchez, etc., hold. The reason seems to me very powerful, because although the prostitute is in actual will of sinning, nevertheless she certainly brings upon herself a ruin gravely greater by completing that particular sin of fornication. Therefore he who cooperates with her for consummating the sin sins gravely in two ways, both against charity and against chastity." L., l. 2, n. 47.

48. Can prostitutes be permitted?

R. "The first probable opinion affirms; and the Salmanticenses and St. Thomas hold it, and St. Augustine clearly adheres to it. The reason is that, prostitutes removed, worse sins would happen, namely sodomies, bestialities, softnesses, besides the corruption of honorable women. But the second opinion, more probable practically, denies; and Roncaglia, Navarrus, etc., hold this. The reason is that through prostitutes these graver evils are not avoided, because in lustful men, from easy and frequent congress with prostitutes, lust fixes deeper roots; and therefore, since this vice is increased more by frequency, they do not cease to commit pollutions and unspeakable sins, at least with the prostitutes themselves, nor for this reason do they abstain from soliciting honorable women. Conversely, by the permission of prostitutes innumerable other evils are superadded, namely, more girls are prostituted; adolescents esteem their parents lightly; they dissipate goods, neglect studies of the sciences, stir up quarrels, and reject honorable nuptials. For the rest, Father Sarnelli well observes that although in vast cities prostitutes can be permitted, nevertheless in other places they are in no way to be permitted." L. 434.

49. Corollary. In cities in which, for the sake of avoiding a greater evil, it is permitted that prostitutes live, it is lawful to rent a house to them, especially if other tenants are lacking or it would be easy for them to rent other buildings, unless nevertheless the prostitutes would gravely harm honorable neighbors, or because of the site would give greater occasion for sins. G., t. 1, n. 250; L., l. 2, n. 70; Ithurriaga, Cas. 26; St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 10, art. 11.

50. Is it lawful to serve prostitutes or concubinaries?

R. Negatively, per se and ordinarily speaking, both on account of scandal and also on account of the greatest danger of lapse. Therefore those cases which in practice must be excepted will have to be judged from the degree of necessity and from the circumstances of persons removing scandal and proximate danger of sinning.

51. Note. 1. It is lawful for a servant to open the door to a concubine or prostitute, especially when, if he did not open it, there would be another who would open it. L., l. 2, n. 66; Roncaglia, tr. 6, cap. 6, reg. in prax. observ. IV.

2. Laymann, l. 2, tr. 3, cap. 13, n. 5, has these things: "It is lawful for a servant to admit through the door a woman with whom his master is going to sin, to carry a torch before him, to prepare the bed, as Sanchez, Navarrus, Rodriguez, Azor teach, because material cooperation of this kind is sufficiently remote, and without it the sin would nevertheless be committed." Cf. also Struggl, tr. 4, q. 5, n. 37, and Tamburini, Expl. Decal., l. 5, cap. 1, par. 4, n. 18, where he has these things: "The very common reason of service and attendance is a proportionate cause why a servant, son, in one word a subject, doing the following works indifferent in themselves, is excused. First... Second, if by command of the same master, whom he knows is going to commit adultery, he saddles the horse, merely accompanies him, and merely waits before the doors (merely, I say, that is, not so that he may keep watch and render him bolder for sinning), prepares the bed, seasons foods and serves the concubine, and merely accompanies her, leading her to the place where the master is going to sin, and opens the door for her as she is about to enter. Third, if he adorns his mistress, a prostitute, if he carries writings and messages full only of urbanity, if he carries small gifts and foods, and performs other offices which another servant would perform equally." Sporer, de 8 praecepto, c. 1, n. 99, also excuses the servant carrying gifts to a prostitute, "because," he says, "on the one hand they are bound by office and condition to serve and obey their masters; but on the other hand cooperation with sin is merely material and only remote."

Yet others require another very grave reason, because since these gifts are apt for fostering lust, the cooperation seems sufficiently proximate. And because of this very reason it is not lawful for a servant to carry amorous letters to the concubine of his master, unless besides the common reason of service there is present a graver and proportionate reason. For the rest, the servant is not bound to inquire what is contained in the letters.

St. Alphonsus, l. 2, n. 64, 65, 66, 67, for a servant accompanying his master to a brothel or saddling the horse, in order that he be excused, requires fear of grave harm; for a servant opening the door to a prostitute, in order that he be excused, he requires that, if he himself does not open, there be another who would open. But he judges that carrying gifts to a prostitute is intrinsically evil, and that it is never lawful to carry amorous letters to the master's concubine.

3. But it would be altogether illicit for a servant to put his shoulders under, or to carry a ladder for, a master climbing to fornicate, to open the door by force, and similar things; for the cooperation is altogether proximate, and makes the sin easier with the gravest harm of a third party. Yet since these actions are not intrinsically evil, they would still not be illicit if fear of death or mutilation were added. St. Alphonsus, l. 2, n. 66, adds that no other fear excuses the one cooperating, except death. For otherwise, because of fear of loss of resources or of infamy alone, it is not lawful to concur in the dishonoring of a girl to be deflowered. Cf. L., l. 3, n. 571.

52. Is it lawful to have a concubinary maidservant?

R. If the maidservant is publicly concubinary, it is not lawful to retain her by reason of scandal and most evil example. But if she is secretly concubinary, then a distinction must be made. For either her lover also is retained at home, or not. In the first case it is not lawful to retain her, even if other male and female servants cannot easily be found. For thus the master would be receiving sinners, and sinners more safely and conveniently, and consequently he himself would foster the sin of his servants. But in the other case the master is also bound to cast out the maidservant, if it can prudently be hoped that from such expulsion she will return to good fruit. But if it were likely that, expelled from the house, she would become worse (which certainly could easily be presumed), then it is lawful for him to retain such a maidservant, provided she is not pernicious to the family, which can easily happen. The reason is that in the former case he seems to favor the sin of the maidservant, but not likewise in the latter. And this would be all the more lawful if notable harm to the master would follow from that expulsion, if, for example, he would lack due and necessary service. Cf. Tamburini, Expl. Decal., l. 5, cap. 1, par. 4, nn. 21, 22; Elbel, de Act. hum., Conf. 1, Cas. 3.

53. Can a concubinary be absolved before he has dismissed the concubine?

R. 1. If the concubinage has been public, neither the concubinary nor the concubine regularly can be absolved, however much they appear contrite, before public separation, because besides the danger to be fled, satisfaction proportionate to the scandal is necessary; moreover this satisfaction commonly can be obtained by separation alone. It is said regularly, because one placed in extremis, having no one except the concubine who may minister necessary things to him, can be absolved and fortified with the other sacraments, provided he is truly contrite and promises, before those standing by, if the intercourse was public, that he will cast out the concubine as soon as he is able. The same must be said of the concubine placed in the same necessity.

For in such necessity scandal is repaired in the mode in which it can be repaired; for no one is held to the impossible. Bouvier, l. c., art. 2. Indeed, with necessity pressing, not even that promise before those standing by seems necessary, because in these circumstances scandal will easily cease on account of the evident necessity of the matter itself. And this has place a fortiori if there would only be question of absolution to be given secretly, and not also, because of shortness of time, of administering Extreme Unction and Viaticum. And here the doctors observe that the Holy Eucharist is not to be carried to a prostitute dying in a public brothel, on account of public decency and because it is not absolutely necessary. Gury-Dumas, Cas., t. 2, n. 721-723.

R. 2. If the concubinage has been occult, either the concubine can be dismissed without scandal or another grave harm of reputation or fortune, or not. If the first, some apud St. Alphonsus affirm for the first or second time, provided he sincerely grieves and promises that he will cast her out; the reason is that the penitent is sufficiently disposed. Others altogether deny even for the first time, because he is in proximate occasion, and until he removes it, one cannot prudently be certain of his sufficient disposition. St. Alphonsus also affirms, but when it is morally impossible that the concubine can be dismissed shortly before absolution. "For otherwise absolution must always be deferred, because experience too clearly establishes that, once absolution has been obtained, the occasion is afterwards with difficulty removed, and thus one most easily returns to the vomit." L. 436 and l. 3, n. 682; Billuart, Diss. 6, art. 2, App. 2, You ask third. If the second, he certainly can be absolved, if he sincerely grieves and promises to apply the means which are suggested to him; but it is altogether expedient, says St. Alphonsus, "that absolution at least be deferred until the continence of the penitent is proved by experiment; unless the case were that the penitent (otherwise sufficiently disposed, as is supposed) could no longer return to confess sins; or if there were imminent necessity of communicating, for avoiding positive infamy." L. 435.

54. Corollaries. 1. In the article of death, "if the concubinage is occult, separation will not per se have to be urged under denial of absolution, on account of the scandal which would ordinarily follow if the concubine were dismissed in these circumstances. For thus the intercourse, which is occult, would be publicly manifested. But a promise must be obtained from the dying man of dismissing the maidservant if he recovers; and meanwhile care must be taken that there be at least separation from the dwelling, and that the maidservant not approach him except under urgent necessity." Gury-Dumas, Cas., t. 2, n. 724. - But there will be no further difficulty, whether the concubinage is occult or public, if, as can easily be done at present, marriage is legitimately celebrated.

2. Those who by occasion of exercising a lawful art are in the proximate occasion of sin, if they show signs of true penitence with a purpose of guarding against the occasion as much as they can, by applying due means, are not bound to abandon their art, which cannot be done without grave inconvenience. Hence surgeons are to be absolved who by healing women are in an occasion of sinning. The same must be said of a pastor who in hearing the confessions of women voluntarily pollutes himself. A woman also can be absolved who lives by lodging guests, and sins by occasion of lodging, and therefore falls with different persons, and also falls with some particular person, provided she proposes thereafter to avoid conversing alone with one alone. L. 438, 483; d. 6, n. 455. - "A maidservant vividly solicited by her master is bound to leave his house; for one who freely dwells where he is so dangerously enticed to evil cannot reasonably hope for victory over temptation, except by extraordinary helps of grace, which cannot be hoped for without temerity by him who can freely avoid danger and does not avoid it. Yet these things must be understood if a person of this kind is frail and little devout; for if she were devoted to piety, and cautious, and applied fitting remedies for repelling temptations and resisting passion, then I would not bind her to removing the occasion." L. ibid., 452.

55. Note. "Remedies for those who are found in the proximate occasion especially of base sin are greater prayer, more frequent use of the Sacraments, daily renewal before an image of the Crucified of the promise of sinning no more and of avoiding being alone with one alone, fleeing from the sight of the accomplice, and similar things." L., l. 6, n. 455, 464.

56. What are the penalties laid down by law against concubinaries?

R. As regards Italian and French Civil Law, there is no special penalty. As regards Canon Law, there are none latae sententiae; but all are ferendae sententiae, except suspension incurred ipso facto by bishops if, after they have been admonished by a Provincial Synod, they have not amended. Trent, sess. 24, c. 8, de Ref. Matr.; sess. 25, c. 14, de Reg.; Bouix, l. c., n. 44; L. 442; Billuart, Diss. 6, art. 2, You ask fifth.

Note: "He who only begins intercourse, but does not complete it, nor emits seed, must explain this very thing, because although then there is fornication begun and in affection, nevertheless it is not fornication in reality; but it is an immodest act, and the extreme of immodesty. Much more, he who begins the same intercourse, and then recoils after nature has already been excited, and scatters seed, must explain; because there is already a double malice, namely fornication begun and in affection, and consummated softness, as is clear per se." Sporer 575, 576; Struggl 25; Lugo de Poenit. d. 16, n. 237 seqq.; L. l. 6, n. 916. Concubinage does not differ in species from fornication; it is habitual and continued fornication. Nor does meretriciousness, which only designates the condition of the woman who is prepared to grant the use of her body to all. These conditions are to be explained in Confession, not by reason of a diverse species of sin, but by reason of custom and occasion of several sins.

So much for the interior disposition of the minister. Now for the act of administration. As the minister acts in the name and by authority of the Church, the first rule is that he must comply with her directions. Sancta sancte tractanda. Hence it is a mortal sin knowingly to employ the wrong matter or form, or, except in case of necessity, a matter or form of doubtful validity; since this would endanger the Sacrament. In cases of necessity (iusta causa) a doubtful matter or form may be employed, because the Sacraments are instituted for the sake of men (sacramenta propter homines). It is likewise sinful (mortally or venially, according to the circumstances of each case) to alter or mutilate the words of the form, to utter them inarticulately or without devotion, or to omit important rites or ceremonies prescribed by the Church. If this is done out of contempt for Christ or the Church, or if it causes grave scandal, the minister commits a mortal sin, and even when the motive is mere negligence, a mortal sin is committed every time the object is materia gravis.⁶ 2. The faithful have a right to the Sacraments, and hence all duly appointed ministers of the Church are bound in justice to administer the same whenever they are asked, and should always be ready and willing to comply with every reasonable request, nay exhort their people to make frequent use of the divinely appointed means of grace.⁷ It is a mortal sin for a priest entrusted with the care of souls to refuse to administer a Sacrament without good reason, or to administer it with manifest reluctance. Such conduct is apt to deter the faithful from the reception of the Sacraments and easily causes scan- dal. The duty of administering Baptism and Penance, in particular, binds even when there is danger of contracting a contagious disease or incurring grave risk to life or limb.⁸ Of course, all reasonable precautions may and should be taken in such cases. The duty just mentioned does not bind priests who are not officially engaged in pastoral work, though all are bound to respond to urgent calls when there is grave necessity, as, e. g., on the field of battle, or when some one is seriously ill or dying and no other priest can be had. The same rule applies to a pastor in his conduct towards those not under his care. We need hardly add, however, that no true priest will confine himself to what is of strict duty in matters of this kind.

⁶ Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VII, De Sacr., can. 13 (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 856); Rit. Rom., De Administr. Sacram., tit. 1, n. 11.

⁷ Cfr. Concilium Trident., Sess. XXIII, De Ref., c. i; Rit. Rom., De Administr. Sacram., n. 5.

⁸ John X, 11-13. —Benedict XIV, De Synodo Dioecesana, XIII, c. 19, n. 8.—Cfr. I. Chapeauville, Tract. de Necessitate et Modo Ministrandi Sacramento, Tempore Pestis, Mayence 1612.

The intellectual and the material aspects of human labor as a factor in the advancement of civilization and culture are aptly summarized in the ancient Benedictine adage: "Ora et labora —Pray and work!"⁷

⁷ See Anonymus, Die Regel des hl. Benedikt, pp. 345 sqq.

212. - No small controversy has arisen today concerning women who are accustomed to prostitute their modesty. From antiquity it was already tolerated that women, at least adults, should make gain from their body; indeed, private houses were admitted in which hired prostitutes stood for sale to all.

But by the laws of a more recent age, only those women are permitted to exercise that shameful commerce who, having been examined rather often by appointed physicians, can give assurance concerning a healthy body. Their names are inscribed in special registers.

Now, there are not lacking those who strongly attack these hygienic precautions. For they are shown to be ineffective in averting the dangers of diseases; the force of seduction is increased by the false security which they seem to give; moreover, that public, as it were, protection of lust is scandalous; finally, in order to evade these laws, not a few public officials are corrupted by money or even by a worse means by the patrons of prostitutes or by the prostitutes themselves.

Furthermore, the "feminists" thus insist: is it not to be borne indignantly that such laws introduce that scandalous inequality between the two sexes by which men are permitted with impunity to infect wretched women with their diseases, while only the male sex is protected from contagion? Are not most women corrupted by men?

Why, then, must women alone, but not the young men and men who enter brothels, exhibit their body to a physician?

Hence they propose laws, and indeed have already obtained them, for example in Denmark, by which, in place of that required bodily inspection, penalties are established against anyone who deliberately or imprudently infects another with venereal disease. And in several regions already, for example in England, decrees concerning the registration and examination of women have been abolished. Supporters and opponents of liberty contend among themselves over the better or worse state of morals and bodily vigor thence resulting, and they appeal to "statistical" rationales. (Cf. Moll, Handbuch, etc., p. 361 ff.)

There is no leisure to consider these things at greater length. But it can be asked more universally whether reasons still remain why brothels, indeed the infamous trade in one's own body, should be tolerated. Formerly they feared that, if prostitutes were suppressed, honorable girls would be too greatly molested by impure men ¹. Since we now employ a stronger and more skillful public discipline (police), is there reason why we should fear such things? Nor are hidden ways of satisfying lust lacking to vicious men. Most prostitutes are clandestine and evade the laws, by which argument also it is contended that those laws should be abolished. In the year 1911, the city of Berlin counted scarcely 3,706 prostitutes inscribed in the registers, while about 25,000 seem to make gain from their body there ². "In Berlin," says Noldin ³, "there are 5,000 public prostitutes and 40,000 clandestine; in Vienna, 2,000 public and 20,000 clandestine." In Brussels (in the city properly so called) in the year 1904, only six brothels existed, which, taken together, contained about 60 prostitutes; but in all, 190 prostitutes were entered in the registers. Add now the social scandal flowing from that legal recognition. Because of prostitutes, the institution of marriage is mocked, and those who pursue innovations thence inveigh against the present order ⁴. Certainly, in England, Mrs. Josephine Butler attacked the public tolerance of prostituting one's body. In Berlin and London, brothels have been proscribed; throughout Denmark and in the city of New York, prostitution itself is punished by penalties.

¹ Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 3, no. 434, where he cites the saying of Augustine: "Remove prostitutes from human affairs, and you will throw all things into confusion through lusts" (De Ordine, book 2, chapter 4, no. 12. M. 32, 1000). They also add that, if prostitutes were suppressed, worse sins of sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation would occur. But it has long since been answered that those sins are not removed by prostitutes, while many other evils are added. Cf. St. Alphonsus in the place cited.

² Moll, Handbuch, p. 371.

³ De sexto, no. 18, note 1.

⁴ Cf., for example, Forel, La question sexuelle, p. 327: Prostitution et proxénétisme.

These things are to be diligently observed by the theologian, lest he appear to adhere late to a useful reform, far from having laudably begun any himself ⁵.

⁵ Noldin also reports the controversy concerning public prostitution; but brothels seem to him by no means tolerable. (De sexto, no. 18, at the end.)

There is therefore no reason why we should despair of a better state of public morals. Meanwhile, we shall commend laws which, as in Belgium, strictly forbid taverns to be erected in a brothel; by this law alone the infamous houses have been greatly diminished in number. (Cf. Moll, Handbuch, p. 355.)

We shall also praise municipal authorities which attend with diligent care lest clandestine brothels be established.

Above all we shall praise laws and societies, such as the international association Pour combattre la traite des blanches, which everywhere endeavors to protect girls from seduction and servitude. For this end, the international work for the protection of girls (Oeuvre catholique de la protection de la jeune fille) also accomplishes many things.

213. - A related question, not yet treated by theologians, so far as we know, concerns the toleration of a certain concubinage in the colonies. For it is established that, in various regions of Africa or the Indies, not a few European officials of both the civil and military order, whether unmarried or separated from a spouse, take for themselves as a concubine a woman of an uncultivated people, for example of the Negroes, whom, while they remain there, they keep in place of a wife, but abandon when they return to Europe.

Certainly that manifestation of European corruption is to be lamented, by which our presence, which ought to have been beneficent and salutary, becomes scandalous and harmful; and the vices which, if the invitation of divine Providence is considered, ought to have been eradicated by us are confirmed.

There is added a most grave danger of abduction. For these women of a weak and little-cultivated people are commonly both lustful and exceedingly desirous of an easier life; many live in an abject condition of servitude; morally, all are in the hand and arbitrary power of some venal parent. How many occasions, therefore, can a European man seize to obtain these women by force, money, or seduction!

Wherefore these women, even when they consent to concubinage, cannot be compared with women of our regions who spontaneously and deliberately foster illicit relations; but their consent is to be regarded as proceeding from a minor.

Wherefore those commercial societies are greatly to be praised which endeavor so to select their agents that by their morals they may honor the name of Europeans and by their authority promote in no slight degree the preaching of the Gospel.

But so many and such kinds of men go to those distant shores that chaste morals cannot be hoped for from all. A law would attempt in vain to restrain or abolish concubinage with women of those regions.

In view of this difficulty, and in view of the opinion of those learned men who, in order to avoid the worse sins of sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation, did not condemn the toleration of prostitutes, at least in certain places ⁶, it seems that probable reasons can be adduced why the concubinage of which we speak can be tolerated - not positively approved.

⁶ Cf. the author of De regimine Principum, book 4, chapter 14; St. Alphonsus, book 3, no. 434.

Nevertheless, this public power or the magistrates ought solicitously to take care:

1. That no woman who is a lawful wife, and likewise no woman converted to the faith, be permitted to be admitted as a concubine, so that fitting honor may thus be preserved both for nuptials and for religion;

2. That every concubinage with a woman who has not fully reached maturity be severely repressed, as well as every abduction and artful seduction of any woman;

3. That provision be made for exterior decency. It cannot be permitted that these concubines be presented publicly as such and be conducted about and treated with favors as if legitimate wives. On the contrary, it is necessary that the necessity of in some manner veiling or concealing that shameful commerce should contain a tacit reproof of the matter;

4. That those who preserve chaste morals, as being of themselves better for fulfilling their offices, be preferred to the others, at least other things being equal.

Finally, it is to be desired that in Europe we prepare better cultivators of those regions; and that, after a compact has been entered, those who are good there may be protected more fully from human respect and the contagion of vices.

S. Th. II-II, q. 154, a. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

1006. Simple fornication is the intercourse of an unmarried man with an unmarried corrupted woman, by mutual consent. - It is said:

1. Of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, that is, of persons who are free, not only from the bond of marriage but also from the bond of consanguinity or affinity, of a vow of continence, or of sacred order; otherwise it will be another species.

2. Corrupted, because if she is a virgin, it will be defloration and not simple fornication.

3. By mutual consent, because if violence is applied, or an unjust means, it is reduced to rape.

Fornication is intrinsically and mortally evil, and therefore it is not only evil because prohibited by positive divine law, but prohibited by natural law as being evil. It is proved:

1. From the Scriptures: Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Eph. 5:3-6, from which it is clear that this also regards the nations which did not have positive law.

2. From the condemnation of proposition 48 by Innocent XI.¹

¹ "It seems so clear that fornication in itself involves no malice and is only evil because forbidden, that the contrary seems altogether discordant with reason."

3. By reason, which Billuart proposes from St. Thomas in this way:² "Simple fornication is intercourse deprived in itself of the natural order to its end, namely, the education of offspring, and therefore in itself implies an inordination which tends to grave harm, not only of him who is to be born from such intercourse, but also of the common good and of human society, upon which many and very bad evils rush in from the bad education of members; therefore in itself it is a mortal sin.

² Diss. VI, a. 2. - Cf. St. Thomas, a. 2; c. G. III, 122; De Malo q. 15, a. 1.

"The antecedent is proved: The due education of offspring in the human species requires between male and female a lasting society after coition, namely marriage... But fornicarious intercourse in itself neither supposes nor implies the lasting society of male and female, but rather implies the contrary: for it is of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, that is, of those who are bound by no bond between themselves, whence it happens that, as far as is from the nature of the fornicarious act, one party after coition can at will desert the other party, not acknowledge the offspring, and exercise no care for it; and this indeed very frequently happens, and consequently the worst education of offspring. Therefore."

Nor does it stand in the way if you say that fornicators can agree and swear among themselves concerning cohabitation as long as it will be necessary for the education of offspring, or can provide for it otherwise. - "For the response is that this is accidental to the fornicarious act; but it belongs to it per se that the parties are not held after coition to remain together, since per se they are bound by no bond to this insofar as they are fornicators, nor is anyone prohibited, as far as is from the very account of the fornicarious act, from approaching any other person whatsoever. And therefore, as far as is of itself, it is an act deprived of the natural and due order to the education of offspring. Therefore that a fornicator after coition remains long with the woman and helps her in the education of offspring does indeed cause that fornication does not actually harm the offspring and the common good, but does not take away the fact that it is harmful in itself and disordered from the end of generation... Moreover, in human acts specific goodness or malice is considered according to that which belongs to them per se, and not according to that which belongs to them accidentally."

Yet fornication is not the gravest of sins. For it is "against the good of a man to be born. And therefore it is a graver sin according to its species than sins which are against exterior goods, such as theft and others of this sort, for example, detraction; but it is less than sins which are directly against God, or a divine good, for example, directly against the theological virtues or religion, and than a sin which is against the life of a man already born, such as homicide" (a. 3), which is graver than all species of luxury (ad 3).

1007. Remark. - Concubinage and prostitution are not distinguished in species from simple fornication, but are diverse grades of the same species. Prostitution is said when someone approaches one who is publicly exposed; concubinage, when he has a habit of approaching some determinate woman, whether he has her at home or not. But intercourse with one who is neither public nor habitual retains the name of simple fornication; but everywhere, as is supposed, it is of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, and therefore within the same species of fornication.