The Scrupulous Conscience

A SCRUPLE is a groundless fear that there is sin where there is none. Hence a scrupulous conscience (the term is ordinarily used of the habit, not of the single act) is one which from some frivolous reason judges that a harmless action is sinful. A person, moreover, is not said to be scrupulous because of a scrupulous conscience in a single instance; the term is used of one who, either in some matter or in all his actions, is apt to be disturbed with unfounded scruples.

An upright, straightforward, and well-balanced conscience is what it is desirable to have, and so a scrupulous conscience is in itself a bad habit. A scrupulous conscience may indeed be useful for a time to purify the conscience, and to make it more delicate and sensitive to even the appearance of evil; it is sometimes permitted by God for this and other reasons. But if it continues for a long time it causes great trouble of mind, injures the health of body and soul, and sometimes drives its poor victim to desperation, so that he gives up all attempt to be good, or even loses his senses.

The confessor, then, should know how to recognize a scrupulous person, what the causes of scruples are, and what are the suitable remedies in particular cases. The prudent confessor will not at once believe a penitent to be scrupulous merely because he says that he is. Some people who are anything but pious think that it is a fine trait of character to be scrupulous, or they honestly think that they are scrupulous for want of self-knowledge, and tell the confessor so, He would obviously make a great mistake if he applied the rules for scruples to such cases. Nor can the confessor safely conclude that a penitent is scrupulous because he mentions in confession minute faults which common penitents hardly trouble themselves about. He may have before him a soul of great purity of conscience and great sanctity, who is in no sense scrupulous. Until he has heard a penitent’s confession more than once the confessor will usually suspend his judgement. ‘When the penitent keeps confessing things which are not sinful, when he says that he is troubled with doubts and anxieties about his actions, when he is not satisfied with his confessions but keeps coming back, or running from one confessor to another; when he will not follow the advice the confessor gives him, but remains obstinately attached to his own will, the confessor may usually conclude that his penitent is really scrupulous.

n. 4.

If he can find out how the scruples arose, the confessor will sometimes be able to apply a suitable remedy at once. They may arise from a variety of causes: from reading ascetical or theological books which are too rigorous or which are not suited to the person’s state of conscience; from associating with scrupulous people and contracting their malady; from a naturally weak judgement or from bad health; from immoderate and indiscreet fervour and spiritual pride; from the temptation of the devil, who wishes to ruin his victim, and from the permission of God, who for his own wise ends permits the evil for a time.

n. 5.

The confessor will then seek to apply a proper remedy. He may ask the scrupulous penitent whether he is prepared to follow his advice and direction. If the penitent will not do this, but goes from one confessor to another, the confessor will be able to do no good with him, and had better tell him to find someone whose directions he will follow. With one who trusts him and tries to follow his advice, the confessor should be kind and patient; he should give short, clear rules to the penitent, without going into further explanations; he should tell him to despise his scruples and to go against them, boldly to do what he groundlessly imagines to be sinful; as of course he is justified in doing, for he knows that his fear of sin in the matter is an idle scruple. The confessor should tell him not to mention his scruples in confession, and when great harm seems to threaten the penitent from his scruples he may tell him not to say anything about them, even if on occasions he has really committed sins; for scruples may be a valid reason for not making a full confession. The confessor will exhort him to keep body and soul fully occupied in interesting work and never to be idle; an idle brain is the devil’s workshop.

Scruples commonly have reference either to past confessions, suggesting that they were not properly made, and were bad, or to temptations against some virtue, as faith or purity; or to one’s actions in general, insinuating that they are sinful because not done with a proper motive, or for some other reason. With regard to the first class, the confessor will ask the penitent whether he is certain that he left out of his confession some grave matter, or that it was sacrilegious. Unless he can say that he is certain, he will tell him not to think of the past, to leave it with our good God, but to direct his thoughts to the present and future. Even if he says that he is certain that something serious was left out, or that he had not proper sorrow for his sins, the confessor after once or twice hearing him will forbid him to mention the past again.

One tempted against faith, purity, charity, or any other virtue, should be told that temptation is not sin, that sin is in the free consent of the will to evil, and that the best way to conquer such temptations is to despise them, to think as little as possible about them, and not to mention them in confession.

The confessor should tell a penitent who through scruples thinks he commits sin in every action to act boldly and fearlessly, that he may do whatever is not obviously forbidden, and that it is impossible for one who wishes to serve God to commit sin, especially grave sin, without being well aware of it.¹

¹ Reuter, Neo-Confessarius, n. 262.

Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Ludovicus Wouters, C.SS.R. — 1 passage

Vol. I, Bk. I, Tr. II, Diss. II, Pt. I, Sect. III, Ch. II, Art. II, § II. On Scrupulous Conscience

n. 240.

He has a scrupulous conscience who habitually, from an empty reason and with a certain anxiety, apprehends sin where there is no sin; these things will become clearer from what must be said about scruples.

I. The notion of scruple. A scruple,¹ as is gathered from what has been said, is an apprehension resting on an empty reason and joined with anxiety of mind; an apprehension, I say, that something is or was a sin where there is not or was not sin.

It is called an apprehension, by which it is signified that scruple differs both from a determinate judgment that something is a sin and from a true doubt whether something is a sin. Scruple properly so called is had when the intellect neither determinately judges that something is a sin nor properly doubts about it, but, while having and retaining the judgment that it is not a sin, totters and fluctuates from a certain apprehension of evil (St. Alphonsus, I, 11; Praxis Conf., n. 98).

It is said to be joined with anxiety of mind, by which it is indicated that scruple pertains not only to the intellect, but also to the will.

Scrupulous conscience also differs from tender or timorous conscience, which vividly apprehends even the smallest sins and defects.

II. The signs of a scrupulous conscience are:

If someone fears that those things are sins which commonly, even by the timorous, are not held as sins (St. Alphonsus, I, 11).
If he does not acquiesce in the judgment of a prudent confessor or director, and asks them again and again about the same matter, or commonly consults several (St. Alphonsus, cited place).
If he does not make an end of examining his conscience, opens in confession the most minute and irrelevant circumstances, or repeats the same thing rather often; if he often wishes to repeat confessions already made, either entirely or in part.
If he recites prayers anxiously, repeats them frequently, and often stops in order to renew intention and attention.
If he uses empty signs to drive away temptations, for example, by contracting the eyebrows, etc.

Note 1. Let someone not immediately be judged scrupulous: 1. who after a sinful life is for some time troubled about confessions already made, and after a general confession several times manifests some sins as not yet sufficiently declared; 2. who sometimes doubts whether he has sinned gravely, because the doubt can be prudent.

Note 2. There are also those who are scrupulous in certain matters and plainly lax in others. The remedies soon to be explained should not be applied to them except in the matter in which they are scrupulous.

III. Causes of scruples. Some are intrinsic, such as natural temperament, ignorance, inconstancy, obstinacy; sometimes also excessive austerities, by which, when the brain is weakened, the mind is easily made anxious. Others are extrinsic, such as the company of scrupulous persons, incautious reading of stricter authors either in Moral Theology or in asceticism, the use of a scrupulous confessor; besides these, the instigation of the devil, who introduces scruples in order to induce desperation or impede spiritual progress. God sometimes permits scruples, either as punishment for sins, or so that a man may more detest true sins, or so that he may exercise humility and patience.

IV. Harms of scruples. Scruples: 1. produce continual disturbance and affliction of mind; 2. close the approach to the consolations of the Holy Spirit; 3. draw the soul, weary from affliction, away from good works; 4. disturb moral judgment and so render a man unfit for duties; 5. create danger of health being undermined, of madness or pusillanimity, of desperation (St. Alphonsus, I, 13).

V. The licitness and obligation of acting against scruples. 1. A scrupulous person can act against scruples. This is clear from the notion handed down, since a scruple "is not a true dictate of conscience or a formed conscience, as Gerson well distinguishes, nor a true practical doubt; nor does it take away the previously formed judgment, which virtually perseveres, although then because of the force of fear it is not noticed, namely, that he himself does not sin by doing anything which he does not recognize as certain sin. For then he acts not against conscience, but against that empty fear" (St. Alphonsus, Praxis conf., n. 98).

A scrupulous person is often held to act against scruples, namely, so that the harms that would follow from scruples not resisted may be avoided (St. Alphonsus, I, 17). Nevertheless in practice he is commonly excused from formal sin, especially grave sin.

VI. Remedies of scruples. Some are general, others particular. The principal general remedy is that the scrupulous person subject himself altogether to the judgment of the confessor, and not examine the reasons, or, after consulting one, approach another. "Several Doctors assign rules for the scrupulous; but it is certain that for these persons, after prayer, the greatest remedy (indeed the only one, as Father Segneri rightly says) for curing them is obedience toward their own director" (St. Alphonsus, Praxis conf., n. 95). The special remedies are:

"He who is always anxious about past confessions, because he fears that he failed in integrity or sorrow, if he himself has already completed a general confession at another time, or for some notable time has diligently made his confessions... should think no more about past faults, nor say a word about them in confession, unless he can swear with certainty that he committed those mortal sins, and besides that he has never confessed them. Indeed... someone can be troubled by scruples in such a way that, although it seems certain to him that he has not said certain things, he is still not held to confess them" (St. Alphonsus, I, 16; Praxis conf., n. 97). Moreover, before confession the scrupulous person should not undertake a lengthy examination, especially concerning those things in which he is more vexed; nor should he confess distinctly except certain sins. Indeed, if there is question of a very scrupulous person, he should confess sins according to a fixed norm composed by the confessor, and should not be allowed to add anything.

If, however, there is question of a sinner recently converted, founded doubts about the integrity of a confession already made can more easily occur; account of this should be prudently taken in one or another confession. But if there is discourse about a sinner converted for a longer time, the rule set down above should be held as the norm.

He who always fears that he has given assent to evil thoughts, for instance against faith, chastity, or charity, "should not omit always using that rule wisely handed down by the Doctors, namely, that those who are of a timorous conscience, unless they know with moral certainty that they have consented to grave sin, are to be judged immune from sin; for, as Father Alvarez says, it is impossible for sin to enter a soul that abhors it without being clearly recognized by it" (St. Alphonsus, I, 15).
He who is troubled by scruples concerning the fulfillment of precepts, for example, the hearing of Mass or the recitation of the breviary, should never repeat the Hours, or for that reason assist at another Mass. Indeed, "if someone were suffering grave anxieties, the recitation of the Office could sometimes even be forbidden to him until he seems able to recite without such great inconvenience, since great inconvenience excuses in itself from the precepts of the Church" (St. Alphonsus, IV, 177, at the end). Moreover, a scrupulous person is commonly excused from fraternal correction, both because he cannot discern when the obligation urges, and because it does not oblige with such great inconvenience.
Those who fear in every action lest they commit sin should "act freely, despise scruples, and act against them where evident sin does not appear; because ordinarily they themselves, on account of reason disturbed by excessive fear, fear that sin is present where it is not" (St. Alphonsus, I, 17).

VII. The confessor of a scrupulous person. 1. The confessor should kindly receive a scrupulous person destitute of a confessor, and the first time, or even a second time, should listen patiently until he has manifested his scruples; otherwise he will scarcely win the person's confidence. I said "a scrupulous person destitute of a confessor," since he should not easily admit another's penitent.

According to the different circumstances, he should assign to the penitent the remedies explained above and command him to use them; but especially he should "take care to persuade penitents vexed by scruples that he walks altogether safely who acquiesces in the counsels of his director and obeys in all things" (St. Alphonsus, I, 13). This obedience he should firmly require. "With obedient scrupulous persons one must act gently; but with those who fail in obedience, the greatest rigor and austerity must be exercised: for, deprived of this anchor of obedience, they themselves can never be healed" (St. Alphonsus, I, 16).
He should solve proposed doubts without hesitation. If sometimes he hears another's penitent once or again, he should not resolve much, lest from a solution perhaps different the scruples become worse. Besides, he should teach the scrupulous person to think of the Lord in goodness, "and should exhort him to live secure about his salvation, always fleeing to Jesus and Mary" (St. Alphonsus, Praxis conf., n. 96).

¹ Thus called metaphorically from scrupulus, i.e., from a little stone fixed in the shoe, which troubles the foot and slows the step.

McHugh–Callan, Moral Theology

John A. McHugh, O.P., and Charles J. Callan, O.P. — 7 passages

Vol. I, Pt. I, Q. IV, Art. 2. A Good Conscience, The Scrupulous Conscience

n. 607.

The scrupulous Conscience

The scrupulous Conscience.—This is a species of erroneous judgment that sees sin where there is no sin, or grave sin where there is only light sin, and whose reasons are trivial or absurd. (a) It differs, therefore, from a strict or tender conscience, which, while it does not exaggerate sin, judges that one should try to avoid even slight sin and imperfection. This is the golden mean between a lax and a scrupulous conscience. Persons with this sort of conscience are sometimes called scrupulous or singular, because they are more exact than the majority. More accurately they are to be called conscientious or God-fearing.

(b) The scrupulous conscience differs also from scrupulosity, which is a state of mind in which one whose judgment is not erroneous, is nevertheless tormented by fears or doubts about his moral condition.

n. 608.

The rules given above (588 sqq.) for the erroneous conscience apply also to the scrupulous conscience. (a) He who follows a scrupulous conscience does not sin by this, even though he is vincibly in error; for there is no danger of sin in doing more than is required. Example: Caius is too lazy to make inquiries about his religious duties, but he has the exaggerated notion that grace at meals obliges under pain of grave sin. He does not sin by following his conscience, for grace at meals is recommended to all. (b) He who disobeys a scrupulous conscience commits the sin his conscience apprehends. Example: If Caius omits grace, he is guilty of grave sin.

n. 609.

Special Dangers of a scrupulous Conscience

Special Dangers of a scrupulous Conscience.—(a) As to himself, the scrupulous person suffers from his conscience; it makes him guilty of sin where there should be no sin, and by its exaggerated strictness it often drives him to the other extreme of laxity. (b) As to others, the scrupulous person is an annoyance and a detriment; he tries to impose his conscience on them, or at least he makes virtue appear forbidding.

n. 610.

It is possible for a conscience to be scrupulous and lax at the same time, over-indulgent on some points, over-severe on others (see 600). (a) It may be scrupulous as regards others, and lax as regards self, or vice versa. Example; Parents sometimes are too lenient with themselves, but rule their children with extreme severity; in other cases they are meticulous as to their own conduct, but think they must allow their children every indulgence.

(b) A conscience may be scrupulous in minor matters and lax in major matters. Example: The Jewish leaders scrupled to take the money from Judas or to enter the house of Pilate, but they did not hesitate to condemn our Lord unjustly.

(c) A conscience may be scrupulous as to externals, lax as to internals. Example: The Pharisees made much of bodily purifications, but gave little thought to purity of mind and heart.

n. 611.

The Perplexed Conscience

The Perplexed Conscience.—Like to the scrupulous conscience is the perplexed conscience, which judges that in a particular instance one cannot escape sin, whether one acts or does not act. Example: Titus fears that, if he goes to church, he will sin by endangering his health, which is feeble; that, if he does not go to church, he will sin by disobeying the law. This seems to have been the conscience of Herod, who thought he was confronted with the alternative of perjury or murder when the head of John the Baptist was asked of him (Matt, xiv. 9).

n. 612.

St. Alphonsus gives the following directions to assist one who is perplexed in conscience:

(a) If without serious inconvenience decision can be delayed, reliable advice should be obtained (e.g., from the confessor).

(b) If decision cannot be delayed, the alternative that seems the lesser evil should be chosen. Example: The natural law requires that Titus should not expose his life to danger unnecessarily. The positive law of the Church requires that he go to Mass on Sunday. It is a less evil to omit what is required by the law of the Church than to omit what is required by the law of God. Hence, Titus should decide that he is not obliged in his circumstances to go to church.

(c) If decision cannot be delayed and the party cannot decide where the lesser evil lies, he is free to choose either; for he is not bound to the impossible.

n. 613.

If, in the supposition last mentioned, the perplexed person acts with the feeling that he is committing sin through necessity, is he really guilty or not?

(a) If by the feeling of guilt is meant, not a judgment of the mind, but a scruple or doubt, he is not guilty, as we shall see below when we speak of scrupulosity.

(b) If by the feeling of guilt is meant a judgment of the mind that he has to sin and an intention to welcome the opportunity, he is guilty; but his guilt is considerably diminished by the error and his difficult circumstances. Example: Titus thinks that he sins whether he obeys or disobeys an order to take a good dose of whiskey. He decides to take the dose, and feels rather pleased at the thought that he will become intoxicated.

(c) If by the feeling of guilt is meant a judgment that one has to sin, accompanied by sorrow at the necessity, one is not guilty, if one thinks the matter over to the best of one’s ability before acting; there is some guilt, if the perplexity arises from previous culpable negligence and no effort whatever is made to remedy this before acting. Example: Gaia asks her mother if she may go for a ride. The mother fears that, if she refuses, Gaia will become desperate; if she permits, Gaia will meet unsuitable companions. If the mother’s perplexity is due to the fact that she has never taken any interest in Gaia, she is responsible if she carelessly makes a wrong decision; but if the perplexity arises only from the difficult character of Gaia, the mother is not responsible.

Bucceroni, Cases of Conscience

Gennaro Bucceroni, S.J. — 10 passages

14. On Scrupulous Conscience

"Titius, a cleric, had completed a rather long journey with the intention of receiving the order of presbyterate; but when he entered the church, this thought occurred to him: Behold, you have not yet elicited a formal and sufficient intention for the reception of the presbyterate, for that recently made does not yet avail. For this reason he proposed that he wished to elicit an actual intention during the actual conferral of the order; but when it came to the actual reception, Titius, perhaps from distraction, elicited no further intention. Therefore, having returned home on the day before his first Mass, agitated by scruples, he said that he could not celebrate with a safe conscience, because through defect of intention he had not been validly ordained."

Q. 1. What is scrupulous conscience, and can it be a rule of morals? 2. What judgment is to be made of Titius?

R. To the first, cf. I. M. 158 seqq. To the second: "It is easily clear that Titius must be held not only as scrupulous, but almost as foolish, since from no foundation, or certainly from a wholly empty one, he doubts concerning the sufficiency of his intention and concerning the value of the order received. For what could seem more foolish than to make long journeys, undergo examination, and, after confession and other preparations have been made beforehand, dispose himself for the reception of order, and nevertheless doubt concerning the sufficiency of his intention?" Elbel 220.

The same judgment seems to be made concerning one to be ordained who is very anxious whether he is in the state of grace, does not wish to receive sacred orders in the state of sin, and in fact receives them; since the will then predominant is the will of receiving sacred orders.

The same also must be said concerning those scrupulous priests "who are more anxious than is fitting concerning the sufficiency of intention around the administration of the sacraments. Indeed we have found that there are men of this sort, who, called to a sick person, visit him and absolve him after confession; likewise those who, asked by parents, baptize a recently born child; likewise those who, solicited by a penitent that they be willing to receive his confession, immediately enter the confessional, and thus without further express intention administer the requested sacraments; but afterwards, agitated by scruples, they begin to doubt whether they had sufficient intention, and whether they are not held to rebaptize an infant of this sort again, etc. Let them note, I say, this very common doctrine of theologians: that for the valid administration of a sacrament, a formal explicit intention is by no means necessary, but a virtual one suffices, such as they are certainly convinced to have when they immediately comply with those requesting the administration. For when, asked by someone, for example, that you receive his confession, you immediately enter the confessional, receive the confession, impose penance, and finally say: I absolve you, etc.; do you not by that very fact show that you have the mind of administering the sacrament? Would you not yourself judge foolish whoever doubted about this?" Elbel 222.

Finally those are also disturbed without reason concerning confessions made, that they lacked sincere sorrow and purpose, and did not confess integrally, because they experienced dryness of spirit in themselves, or also a certain natural repugnance toward confession while they were confessing, and were ignorant of the species of sins. For sorrow and purpose are acts of the rational will, which can well exist in the will without any sensible effect and sign in the body. Likewise, natural repugnance and shame in explaining sins is not an argument that one has not confessed integrally. And this is to be noted here, that this repugnance and shame is often rather about certain circumstances not necessarily to be declared than about the sins themselves. Nor has someone confessed invalidly and sacrilegiously because he was ignorant of the various species of sins. If he was ignorant of them when he was confessing, he was also ignorant of them when he was sinning. Therefore, if someone cannot bring forward another motive of a disturbed mind, let him be ordered by the confessor to acquiesce, and to trust in the divine goodness and mercy. - Elbel 223 seqq.; G. 48 seqq.; I. M. 158 seqq.

Caius doubts whether he touched the chalice. What is to be done?

R. Let him acquiesce. Holy Office, 25 March 1895. Every deed is presumed to have been done rightly. M. E. v. 9, p. 1, p. 91.

Sempronius, doubting whether he was suitable for the presbyterate, wished to remove the intention, and at the same time wished to form it. Finally he decided within himself: I intend that which I shall certainly intend in some part of the ordination. Doubtful, he received the first and the other imposition of hands; but when he was receiving the consecration of the hands, he resolved to receive the presbyterate. What concerning Sempronius?

Vol. I, On Conscience, VI. On Scrupulous Conscience · Vol. I, On the Precept of Charity, IV. On Alms

R. Let him acquiesce. Holy Office, 26 January 1898. M. E. v. 1, p. 1, p. 243.

Bucceroni, Institutions of Moral Theology

Gennaro Bucceroni, S.J. — 9 passages

Vol. I, On Conscience, VI. On Scrupulous Conscience

n. 158.

What is scrupulous conscience? - A scruple is an empty apprehension, and from this arising fear and anxiety, that sin is somewhere where it is not; or that there is grave sin where there is only light sin. Therefore scrupulous conscience is that conscience which from some vain cause doubts about the honorableness of some action, and therefore fears sin. Fear of this kind can very well stand with a determinate judgment concerning the honorableness of the thing; for it rests only on a light and empty motive. But if that fear is with a determinate judgment that something is sin which in reality is not, this judgment, insofar as it proceeds from an empty motive and afflicts and anxiously troubles the soul, can certainly be called a scruple, or scrupulous conscience, speaking broadly; but properly it is vincibly erroneous conscience. Likewise there can be a scruple with true practical doubt whether this is sin or not, from an empty motive, suspecting perhaps that it is sin, without any determinate judgment that it is or is not sin.

And thus again it is a scruple or scrupulous conscience broadly so called, but properly it is doubtful conscience. Ferraris Supplem. v. Scrupulus. Scrupulous conscience differs from tender conscience; for the latter is a conscience recognizing, fearing, and fleeing both grave and light sins, and even simple imperfections, as much as with divine grace it can, strives to avoid.

n. 159.

Is it licit to operate with a scrupulous conscience? - The response is clear from the two following propositions in this number and the next. - It is licit to operate with a scrupulous conscience, while the scruple remains, provided it is judged to be a scruple and is despised as such. Nor indeed is it necessary that this express judgment, that it is a scruple, be formed for each individual act; but it suffices that someone act against it from a judgment of experience of past acts. - The first reason is that such a scrupulous person has a prudent motive for despising the dictate of scrupulous conscience; because a scruple proceeds from a light foundation and consequently does not take away a judgment otherwise certain or probable; and because confessors and theologians commonly say that scruples are to be put aside, or, if they cannot be put aside, are to be despised. The second reason is that then there is had at least a virtual judgment of that contempt of scruples. - Suarez tr. 3. d. 12. s. ult.; L. 1. 1. n. 18. 19; Wirceburg c. 4. a. 1.

n. 160.

One who is scrupulous, without knowing or noticing that he is scrupulous, or at least scrupulous in this action, cannot act against a scrupulous conscience, if a judgment about sin is formed or doubt about it is had. The reason is that such a person would freely choose that which he judges evil, or about which he doubts whether it is evil.

n. 161.

From where do scruples proceed? - The causes of scruples, dispositive, permissive, effective, occasional, are some intrinsic and others extrinsic. The intrinsic causes of scruples are: 1. The natural constitution of the body, very much disposed to suspicions and fears, as is a melancholic disposition. 2. Weak health of the head, especially in women. 3. Ignorance, by which someone does not well perceive the precepts of God and the Church. 4. Hidden pride, by which someone trusts too much in his own judgment. 5. Excessive abstinence and immoderate vigils, by which, the head being weakened, the soul is easily disturbed. 6. Immoderate and indiscreet fervor.

But the extrinsic causes of scruples are: 1. God, who permits scruples in the just so that thus purified they may advance more; in the tepid, so that they may perform the offices of Christian piety more fervently; in penitents, so that they may pay the penalty of past sins. Scruples are judged to be from God if those agitated by them become better. 2. The devil, who, "God permitting, can move melancholic humors in man, through which the imagination can either err or be disturbed to inordinate fear." S. Anton. I. p. t. 3. c. 10. Scruples are thought to come from the devil if the scrupulous person feels himself being brought to tepidity, drawn back from virtue, and especially inclined to despair. 3. The society of the scrupulous, especially if the scrupulous moderate themselves by their counsels and frequently converse with them about matters of the soul; for those with whom we associate, we imitate most easily. 4. Reading of books which are too rigid, "establishing harsher precepts which the human condition cannot sustain"; S. Ambrose on Ps. 118; little by little without sensing it we assent to those opinions to which we give study.

n. 162.

What are the signs of a scrupulous conscience? - "1. Pertinacity of judgment, by which the scrupulous person refuses to obey the counsels of the wise, consults various persons, but acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed the more he hears many, the more perplexed he becomes. - 2. Frequent change of judgment from light motives, whence arises inconstancy in acting and disturbance of mind, especially in external operations, for example in the celebration of Mass, etc. - 3. To have irrelevant reflections about many circumstances which were present or could have been present in the action." L. 1. 1. n. 11. 4. If he thinks that he sins in that in which pious men find no sin at all; if he recites his prayers anxiously and continually begins them anew; if he does not make an end of examining conscience, and explains every least thing, and often also repeats it in Confession. 5. If he uses ridiculous signs, gestures, and other modes for putting aside scruples. 6. If the confessor, or another prudent man, has judged him scrupulous. La-Croix 1. 1. n. 515 seq.

n. 163.

What are the remedies of a scrupulous conscience? - 1. To despise scruples, act against them, and not foster them by thought. "The scrupulous person is sometimes bound by grave obligation to operate against scruples, when from the anxiety of scruples he can fear grave harm in spiritual progress, or in the health of body or mind." L. 1. 1. n. 17. 13. - 2. To acquiesce in the judgment of the confessor, or of another pious and learned man. "For this above all can be called the chief, indeed the only, remedy of the infirm of this kind.... Deprived of this anchor of obedience, they can never be healed." L. 1. 1. n. 12. 13. 16. "After the scrupulous person has received the response or example of one confessor or good man, he ought not consult others, lest he become accustomed to fostering useless anxieties longer." Sporer n. 108. - 3. To look upon the life and custom of good men as a rule, and to avoid conversation with other scrupulous persons; likewise to abstain from reading books exciting scruples. L. 1. n. 2. 4. Before he operates, not to judge anything to be sin unless he certainly knows it, lest from error of conscience he really sin. After the operation, let him use "the rule wisely handed down by the doctors, namely that those who are of a timorous conscience, unless they know morally certainly that they consented to grave sin, are to be judged immune from sin; for it is impossible for sin to enter a soul abhorring it without being clearly known by that soul." L. 1. 1. n. 15; Suarez tr. 3. d. 12. s. ult. 5. To accustom himself to following the milder and even less safe opinions. Busemb. apud La-Croix l. c. "For the scrupulous, that rule handed down by Blessed Albert the Great and S. Antoninus is to be preserved: Between the hard and benign opinion concerning precepts, the benign interpretation, other things being equal, is to be made." L. 1. 1. n. 19. - 6. Never to be idle, because idleness fills the imagination with scrupulous thoughts. L. 1. 1. n. 12. 7. To destroy the causes of scruples; for example, let the melancholic person purge black bile with medicines, let the pertinacious break his own judgment, let the proud not trust his own prudence, let the uneducated seek instruction, let the fearful meditate on the goodness of God, which does not impose precepts reducing one to insanity. 8. To commend oneself insistently and confidently to God, who consoles us in all our tribulation, 2 Cor. 1:4; L. 1. 1. n. 12.

It will also be useful to know the privileges of the scrupulous: 1. that the scrupulous person is not bound in acting to employ examination and diligence except very moderate diligence, and not so much as others; and that, while a scruple torments and counsel is not available, he can freely do what he wishes, unless it is certain and evident that it is sin. Cf. Vasq. on 1. 2. d. 57. 2. That he is bound to repeat nothing from past Confessions, unless he certainly knows that it is mortal and that he has not been duly confessed. But he is not certain as long as he doubts. Hence Laymann advises that the scrupulous person never confess doubts and scruples. And Sa, v. dubium, and others say that he is not bound to confess except those things which he could swear are mortal and have never been confessed. The reason for each privilege is that in the scrupulous person, by excessive fear of sinning, reason is disturbed, so that he cannot examine the matter rightly. Hence, although he perhaps did not confess some things, nevertheless he is not bound with so much harm and danger of perpetual anxiety to procure the integrity of confession, since lesser difficulties often excuse from it. L. 1. 6. n. 476. 477. - 3. "Indeed sometimes someone can be so tormented by scruples that, although it seems certain to him that he did not say some things, still he is not bound to confess them." L. 1. 1. n. 16.

n. 164.

What ought to be the manner of acting of a confessor with the scrupulous? - It is contained in these rules: 1. Let him be patient and full of charity, since the care of the scrupulous is long and arduous, and their condition most wretched. 2. Let him be discreet, so that he rightly knows what is the origin of the scruples in the penitent, and whether he is scrupulous in all things or only in one, so that he may be able to remedy the evils congruently. 3. Let him be prudent, namely in prescribing rules, which ought indeed to be general; for the scrupulous almost never are able to accommodate themselves to particular rules, because they cannot apply them to themselves. Indeed they always doubt whether the case was sufficiently explained and understood, whether the rule prescribed to them was well accommodated to that case. 4. Let him be brief and dictatorial in his responses; and, as far as he can, let him define everything promptly and firmly; otherwise the penitent would be confirmed in his anxiety by the authority of the confessor himself.

Especially let the confessor notice that for the most part scruples are concerned about three things: 1. that assent is given to any evil thought whatever which appears to the mind, for example, against faith, chastity, charity; 2. that past Confessions were null, or even sacrilegious, either because of defect of integrity or because of imperfection of sorrow; 3. that in every action sin or the danger of sin seems to be present.

If the first, let him command the penitent to despise fears of this kind altogether, and teach him that not depraved thoughts, but depraved consents are sins. Often it will also be expedient to impose on the scrupulous person that the penitent abstain from Confession of thoughts of this kind, unless he knows so certainly that he consented to them that he could immediately swear it. "Nor is there reason for us to be frightened because of length of time or vehemence of thought, for these things also are often natural and involuntary, and sometimes afterward appear greater from fear than they really were." Suarez d. 12. s. ult. "Nevertheless take care diligently to note that the devil or sense itself sometimes injects temptations into certain persons, especially the scrupulous, under an expression declaring consent, in this or a similar way: I wish to sin, I wish to consent; although nevertheless no consent of the will is present, which is not to be drawn from incidental words, but from the proper act itself of the superior will." Ithur. Cas. 18. n. 5; Elbel De Act. hum. 226 seq.

If the second, and the penitent has already elsewhere completed a general Confession, or for some notable time has been accustomed to approach penance diligently and piously, let him impose on him that he no longer think about past faults, nor say any word about them any more, unless he can swear that he certainly committed those mortal sins and never deposited them in Confession. But if after a Confession duly completed he returns, then let the confessor dismiss him unheard, commanding him to approach Communion. Thus S. Bernard behaved, who is reported to have said to a certain priest wishing from scruples to abstain from the celebration of Mass: Go, and celebrate on my faith; and he was freed. Nor should you say: Would that he who speaks so were another Bernard! "Whoever says so," says S. Antoninus from Gerson, "errs; for you have not committed yourself into the hands of a man because he is learned, because he is pious; but because he has been placed over you."

If the third, let the confessor impose that he act freely and despise scruples; indeed that he operate against them whenever evident sin does not appear; because, generally speaking, such persons, because of reason disturbed from that slightest fear, think there is sin where there is none. Hence it is necessary to enjoin a precept on them that they conquer scruples, lest they become useless both to themselves and to others; and that afterward they in no way accuse themselves in Confession of such actions. "For a scruple ought not to be exploded speculatively, but practically, and not so that it is not felt, but so that consent is not given to it by a determinate judgment." Suarez l. c. n. 4. In this matter it must be noted that even if it can happen that sometimes they err materially in acting so, nevertheless they will not sin formally by reason of the obedience which they furnish to the confessor; because then they obey not man, but God saying: He who hears you, hears me, and he who despises you, despises me. Nor indeed "in moral matters is every kind of certainty to be sought; and a doubt which perhaps in others would be reasonable is to be reckoned as nothing in the scrupulous." Suarez l. c. n. 6. - L. 1. 1. n. 12-19; La-Croix l. 1. n. 527 seq.

n. 165.

Are scruples useful? - "A scruple... for some space of time, helps not a little the soul which gives itself to spiritual exercises; indeed it greatly purges and cleanses such a soul by separating it very much from every species (appearance) of sin, according to that saying of Gregory: It belongs to good minds to know fault there where there is no fault." S. Ignatius of Loy. Exer. Spir. Reg. de Scrup. 3; La-Croix l. 1. n. 513. But if they are prolonged for a long time, "scruples are harmful, first to the body, because they destroy health, weaken the head, often reduce man to insanity, often shorten life; then to the soul, which they render entangled, desolate, perplexed, sometimes despairing; they confuse the intellect, disturb the power of judging, often render the whole man, endowed with remarkable talents, inept for all functions; moreover they impede many good works, waste time with many vain and useless thoughts, etc." La-Croix l. c. n. 514.

Vol. I, On the Precept of Charity, IV. On Alms

n. 413.

Resolves: If someone rich and abundant, without any reasonable cause, were to repel all poor persons from himself, he is truly in a bad state. Nevertheless absolution is not easily to be denied to anyone, however rich, who repels all the poor without alms, both because of the disagreement of authors concerning this obligation, and because of the difficulty of judging concerning the superfluity of goods and the necessity of the poor, and because of the presumption that others wish to help, and also because in the present payment of taxes someone also concurs in relieving the poor, for whom public hospices are appointed, and other works of public beneficence are exercised for them. Laym., n. 5; Struggl, q. 4, nn. 44, 50, 51; Diana, t. 4, tr. 7, rr. 8, 42; L. 32; S. Th. 2. 2. q. 71, a. 1.

What has been said about alms must likewise be said about all other works of mercy. Hence physicians, advocates, etc., are bound, generally and speaking per se, to devote labor to the poor gratis, because they are in true necessity and cannot be helped by others. If some evil is imminent to neighbor which can be averted without grave inconvenience, it must be averted, e.g., by removing the cause of damage, for instance fire from buildings, by denouncing the author of damage to be inflicted, by opportunely forewarning him to whom damage is imminent.

Bucceroni, Commentaries (1910)

Gennaro Bucceroni, S.J. — 15 passages

Bucceroni, Commentaries (1910), Second Commentary: On Cons…, VII. On Scrupulous Conscience

n. 171.

A scruple is an empty apprehension, and the fear and anxiety arising from this, that there is sin somewhere where there is none; or grave sin, where there is only light sin. Therefore a scrupulous conscience is that conscience which, from some vain cause, doubts concerning the honesty of some action, and therefore fears concerning sin. Fear of this kind can very well stand with a determinate judgment concerning the honesty of the thing; for it rests only on a light and empty motive. But if that fear is with a determinate judgment that something is a sin which in reality is not, this judgment, insofar as it proceeds from an empty motive and afflicts and troubles the soul, can indeed be called a scruple, or a scrupulous conscience, speaking broadly; but properly it is a vincibly erroneous conscience. Likewise there can be a scruple with a true practical doubt whether this is a sin or not, from an empty motive, suspecting perhaps that there is sin, without any determinate judgment that it is or is not a sin. And thus again it is a scruple or scrupulous conscience broadly so called, but properly it is a doubtful conscience. - Ferraris Supplem. v. Scrupulus.

n. 171.

Scrupulous conscience differs from tender conscience. For the latter is a conscience recognizing, fearing, and fleeing both grave and light sins; and it also strives to avoid simple imperfections, as much as it can with divine grace.

n. 172.

Is it lawful to act with a scrupulous conscience? - The response is clear from the two following propositions in this number and the next. - It is lawful to act with a scrupulous conscience, while the scruple remains, provided that it is judged to be a scruple and is contemned as such. Nor indeed is it necessary that, for individual acts, this express judgment be formed, that it is a scruple; but it suffices that one act against it from the judgment of experience of past acts. - Reason 1 is that the scrupulous person acting thus has a prudent motive for contemning the dictate of a scrupulous conscience; because a scruple proceeds from a light foundation, and consequently does not take away a judgment otherwise certain or probable; and because confessors and theologians commonly say that scruples are to be laid aside, or, if they cannot be laid aside, are to be contemned. Reason 2 is that then there is had at least a virtual judgment of that contempt of scruples. - Suarez tr. 3, d. 12, s. ult.; L. l. 1, n. 18, 19.

n. 172.

He who is scrupulous, without knowing or noticing that he is scrupulous, or at least scrupulous in this action, cannot act against the scrupulous conscience, if a judgment concerning sin is formed, or a doubt concerning it is had. - The reason is that such a person would freely choose that which he judges evil, or concerning which he doubts whether it is evil.

n. 173.

Whence do scruples proceed? - The causes of scruples, dispositive, permissive, effective, occasional, are some intrinsic, others extrinsic. - The intrinsic causes of scruples are: 1. The natural constitution of the body, very much disposed to suspicions and fears, such as a melancholic disposition. 2. Weak health of the head, especially in women. 3. Ignorance, by which someone does not well perceive the precepts of God and of the Church. 4. Hidden pride, by which someone trusts too much in his own judgment. 5. Excessive abstinence and immoderate vigils, by which, the head being weakened, the soul is easily disturbed. 6. Immoderate and indiscreet fervor. - But the extrinsic causes of scruples are: 1. God, who permits scruples in the just, so that, thus purged, they may advance more; in the tepid, that they may perform the offices of Christian piety more fervently; in penitents, that they may pay the penalty of past sins. Scruples are judged to be from God if those agitated by them become better. - 2. The demon, who, "God permitting, can move melancholic humors in man, through which the imagination can either err or be disturbed toward inordinate fear." St. Antoninus, 1 p., t. 3, c. 10. Scruples are judged to come from the demon if the scrupulous person senses that he is being led to tepidity, drawn back from virtue, and especially inclined to despair. - 3. The society of the scrupulous, especially if scrupulous persons are ruled by their counsels, and frequently converse with them concerning things of the soul; for those with whom we associate, these we most easily imitate. - 4. Reading books which are too rigid, "establishing harder precepts which the human condition cannot sustain"; St. Ambrose on Psalm 118; little by little, without sensing it, we assent to the opinions to which we devote ourselves.

n. 174.

What are the signs of a scrupulous conscience? - "1. Obstinacy of judgment, by which the scrupulous person refuses to obey the counsels of the wise, consults various persons, but acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed, the more persons he hears, the more perplexed he becomes. - 2. Frequent change of judgment from light motives, whence arises inconstancy in acting, and disturbance of mind, especially in external operations, for instance in the celebration of Mass, etc. - 3. To have impertinent reflections upon many circumstances which were present in the action or could have been present." L. l. 1, n. 11. - 4. If he thinks that he sins in that in which pious men find no sin at all; if he recites his prayers anxiously and continually begins them anew; if he makes no end of examining his conscience, and explains every smallest thing, and often even repeats it in Confession. - 5. If he uses ridiculous signs, gestures, and other ways for laying aside scruples. - 6. If the confessor, or another prudent man, has judged him scrupulous. - La-Croix l. 1, n. 515 seqq.

n. 175.

What are the remedies of a scrupulous conscience? - 1. To contemn scruples, to act against them, and not to cherish them by thought. "A scrupulous person is sometimes bound by a grave obligation to operate against scruples, since from the anxiety of scruples he can fear grave harm in spiritual progress, or in the health of body or mind." L. l. 1, n. 17, 13. - 2. To acquiesce in the judgment of the confessor, or of another pious and learned man. "For this above all can be called the principal, indeed the only, remedy of infirm persons of this kind... Deprived of this anchor of obedience, they can never be healed." L. l. 1, n. 12, 13, 16. "After a scrupulous person has received the response or example of one confessor or good man, he ought not to consult others, lest he become accustomed to cherishing useless anxieties longer." Sporer n. 108. - 3. To look upon the life and custom of good men as a rule, and to avoid the conversation of other scrupulous persons; likewise to abstain from the reading of books that excite scruples. L. 1, n. 2. - 4. Before he acts, not to judge anything to be a sin unless he knows it certainly, lest from an error of conscience he in fact sin. After the operation, let him use "the rule wisely handed down by the Doctors, namely, that those who are of a fearful conscience, unless they know morally certainly that they have consented to grave sin, are to be judged immune from sin; for it is impossible that sin should enter into a soul abhorring it without being clearly recognized by it." L. l. 1, n. 15; Suarez tr. 3, d. 12, s. ult. - 5. To accustom himself to following the milder sentences and even the less safe ones. Busemb. apud La-Croix, l. c. "For the scrupulous, that rule handed down by Blessed Albert the Great and St. Antoninus is to be observed: Between the hard and benign sentence concerning precepts, the benign interpretation, other things being equal, is to be made." L. l. 1, n. 19. - 6. Never to be idle; because idleness fills the imagination with scrupulous thoughts. L. l. 1, n. 12. - 7. To destroy the causes of scruples; for example, let the melancholic person evacuate black bile by medicines, let the obstinate break his own judgment, let the proud person not trust his own prudence, let the rude seek instruction, let the timid meditate on the goodness of God, which does not impose precepts reducing one to madness. - 8. Earnestly and confidently to commend himself to God, who consoles us in all our tribulation, 2 Cor. 1:4; L. l. 1, n. 12.

n. 176.

It will also be useful to know the privileges of the scrupulous: 1. that a scrupulous person in acting is not bound to apply examination and diligence except a very moderate one, nor so much as others; and that, while a scruple troubles him and counsel is not at hand, he can freely do what he wishes, unless it is certain and evident that it is a sin. Cf. Vasquez in 1. 2, d. 57. - 2. That he is bound to repeat nothing from past Confessions, unless he certainly knows that it was mortal and that he was not rightly confessed. But he is not certain so long as he doubts. Hence Laymann advises that a scrupulous person never confess doubts and scruples. And Sa, v. dubium, and others say that he is not bound to confess except those things which he can swear to be mortal and never to have been confessed. - The reason of each privilege is that in the scrupulous person reason is disturbed by excessive fear of sinning, so that he cannot rightly examine the matter. Hence, granted that he has not confessed something, nevertheless he is not bound, with such great harm and danger of perpetual anxiety, to procure the integrity of confession, since lesser difficulties often excuse from it. L. l. 6, n. 476, 477. - 3. "Indeed, sometimes someone can be so troubled by scruples that, although it seems certain to him that he has not said certain things, still he is not bound to confess them." L. l. 1, n. 16.

n. 177.

What ought to be the manner of acting of the confessor with the scrupulous? - It is contained in these rules: 1. Let him be patient and full of charity, since the care of the scrupulous is long and arduous, and their condition most wretched. - 2. Let him be discreet, so that he may rightly know what is the origin of the scruples in the penitent; and whether he is scrupulous in all things, or only in one, so that he may be able to remedy the evils congruently. - 3. Let him be prudent, namely in prescribing rules, which indeed ought to be general; for scrupulous persons are almost never able to accommodate themselves to particular rules, because they cannot apply them to themselves. Indeed, they always doubt whether the case was sufficiently explained and understood, whether the rule prescribed to them was well accommodated to that case. - 4. Let him be brief and dictatorial in his responses; and let him define all things, as far as he can, promptly and firmly; otherwise the penitent would be confirmed in his anxiety by the authority of the confessor himself.

n. 178.

Especially let the confessor note that for the most part scruples turn around three things: 1. that assent has been given to any evil thought which presents itself to the mind, for example, against faith, chastity, charity; 2. that past Confessions were null, or even sacrilegious, either because of defect of integrity, or because of imperfection of sorrow; 3. that in every action there seems to be sin or danger of sin.

n. 179.

If the first, let him command the penitent that he altogether despise fears of this kind, and teach him that not depraved thoughts, but depraved consents, are sins. Often it will also be expedient to impose on the scrupulous person that the penitent abstain from Confession of thoughts of this kind, unless he knows so certainly that he consented to them that he can at once swear it. "Nor is there reason that we be terrified because of the duration of time, or the vehemence of the thought, for these also often are natural and involuntary, and sometimes from fear afterwards appear greater than they really were." Suarez d. 12, s. ult. "See to it, however, that you diligently notice that the demon, or sense itself, sometimes injects temptations into certain persons, especially the scrupulous, under an utterance expressing consent, in this or a similar way: I will to sin, I will to consent; although nevertheless no consent of the will is present, which is not to be sought from incidental words, but from the proper act itself of the higher will." Ithur. Cas. 18, n. 5; Elbel de Act. hum. 226 seqq.

n. 179.

And Lehmkuhl, Cases of Conscience, ed. 3, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1907, On Human Acts, Concup., (1), Case (9), R. 2: "The mind can be occupied for a sufficiently long time with those impure matters, without full advertence and full consent being present, which nevertheless is required for mortal sin." And if someone, "noticing more fully, struck by fear, flees to prayer, it sufficiently shows that he had not previously fully consented, nor is guilty of mortal sin." And concerning the Rule of Human Acts, Scrupulous Conscience, Case (17), R. 2: "If someone is habitually in that state in which he would rather die than offend God, he ought by no means to be troubled by those various temptations against chastity, nor by those which have progressed even to a sense of joy and satisfaction (or of natural desire). For this affection and that sense is not yet voluntary consent, in which alone sin consists. It can indeed happen that sometimes some venial negligence insinuates itself; but this is human misery, which should teach continual humility and vigilance, not fear and anxiety." And again concerning Sin, Advertence necessary for sin, Case (37), R. 2: "It can altogether happen that someone clings for a sufficiently long time to a thought of preceding delectation, before full advertence of mortal malice has in reality been present."

n. 180.

If the second, and the penitent has already at another time completed a general Confession, or for some notable time has been accustomed to approach Penance diligently and piously, let him impose on this person that he no longer think about past faults, nor say any more word about them, unless he can swear that he certainly perpetrated those mortal sins, and never laid them down in Confession. But if after a Confession duly made he returns, then let the confessor dismiss him unheard, commanding him to approach Communion. Thus St. Bernard conducted himself, who is said to have said to a certain priest who wished to abstain from the celebration of Mass because of scruples: Go and celebrate on my faith, and he was freed. Nor say: Would that he who speaks thus were another Bernard! "Whoever says this," says St. Antoninus from Gerson, "errs: for you have not committed yourself into the hands of a man because he is learned, because he is pious; but because he is placed over you."

n. 181.

If the third, let the confessor impose that he act freely and despise scruples; indeed that he operate against them as often as evident sin does not appear; because, generally speaking, these persons, because of reason disturbed by that excessive fear, think sin is present where it is not. Hence it is necessary to enjoin on them a precept that they overcome scruples, lest they become useless both to themselves and to others; and that afterwards they by no means accuse themselves in Confession concerning such actions. "For it is not necessary that a scruple be driven away speculatively, but practically, nor in such a way that it is not felt, but that it is not consented to through a determinate judgment." Suarez l. c., n. 4. In this matter it is to be noted that even if it can happen that they sometimes err materially by acting thus, nevertheless they will not sin formally by reason of the obedience which they render to the confessor; because then they do not obey man, but God saying: He who hears you, hears me, and he who despises you, despises me. Nor indeed "in moral matters is omnimodal certainty to be sought, and doubt, which perhaps in others would be reasonable, is to be judged as nothing in the scrupulous person." Suarez l. c., n. 6. - L. l. 1, n. 12, 19; La-Croix l. 1, n. 527 seqq.

n. 182.

Are scruples useful? - "Scruple... for some space of time, helps not a little the soul which gives itself to spiritual exercises; indeed it greatly purges and cleanses such a soul by separating it very much from every species (appearance) of sin according to that saying of Gregory, It belongs to good minds to recognize fault where there is no fault." St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Rules on Scruples, 3; La-Croix l. 1, n. 513. - But if they are protracted for a long time, "scruples are harmful, first to the body, because they destroy health, weaken the head, often reduce a man to madness, often shorten life; then to the soul, which they render entangled, desolate, perplexed, sometimes despairing; they confuse the intellect, disturb the power of judging, often render the whole man, endowed with distinguished talents, unfit for all functions; moreover they impede many good works, waste time with many vain and useless thoughts, etc." La-Croix l. c., n. 514.

Gury-Ballerini, Compendium of Moral Theology (8th ed., 1884)

Jean-Pierre Gury, S.J.; notes by Antonio Ballerini, S.J. — 41 passages

Vol. I, Treatise On Conscience, Ch. III, Article I. On Scrupulous Conscience

Scrupulous conscience is said to be that which from a slight, indeed even empty, cause doubts concerning the honesty of some action, and therefore fears sin where there is no sin. For a scruple is an empty apprehension, or a slight suspicion, by which someone falsely judges something to be sin. But the word scruple is said to be taken from little stones, or scruples, which, entering the shoes of travelers, create trouble for the feet.

We shall speak briefly of the causes, signs, harms, and remedies of scruples, and also of the rules for scrupulous penitents and their Confessors.

I. Causes of Scruples

- The principal causes of scruples are the following:

Divine permission. Not indeed as though God sends false apprehensions, but because, permitting these things, He withdraws His light, namely so that man, having fallen into anxieties, may return to the heart, betake himself to better fruit, learn to have recourse to God, and by patiently sustaining anguish make satisfaction for sins, increase merit, etc.

Operation of the devil. For the devil skillfully knows how to fabricate scruples, by stirring the blood, altering the humors, placing various images before the imagination, composing diverse species, so that he may form a severe and false image of sin, trouble the mind, draw it back from spiritual progress, and finally cast it into dejection of spirit, or even into despair.

A melancholic and phlegmatic temperament. For melancholics are for the most part suspicious and tenacious of the things which they apprehend, and therefore prone to every suspicion of evil; and since they are of a cold temperament, they are more easily liable to fear and pusillanimity, and are frightened at the first appearance of evil.

Weakness of the head, or a defect of natural judgment in persons inclined to fear; likewise pusillanimity and dejection of spirit, on account of which someone does not know how to contemn fears.

Excessive solicitude for avoiding everything which has the appearance of evil; for while the scrupulous person continually cries out to himself: beware of sin... pay attention to yourself..., he frightens and disturbs himself without cause.

Association with the scrupulous; to which also pertains direction received from a scrupulous Confessor, the reading of cases of conscience and of stricter ascetical authors done by someone incautious and less understanding; likewise a fastidious flight from any human conversation.

II. Signs of Scruples, or of a Conscience Liable to Scruples

- It is of very great importance that directors of souls discern the truly scrupulous from the false. For often those are thought scrupulous who are not, and vice versa; and from this immense errors in direction flow, with no small danger of spiritual harm: therefore much circumspection is needed here. The principal signs of scruples are:

Pertinacity of judgment, by which someone refuses to obey the counsels of the Confessor or of wise men; and while he consults various persons, he acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed the more he hears, the more he is entangled.

Frequent change of judgment from slight motives, whence frequent inconstancy in acting, and continual disturbance of mind.

Fear of sinning in all things, joined with pertinacity of mind against the judgment of the Confessor, of prudent persons, or even against one's own judgment: whence follows frequent questioning concerning the responses of the Confessor, and repeated inquiry whether, in acting according to the counsel given, conscience can be immune from fault.

Impertinent reflections about circumstances which were present in the action or could have been present, and certitude anxiously sought in all things.

Obstinacy in always repeating the same sin in confession, or in holding that as sin which has already several times been declared by the Confessor not to be such.

Continual anxiety concerning past confessions, notwithstanding the judgment of the Confessor, or the repetition of confessions.

But he cannot be judged scrupulous, at least immediately, 1. who is moderately solicitous or anxious lest he offend God; 2. who after a life spent in sins is still troubled, and after confession does not seem to himself to have made satisfaction, but wishes rather to confess and expiate sins; 3. who still deliberately consents to grave sins, although after the sin has been committed he is greatly troubled and confesses anxiously, for there is a just cause of anxiety, at least moderate: nevertheless even in this one there can be a truly scrupulous person; 4. who in only one or another case has a passing scruple, and does not doubt whether he has sinned in this or that.

Moreover it sometimes happens that the Confessor, after hearing a penitent the first or second time, cannot immediately decide whether he is scrupulous, even if this penitent appears anxious about many things; since some just and reasonable cause of anxieties can be present. But much less can a scrupulous Confessor easily judge whether a penitent is scrupulous, or only fearful. - Lacroix, book 4, no. 517, etc.

III. Harms of Scruples

- Scruples generally draw with them grave inconveniences and spiritual harms, and often also bodily harms, provided they have not been sent by God, but persevere from the fault of man. The principal harms of scruples are the following:

They harm the body; for through continual anguishes they constrict the heart, corrupt the blood, consume the vital spirits, and weaken the head.

They make the scrupulous person unfit for acting fruitfully with the neighbor; for most scrupulous persons are severe and morose toward household members no less than toward outsiders.

They harm obedience, or even totally impede it; since the scrupulous person rather follows trifles and mockeries of the imagination: thus he is driven to acting against the will of God, which is manifested to him through the spiritual father or director.

They weaken, or even utterly take away, the study and love of prayer; because they enervate the force of the mind, distract it by leading it to trifles, fill the spirit with anxieties, and make it unfit for union with God. Hence follows not only ceasing spiritual gain, but also immense arising harm.

They break fortitude: for what great thing would one dare who is wholly occupied in trifles, and, victory over his passions having been neglected, is so easily cast down in spirit?

They greatly lessen hope, or even destroy it, because the matter is finally brought to this, that confidence in God having been lost, one declines into laxity. For how will he trust in God as he ought, who always regards Him as a most severe exactor? Therefore the scrupulous person, unless he fights strongly against scruples, will soon be driven by them into despair, and will loosen the reins to his desires, or at least will lead a most wretched life and with great danger of damnation.

IV. Remedies of Scruples

- Scruples are frequently concerned 1. with daily actions; 2. with depraved thoughts; 3. with confessions. Therefore:

I. To scrupulous persons who in all actions are troubled by fear of sinning, it must be enjoined that they act strenuously against scruples, and abstain from confessing them, unless they are most certain that sin is present there. For although by so acting they sometimes sin materially, nevertheless they will not sin formally by reason of the obedience which they ought to furnish to the Confessor. - St. Lig., no. 17.

II. To scrupulous persons who fear to give, or to have given, assent to any depraved thought against chastity, Faith, or Charity, it must be imposed that they despise these thoughts as mere phantasms, and abstain from confession of thoughts of this kind, unless they can swear that they truly consented to them. - St. Lig., no. 15.

III. To scrupulous persons who are always anxious about confessions, especially past ones, it must be prohibited that they think any more about the faults of past life, nor speak a word about them in confession, unless they can swear 1. that they perpetrated mortal sins; 2. that they never confessed them, especially if they have already completed a general confession. - St. Lig., no. 16.

Moreover the scrupulous and fearful, anxious about past confessions, are to be questioned thus: 1. Did you knowingly conceal a grave sin? 2. Did you propose to repeat sins? If they answer negatively to each demand, their confession must be pronounced valid.

V. Rules for the Scrupulous

- 1. In moral matters certitude is not to be sought in all things. This holds for all; but it must be applied especially to the scrupulous.

Supreme and blind obedience is to be furnished to the Confessor, and one must proceed in all things with great humility and confidence.

Doubt which could seem reasonable in others must be wholly despised in the scrupulous.

It is licit, indeed often obligatory, and sometimes under grave obligation, to fight against scruples. - St. Lig., no. 17.

Confession must never be repeated unless it was certainly sacrilegious; nor must the examination of the last confession ever be renewed, even if doubt about a grave sin omitted seems to arise.

Scruples are to be contemned; nor must the scrupulous ever dispute with themselves about these things.

VI. Rules for Confessors

Let the Confessor examine whether the penitent is truly scrupulous..., whether in all things..., and what is the origin of the scruples.

Let him be patient, kindly, and strong. These words of the Apostle, 2 Tim. 4. 2, pertain to him: Be instant in season, out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.

Let him respond to one asking without hesitation and with command; let him not easily add reasons to responses; nor let sins already confessed be repeated several times.

Let him commend to the scrupulous person great confidence in the goodness of God, frequent prayer, flight from idleness, brevity of examination, humility of heart.

…and 1 more passage — all of them are listed on the topic page.

Tanquerey

Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S. — 8 passages

Vol. II, Fundamental Moral Theology…, On Conscience

n. 359.

II. Concerning Scrupulous Conscience.

1. Notion. Here likewise we treat of scrupulous conscience, insofar as it is a habitual disposition,³ by force of which the agent, from a futile foundation which he thinks solid, believes or doubts that something is illicit which in fact is not, and therefore with anxiety fears lest he frequently sin, and indeed mortally. For the most part this vain trepidation is accompanied by a certain sensible impression or commotion, arising from vivid imagination, which more or less disturbs judgment and vexes the mind with anguish.¹

² Besides the authors alleged, see Scaramelli, Director. asceticum, Augustae Vindelicorum, 1770, tr. II, n. 421-467; Reuter, Neo-Confessarius, Ratisbonae, 1870, n. 255-274; Schram, Instit. theol. myst., Parisiis, 1868, t. I, § 73-83; Lombez, Paix intérieure, 2e p., ch. 7; Dubois, l'Ange conducteur des âmes scrupuleuses, Lille et Paris, 1901; Vieux Moraliste, apud Ami du Clergé, t. XXIV, 1902, p. 673-678.

³ A judgment brought by scrupulous conscience is sometimes certain and sometimes doubtful: in the former case, conscience is said to be informed by scruples, and its dictate must be followed, from what will be said below concerning certain conscience; in the latter case, conscience is agitated by scruples, and concerning it we treat here; this is not to be followed, but the doubt is to be put aside by force of a reflex principle handed down by the confessor (n. 364).

¹ The word scruple (scrupulus or scrupus) literally signifies a little stone (pierre pointue); for just as this, inserted between the foot and the shoe, torments the one walking, so scruple vexes the soul.

(A) The principal signs by which scrupulous persons are recognized are these: (a) fear of sinning in all things, even indifferent and honorable things, or the vain apprehension that fault otherwise light is grave; (b) excessive anxiety concerning past confessions, and consequently the desire of making general confessions again and again, especially when from these doubts and anxieties increase; (c) lengthy accusations of circumstances which do not pertain to the matter, even if the confessor has several times said that all these things are useless; (d) pertinacity of judgment, which does not wish to acquiesce in the decisions of the confessor, but to seize upon the counsels of others: from which greater anguishes of soul are born; (e) frequent change of opinion on account of light reasons, and the greatest disturbance of soul in acting, which is sometimes exhibited by ridiculous gestures.

n. 360.

(B) Scruples are sometimes concerned with all things and sometimes with one or another object, especially (a) concerning past confessions: whether due examination was premised, and all circumstances rightly declared; whether contrition was had, and indeed at the very time of absolution; whether a good purpose was efficaciously elicited, etc.; (b) concerning depraved thoughts against chastity, or doubts against faith, to which they assert that they have given full consent, or intentions which they suppose to have been evil; (c) concerning scandal which perhaps they gave to others; (d) concerning a habit of acting with serious doubt whether the action is licit, from which it happens that most of their actions are sins, etc.

Scrupulous conscience differs from tender, or delicate, conscience, which perceives the smallest defects, and, on account of love of God, wills to amend them, well knowing that they are not grave, but harm perfection; this disposition indeed is laudable.

n. 361.

1. Causes. Some are natural, others supernatural.

(A) Natural causes are physical or moral. (a) Among physical causes are especially numbered: a melancholic disposition, which often arises from temperament, and injects vain fears; and a certain morbid inclination to despair, arising from character, sickness, or various misfortunes; - excess in labors, abstinence, fasts, vigils, and other austerities, which, by diminishing the strength of the body, depress the strength of the soul; and also long-standing flight from all human conversation and honorable recreation, from which arises an assiduous and morose investigation of one's own conscience. (b) Among moral causes are numbered: weakness and inconstancy of soul, which follows the impressions of a vivid imagination rather than mature judgment; and from this head, more women than men are prone to scruple; - defect of science, whether speculative or psychological, by force of which the extent of duties is exaggerated, or impression is confused with consent; this defect is sometimes increased by the ignorance or imprudence of certain confessors; - excessive fear of divine justice, proceeding from this, that God is held not as a merciful Father, but rather as a severe Judge, scrutinizing and punishing all things strictly; - hidden pride, by which the scrupulous person tenaciously adheres to his own judgment, and does not consent to obey a spiritual director.¹

¹ To these causes, which hold themselves on the part of the subject, external ones are sometimes added: conversation with scrupulous persons, - reading of books favoring rigid opinions, - counsels of a director who is ignorant, or lacking discretion.

(B) To these sometimes supernatural causes are added: (a) namely God indeed does not send false concepts into conscience, but sometimes withdraws His light for a time even from the just, and permits them to be vexed by scruples, so that, by patient tolerance of this trial, they may satisfy more perfectly for past sins, and, by detesting them more efficaciously, may withdraw more vigilantly from dangerous occasions; - and also that, conscious of their own infirmity, they may have recourse to God with greater confidence and obey a spiritual director with more sincere humility.

(b) The devil can also act upon our sensitive faculties, especially upon the imagination, for exciting or increasing vain fears; or, when the soul is already held by sadness, he strives to suggest despair by various persuasions; or, if the conscience is delicate, "he strives to make it much more delicate also, and to drive it into a certain extreme degree of anxiety, so that thus, being miserably disturbed, it may finally fall away from spiritual progress."²

² St. Ignatius of Loyola, Exercitia spiritualia, ed. Roothaan, Romae, 1854, Rules concerning scruples, p. 160; P. Jennesseaux, S. J., rendered it in French, Paris, Poussielgue, 13th edition, 1891, p. 323.

n. 362.

1. Harms. Scruples to which consent is given, from whatever cause they arise, can induce the greatest harms, temporal and spiritual at the same time: -

(A) Temporal indeed; for, when they last for a long time, (a) they weaken or disturb the brain and nervous system: for by force of the intimate union between body and soul, vain fears, sadness, anguishes, and other things of this kind, to which scrupulous persons are liable, lessen physical strength and greatly harm health. (b) The powers having been weakened, the way is prepared for neurasthenia, hysteria, and other illnesses described above, n. 130-133. (c) Indeed, as anxieties increase, sometimes reason itself is dulled, and falls into dementia, if the scruples are universal, or into monomania, if they are concerned with one object.

(B) Spiritual harms: they break the powers of the soul, and gradually turn virtues once acquired into vices: (a) they weaken hope: scrupulous persons, thinking themselves to be in the state of mortal sin, regard God as a most severe exactor and flee from Him. (b) Wherefore they cannot pray: too solicitous concerning the state of their own conscience, and fearing God too much, they do not dare to remain in His presence and be united to Him. (c) From this they lack fortitude: for since they retain only slight confidence in God, and moreover exaggerate their own infirmity, and do not trust their spiritual director, they undertake nothing great, but waste time uselessly in vain anxieties. Hence they are rendered unfit for acting fruitfully for the usefulness of others, and for diligently fulfilling the duties of their state; indeed they are usually burdensome to themselves and to others. (d) They also easily incur the danger of sinning gravely: for, their powers weakened, and exhausted by assiduous efforts against natural inclinations, they sometimes slip into despair, and, for the sake of consolation, loosen the reins to their desires; whence not rarely they fall into extremes, today indulging excessive mortifications, but tomorrow pleasure: for human nature cannot long resist such cruel torture.

n. 363.

1. Remedies. (A) The primary and most efficacious remedy, to which the others are subordinated, is perfect obedience to be shown to a prudent confessor. For a scrupulous person, since he is destitute of the right dictate of conscience, cannot form a right judgment concerning things to be done; and therefore there is no other mode of rightly operating available to him than to submit himself to the judgment of a prudent man, by whose aid he will gradually put aside vain doubts and erroneous judgments. But the prudent man in question can scarcely be anyone other than the spiritual director, to whom the secrets of the heart are trustingly opened.

(a) But the confessor, as soon as he knows that some penitent is agitated by scruples, will strive to win his confidence by paternal benignity, and afterward will address him in these or similar words: I can and will, with God's help, restore peace of soul to you, provided, however, that you will open all things sincerely to me, and obey in all things, having set aside your own judgment for a time; if you promise this, you will certainly be freed from all doubts and anxieties at the opportune time; otherwise, you will be vexed perpetually. For a scrupulous person cannot act rightly by his own counsel,¹ but ought to follow without hesitation the counsel of a prudent man; practically, he never errs who obeys a wise director.

¹ Often he will not acknowledge that he is scrupulous; but the confessor will affirm that the matter is clear from the doubts, fluctuations, and anxieties set forth by the penitent.

(b) The first time, let him allow the scrupulous person to set forth his doubts fully; if he wishes to make a general confession, this can be permitted once, provided that he has not made such a confession to another a little before: let him kindly help him in the examination of conscience and in eliciting the act of contrition; but once this confession has been duly completed, let him no longer be permitted to repeat confessions. If nevertheless afterward he says that he did not confess all things, let the confessor order him to swear that he certainly remembers some sin certainly mortal and certainly never declared in a valid confession: if he fears to swear, let him not be heard; if he swears without hesitation, let it be permitted to him to declare this sin.

n. 364.

(c) The confessor will strive to know the cause and object of the scruples, so that he may be able better to hand down practical rules of acting to the penitent. If the cause is physiological, proceeding from weakness of the brain or disturbance of the nerves, he will send him to a wise physician, yet without omitting spiritual remedies. - If the cause is doubt concerning the liceity of such or such an action, he will inculcate in him the rule which is valid at least for the scrupulous: a doubtful law is no law; if, after the action has been performed, he doubts whether he sinned gravely, in practice he ought to act as if he had not sinned gravely, and therefore not abstain from Holy Communion: for he ought not to hold as mortal sin except that which he can swear to be certainly mortal. - He ought to take care that the scrupulous person absolutely obey the rules handed down; whence even if with tears he asks to repeat confessions, or wishes to be absolved from doubtful sins before communion, let him be sweetly but firmly repelled: this severity is the highest clemency. - Nor let him permit him to spend a long time in examination of conscience (which increases scruples), but let him set a brief time, which he should never exceed; the same must be said concerning the act of contrition, about which scrupulous persons are greatly tormented.¹

¹ For theologians deservedly teach that one of the privileges of scrupulous persons is situated in this, that they are not held to examine their conscience with the same diligence as others, nor to accuse all sins, but only those which, after a brief examination, they evidently know to be grave (De Paenitent., n. 204 and 192).

The scrupulous person sometimes objects: the confessor does not know my intimate dispositions well; I myself know them better, and I would not wish to die in this uncertain state. - The director will respond: Unless your conscience had been sufficiently known to me, I would not have prescribed a manner of acting; since you are agitated by scruples, you cannot form a right judgment concerning your own dispositions, but you ought to obey the judgment of the wise, even in the article of death; nor can God damn him who has trustingly submitted himself to a superior.

In all these things let the confessor not speak as one opining and hesitating, but as one certainly knowing and having authority: let him adduce either no reasons, or only very brief ones; otherwise, the discussions will be interminable. - Yet firmness of soul should be tempered by charity, so that the scrupulous person may understand that the confessor is a most devoted friend.

n. 365.

(B) Other remedies, besides obedience, to be employed are: (a) fervent prayer to God, as a kind and merciful Father, by which light may be trustingly obtained for seeing the way clearly, and strength for following it assiduously; (b) contempt of scruples, by acting strenuously against them, according to the prescriptions of the confessor; (c) Christian mortification, especially that which consists in immediately expelling vain phantasms, impressions, thoughts, and anxieties: hence assiduous and strenuous labor, and the faithful observance of the duties of one's state are especially useful; for thus the mind is efficaciously turned away from torturing doubts; but the scrupulous person should be warned never to hesitate long, but, after brief consideration, to act deliberately according to the counsels given or presumed of the confessor; (d) right formation of conscience, by which gradually, according to the general rules handed down by the director, he will prudently bear judgment concerning his own actions, as if they were the actions of another.

n. 366.

Corollaries. (A) Concerning perplexed conscience. Sometimes a scrupulous person, placed between two precepts, believes that he will sin, whichever part he chooses: then his conscience is called perplexed;¹ such is, for example, one who, assisting a sick person on Sunday, thinks that he sins if he leaves him, and likewise sins if he omits Mass.

¹ Sometimes, however, someone can be perplexed from mere ignorance, because namely he does not know how to form his conscience in the conflict of two obligations: then it suffices to instruct him.

In this case, (a) if the matter admits delay, and is of grave moment, he is bound to defer the action until he can obtain the counsel of a prudent man: for each one ought to avoid what he thinks is sin.

(b) But if the matter does not admit delay (which for the most part happens) or is of slight moment, he ought to choose that which seems to him to be the lesser evil, and therefore rather to transgress a positive law than a natural law. But if he cannot discern the lesser evil, and remains perplexed, whichever part he chooses, he does not sin: for he lacks that moral liberty which is required for sin.

Therefore penitents of this kind are rightly to be instructed so that, laying aside vain anxieties, they may learn that in no case does there exist a necessity of sinning.

(B) Concerning pharisaical conscience. Sometimes also, on account of ignorance or prejudices, conscience is lax in matters of great moment, pertaining to natural or divine right, while it is too narrow and scrupulous in matters of lesser moment, especially those pertaining to merely positive right: then it is called pharisaical, because it imitates the morals of the Pharisees, of whom Christ said:² "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who tithe mint, and anise, and cumin, and have left the weightier things of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith... straining out a gnat, but swallowing a camel." - From this vice today they do not sufficiently depart who are too anxious about many devotions, and, on the other side, neglect fraternal charity or the duties of their state. These are to be diligently instructed so that, putting aside superfluous devotions, they may assiduously cultivate the Christian virtues congruent with their condition.

² Matt. 23:23-24; the whole chapter should be read.

Koch–Preuss

Antony Koch; adapted and edited by Arthur Preuss — 10 passages

Vol. I, Its Subject, Norm, and Object, Morality, Its Subject, Norm, and Object, Ch. III, Section 4: A Scrupulous Conscience

Scrupulosity or scrupulousness is a peculiar irregularity by which the conscience is led to exaggerate obligations or to regard harmless actions as sinful. A scrupulous man is harassed by groundless doubts and worries, which sometimes cause desperation or religious dementia.

Scrupulosity is often simulated by penitents for egoistic ends, e. g., to make a good impression on the confessor. A prudent confessor will therefore treat such cases with great caution, especially when women are involved. What appears to be a scrupulous conscience is sometimes mere hypocrisy, which, after the manner of the Pharisees, strains at gnats and swallows camels, i. e., pretends to worship the letter of the law without regard for its spirit, and loads down others with burdens which it declines to assume itself.¹ Such a conscience is called conscientia pharisaica, and is almost impossible to cure because it springs from that most tenacious of all vices, —pride.

¹ Cfr. Matth. XXIII, 2 sqq., 13 sqq.; John XVIII, 28.

A scrupulous conscience, on the other hand, can usually be cured by the timely application of suitable remedies.

a) The first step to take is to determine the cause. In the majority of cases the confessor will discover a pathological condition of either the body or the mind. The penitent must be enjoined under strict obedience to remove the cause of his scruples by applying the remedies suggested to him. There is no other cure because the victim of scrupulosity nearly always seeks the cause of his disorder outside himself. Where scruples are merely a trial of the soul, or a penalty for previously committed sins, or a test of virtue, they may be regarded as a disposition of Providence, and the penitent should be admonished to be patient, humbly put his trust in God, and use his affliction as a means of acquiring greater perfection.

If scrupulosity is the result of diabolical obsession and the confessor decides to perform an exorcism, he should not let the penitent know anything about it.

A second reason for enjoining strict obedience to the directions of the confessor is the inclination of scrupulous persons to reject the advice of others and obstinately adhere to their own notions. Such people need, and generally desire, a firm guide, and it is safe to say that a scrupulous penitent will never sin if he follows the advice of his confessor. For the same reason a prudent confessor should inexorably send a scrupulous penitent back to his former confessor, or, when this is impossible, accept him only on condition that he promises strict obedience, Priests do well to be lenient toward scrupulous penitents in all other things, but they should punish disobedience with firmness, even by denying absolution. b) The specific remedies indicated in each individual case must be applied after a careful consideration of all the symptoms. When a scrupulous person is haunted by temptations against purity, or by the fear of consenting to blasphemous thoughts, he should be instructed to accuse himself of such things only if he can make oath to the effect that he has consented. Men and women who have a tender conscience do not usually commit a grievous sin without being aware of the fact. Where scruples have reference to past confessions, they are generally caused by a false notion of the requirements of valid confession or by the apprehension of losing the right disposition at any moment. In such cases it may be advisable to instruct the penitent regarding the necessary requisites of confession. If a general confession is likely to afford relief, let it be suggested or permitted, on condition that the penitent confess no sins of his previous life, unless he is ready to take an oath that he actually committed and never confessed them before. As a rule scrupulous penitents should be dissuaded from brooding over or mentioning past sins. This is a wise rule to follow, because, even though something serious may occasionally be left out, the preservation of bodily and spiritual health is a higher duty than the material integrity of sacramental confession.

n. ¶7.

Another class of persons labor under the fear of committing a sin every time they act. These should be advised to disregard their apprehensions and to go ahead resolutely without trying to solve their doubts, because no one who earnestly strives to serve God is likely to commit a grave sin without being aware of the fact.

n. ¶8.

The rule bidding men to abstain from acting as long as their conscience is in a state of doubt, does not apply to the scrupulous. If it did, they would never act at all, as they are never free from doubt. Such persons should be taught to disregard the maxim, "In dubio pars tutior est sequenda," and they will rarely sin, except in a material sense, because they will not act against conscience, but merely against unreasonable fears and scruples.

n. ¶9.

Finally, scrupulous persons should be forbidden to repeat prayers, penances, etc., which they think they have performed imperfectly. Of course, where harm has resulted to another by an incomplete performance of duties, even the scrupulant can not be dispensed from repetition, e. g., if a scrupulous priest had mispronounced the formula of absolution, he would be bound to repeat the same. Usually, however, scrupulous persons only think they have erred in such cases, and since their doubts are unfounded, there is no obligation to repeat. E. Boyd Barrett, S. J., pleads “for a frank recognition of the fact that 'scruples' is a mere nerve disease, though concerned with facts of the moral order. The central interest of the pious man or woman,” he says, “is his state of soul. The obsession that grips his exhausted or weakened mind deals naturally with the chief interest of his life, religion, and hence the 'content' of the obsession of a pious person concerns sin.” (The New Psychology, N. Y. 1925, p. 118).

n. ¶10.

READINGS.—Thos. Slater, S.J., A Manual of Moral Theology, Vol. I, pp. 76 sqq.—IDEM, Questions of Moral Theology, New York 1915, pp. 329 sqq.—J. F. Delany in the Cath. Encyclopedia, Vol. III, pp. 640 sq.—Sabetti-Barrett, S.J., Compendium Theologiae Moralis, 27th ed., New York 1919, pp. 39 sqq.—De Lehen, S.J., The Way of Interior Peace, New York 1888, pp. 268 sqq.—A. Lehmkuhl, S.J., Theologia Moralis, 11th ed., Vol. I, pp. 76 sqq.—A. Konings, C.SS.R., Theologia Moralis, 2nd ed., Vol. I, New York 1876, pp. 19 sqq.—Fr. a Barbens, O. M. Cap., Introductio Pathologica in Studium Theol. Mor., Tarracona 1917, pp. 121 sqq.—Aug. Gemelli, O.F.M., De Scrupulis, Florence 1913.—A. Eymieu, Le Gouvernement de Soi-même, Essai de Psychologie Pratique, 2 vols., esp. Vol. II, Obsessions et Scrupules, Paris, 27th ed., 1922.—A. Poulain, S.J., The Graces of Interior Prayer, tr. by S. Yorke Smith, 2nd ed., London s. a., pp. 420 sqq.—N. Turco, Il Trattamento “Morale” dello Scrupolo e dell’ Ossessione Morbosa, 2 vols., Turin 1920.—L’Ange Conducteur des Ames Scrupuleuses ou Craintives, Bruges 1905.—E. Boyd Barrett, S.J., The New Psychology, N. Y. 1925, pp. 103 sqq.

Vermeersch, Theologia Moralis

Arthur Vermeersch, S.J. — 7 passages

Vol. I, Tr. IV, Tit. II, Article II: On Scrupulous Conscience

n. 380.

— I. Various notions. 1. Called from a rough little stone which, by entering the shoe, makes walking troublesome, scruple already by Cicero (Rosc. Amer. 2, 6) is transferred to an uneasy solicitude of soul. But objectively it is a certain slight and empty little reason, whose solution is not found, and on account of which an action would be either prescribed or evil; or, subjectively, the consequent and anxious fear concerning obligation or the malice of an action.

Therefore in this place, scruple is taken especially for a morbid anxiety of soul concerning an obligation to be executed or concerning sins committed.

Scrupulosity is called antecedent when, solicitous concerning obligations, it regards future acts; consequent, when, adhering in sins, it affects past acts.

According to varied origin, it is innate, transmitted by heredity, or acquired, which must be attributed to institution, companions, accidental disturbance.

According to varied extension, it is general or particular, when anxiety is detected in almost every matter, or, on the contrary, is circumscribed by a few arguments, indeed by one.

According to varied intensity, it either contains true scruples, or only the beginning of scruples or even remnants in him who is recovering from scruples. This diminished scrupulosity is manifested by a certain hesitation or fear.

According to varied permanence, it can be long-lasting or brief.

Scrupulosity can be ascribed to a certain kind of "phobia." But this is the form of its process. It takes its beginning from a fatiguing deliberation concerning the honesty of an action or from an examination of an action done. After one has at length arrived at some conclusion, the opinion obtained in so laborious a way is soon contradicted internally by various reasons, often strange and objected, which impel the scrupulous man to deliberate again and again concerning confirming or reforming the opinion. Finally, as if compelled by necessity, he rushes into action: he says or does the things concerning which he was anxiously inquiring; he makes confession anxious about an incomplete examination, about an act of contrition not elicited; he receives the Eucharist, by no means secure concerning the state of grace. Hence a new scruple, that he has acted against conscience, or with a practically doubtful conscience.
Marks of the scrupulous man. To the man who diligently observes them, scrupulous persons seem acute and as it were clever in finding and distinguishing reasons; pertinacious in a certain estimation of their own arguments; yet at the same time timid in conclusions, and, by a certain distrust of themselves, suspecting a defect of words in proposing difficulties, of intellect in grasping or interpreting responses, of memory in retaining either counsels given or chiefly positive precepts, or their own very deeds, so that they doubt concerning a door closed by themselves, a light extinguished, hours recited, Mass heard; and especially in the purpose of preserving peace, of being silent about scruples, of omitting a new inquiry into the matter, of obeying simply, they are inconstant and little firm.

They labor or remain wavering in no general principle, nor in the dialectical texture of a syllogism or reasoning, but in the application of the principle to their state or to their deeds, that is, in the "minor," so that it is troublesome for them, and sometimes altogether impassable, to pronounce concerning the quality of a motive (vain, serious), of diligence employed (sufficient, slight), of a cause on account of which it is permitted to omit fasting, to disapprove the deeds of another, to narrate, and concerning the quality of their state (temptation overcome, admitted).

Therefore the illness is not of the intelligence alone, but also, indeed rather, of the will; and, insofar as it is intellective, it affects less discursive reason than intuitions, not indeed the highest, but those by which either individual facts or facts collected together are directly, as if by one glance, to be estimated and judged.

A liberal and strong soul, just like one pusillanimous and applied to loving itself, can be joined with scruples. Yet as such, the scrupulous man is never shown to be generous and magnanimous, since he is uneasy concerning his guilt, concerning his future lot, but not concerning loving God, helping his neighbor, or the more perfect good.

Distinction from excessive rigor. Since anxiety, a certain disturbance of soul, pertains to the essence of a scruple, scruple must be well separated from a propensity even excessive toward severity, or from tranquil errors of doctrine or of judgment, just as by St. Ignatius in the rules concerning scruples it is distinguished from these.

¹ Several writers in France and Italy have written concerning scruples and their remedies. V.g., Dr. Raymond, R. D. Toulemonde, R. P. Gemelli. The best work, including, besides the common part, a special part for the use of confessors, is: L'Ange conducteur des ames scrupuleuses ou craintives. Bruges, 1905. Natale Turco is also praised, A uso degli ammalati, medici e confessori. Il trattamento morale dello scrupolo e dell'ossessione morbosa. 2 vol. Turin, 1919 and 1920.

n. 381.

— II. Signs of scrupulosity. These can easily be drawn out by a confessor from the description just made. But for the scrupulous man himself, no better demonstration can be sought than from the judgment of his prudent confessor.

n. 382.

— III. Theology of scruples. 1. A man who, from a speculative apprehension even to be despised in itself, has definitely judged that his action is forbidden to him or is of only doubtful honesty, would labor under an erroneous or doubtful conscience, with which it is by no means permitted to act. Then scruples enter the very dictate of conscience; from them conscience has been formed. But this is not the case of the scrupulous man who from the warning of the confessor is commanded to contemn his scruples. He himself, even when he works fearfully, readily has this formal or virtual judgment, that a scruple can safely be neglected by him. Wherefore the consents which he says he has given, either to a depraved interior suggestion, or to the purpose of acting however the morality of the action may stand, or to this conclusion: "I shall sin and then by confession I shall expiate the sin," must be ascribed to the fantastic order. That is, fantasy represented assent of this sort to him, so that he seemed to himself as if he saw himself acting thus. Nevertheless, not otherwise than in a dream, he gave no free consent to those suggestions or purposes; perhaps he made this use of the confession alone foreseen, that from it he might become more courageous for acting against scruples. Wherefore for a scrupulous man who, v.g., from the counsel of a confessor, knows habitually that his doubts must be contemned by himself, it is lawful to act with a scrupulous conscience, or with the scruple remaining. For that knowledge provides him a certain conscience. Indeed he must act thus, because, since it is not in his proximate power to remove the scruple from himself, with the scruple remaining, he can only either yield to the scruple, increasing his weakness, lessening his moral forces and liberty itself; or, from impatience, change his good will and embrace formal sin, trampling the scruple under foot in this way; or, preserving a good will, neglect and overcome the scruple from the approved rule of despising his doubts: which way of acting alone is reasonable, salutary, and honest.

It can indeed happen that, in the process of scrupulous reasons, scrupulous persons labor for a long time, and are so wearied and disturbed from the struggle that they rush blindly into action: but then they are deprived of the liberty necessary, at least for sinning gravely.
By a similar reason, promises, vows, blasphemies which some often, indeed almost daily, dream that they have made or said, can be held as fictitious. A confessor should simply refuse to hear or estimate these things.
The obligation of attacking scruples is present, and indeed grave, where scruples cannot be combined with the office of state, v.g., of a parish priest; or where they induce a sufficiently proximate danger of ruin, whether mental or spiritual. Yet a man who is gravely scrupulous will scarcely incur subjective guilt, provided that with his weak will he is willing to strive against scruples in general.

n. 383.

— IV. Medicine of scruples. The physician ought chiefly to look to this, not that he solve the difficulties speculatively and satisfy the intellect, but that he communicate or restore sufficient courage or confidence to the will of the sick man, and that the scrupulous man may dare to act according to common sense, of which he is by no means without share.

Moreover treatment usually includes these two stages: immediate aid must be furnished to the needy man, and complete healing must be prepared from the beginning.

Immediate aid consists in this, that the physician by his own will supply what is lacking of efficacious command in the will of the sick man. Therefore he ought to take care that he have authority with the sick man. Wherefore: a) he will be helped by the esteem by which the scrupulous man holds him as an upright and holy man; b) he will be helped by the name of doctrine and science. The physician should not lessen that esteem, and therefore let him be brief in the explanation of his counsels, lest, among the motives alleged, the scrupulous man find one less solid, on account of which he begins to doubt concerning the rest. Especially let him abstain from repeating the exposition which the scrupulous man made of his difficulty or his case: for if the scrupulous man has spoken at length for some time, it can scarcely happen that he does not detect some diversity between his narration and the physician's, whence he judges the case not understood and therefore not solved; c) the physician will be helped by firmness of face, words, and speech: let him pronounce nothing hesitantly; d) he will be helped by monopoly: let him beware lest the scrupulous man, by questioning others or consulting books, observe some discrepancy of opinions, on account of which he begins to distrust his physician.

He will use his authority for imposing norms that are few, clear, brief, such as scarcely give place to distinctions and exceptions. He will propose these, accommodated to the necessities of the scrupulous man; and in kind they are twofold: some are materially and formally true; others are only practical formulas for emerging from scruples, which the confessor, from his conscience known to himself, can prescribe to the scrupulous man.

Moreover the theology of the scrupulous man furnishes these things: a) Scruples are an inconvenience which truly dispenses from several positive obligations: v.g., from material integrity of confession, from the precept of fraternal correction;

b) Even with probability of particular error, the scrupulous man, intending health, can consider as universal and follow a rule by which of itself he does not recede from honesty, and will be led, as is hoped, to more or less full health. For he has a right to employ efficacious and of themselves honest means for being healed. But the effect of error is accidental and, on account of a proportionate cause, legitimately permitted.

Relying upon these principles, the confessor, according to the opportunity of the scrupulous man, should free him from every solicitude of warning superiors, correcting equals; should set him a maximum time for searching his conscience for confession, or remove from him the whole burden of examination properly so called; should reduce sacramental accusation to a few points or to external sins alone; should command him to be silent concerning past confessions.

Certainly he cannot dispense him from any natural or divine law. Wherefore he will not formally assent to one asking: "Can I adhere to depraved delights?"; but he will warn him to turn his soul away from doctrinal rules, ruinous to him, and to follow the practical indications of his confessor. He will substitute for the rules by which the scrupulous man is impeded other, simpler and cruder rules. Let these be examples: "Care for nothing unless it is plainly established to you as 2x2 = 4." "Neglect everything that seems doubtful to you, and judge that you doubt if you ask whether you doubt or not." "Care for external acts alone, neglecting all questions concerning internal assent, desire, etc." "Choose at once without deliberation." Indeed, in a more extreme case, to a penitent otherwise morally upright, he could advise this: "Act as if you were loosed from every duty, so that you reckon yourself only invited to acting well."

II. Healing. But at the same time the confessor will try to extirpate the illness by the root, lest the scrupulous man be enslaved forever to the counsels of another. Therefore:

To enlighten his intellect, he will teach him that in moral matters mathematical proofs are not to be sought; that little attention is to be given to the things which merely can be or happen, but that our providence is limited by probable things; and that anxiety, which is in the appetite, cannot be confused with the judgment of the intellect.
To strengthen his will, he will stir him in a more universal way to a firm mode of acting in every matter; he will command him to neglect the anxiety which he experiences in acting; he will urge him to have and foster a purpose of sharp battle against scruples, on account of these or similar causes: that scruples hinder, far from favoring, the progress and merit of the soul; that men are impeded from many good works, especially apostolic ones, on account of scruples; that nothing generous, nothing noble, is present in scruples; that it is pleasing to God and to Christ that he put away a scrupulous soul; indeed that he ought to do this; that therefore he will be safer if he contemns and expels scruples than if he lets himself be anxious and be deceived by very small matters.
It will often be useful that the scrupulous man be occupied in many things: since then he is not free to turn many things over in his mind, and, compelled by the very necessity of more prompt action, he recognizes the harmful foolishness of scruples.
By fervor of life he will be no less impelled to conceive greater confidence which dares to contemn scruples.
The confessor will gradually lead the scrupulous man to solving his own cases by himself, forbidding, v.g., that he propose doubts more often than once or twice in a week or in a month; that he recite more than two or three; by suggesting that he act in that way which, in his estimation, other men would commonly hold, or which the director of souls would indicate to him; and that he cast away every fear which others would not seem to him to be going to experience, or which they would hold as vain and ridiculous.

Finally, conversation with friends who are good and of a strong soul, books concerning heroic and holy men, are not without usefulness. Indeed physical care of the body must not be neglected.

n. 384.

— The worse case of the scrupulous. While one can deal broadly with pious and good scrupulous persons, he must be moderated more cautiously who joins scruples with true spiritual tepidity and true sins. His case is far more encumbered. Besides rules which are formally true, by which, v.g., he is exempted from too troublesome a discussion of conscience, from fraternal correction, other dispensations often will not be able to be given without danger of abuse. Wherefore it will sometimes be useful as counsel that he be warned that he can be freed from many troubles if only he begins to live more fervently; and that he is particularly invited by God to draw from scruples an occasion of fervor.

n. 385.

— Concerning special anxieties these few things can be added:

a) He who is too solicitous concerning the canonical hours or certain prayers should be prohibited from reciting anything twice, for any cause whatever; and let him judge that what he fears he has omitted has already been recited by him. And since the law of the Church does not oblige with great inconvenience, the confessor can prescribe for him a time in which he should conclude the recitation of the hours, so that he omit what perhaps remains; indeed, if the matter demands it, he can relieve the scrupulous man from the burden of the breviary;

b) One anxious concerning faith and hope should not labor in eliciting acts, but should simply commend and commit himself to divine Providence;

c) One anxious concerning past confessions should not be heard concerning these;

d) One anxious concerning a fantastic representation or organic disturbance which he suffers while looking at honest or harmless things should accommodate himself to the morals of men who are honest, and contemn the motions or fantasies.

N.B. Sufficiently similar to the scrupulous are several who, while they wish to believe, are disturbed by a certain appearance or apprehension of difficulties. In both, anxiety by no means produces a doubtful conscience concerning honesty or concerning faith. In both, the cause of fear is often that from the intellect alone, or reasoning, they think certainty must be sought which, in the moral and religious order, must be obtained by each faculty: intellect and will; add here the necessity of grace. In both, besides prayer, the remedy is often in correcting and perfecting the will, so that it becomes firmer, purer, nobler in intention; finally, in both, by the very command by which the action or the assent of faith is commanded, a certain conscience concerning honesty or faith is of itself demonstrated.

n. 386.

— V. Usefulness of scruples. Scruples have a temporary usefulness of expiating sins and rash actions, of humbling and mortifying man, of purifying intention, while in that desolation he continues to hold the way of virtue and fervor; finally, of increasing his psychological experience, by which the scrupulous man, once healed, will be able to profit others.

Yet long-lasting scruples weaken strength, impede many good things, cast man down to an excessively timid and restricted action; and by a certain despair lead him to renounce the more perfect life, indeed virtue.

Marc, Institutiones Morales

Clement Marc, C.SS.R. — 3 passages

Vol. I, Part First: On the First P…, Tr. I, Chapter I: On True and Erroneous Conscience

2. On Scrupulous Conscience

n. ¶27.

Notion. A scrupulous conscience, or one agitated by scruples, is that which, from a slight motive, doubts concerning the honesty of some action, and therefore often fears that there is sin where there is none (H. Ap., I, 8).

Scruple is said from scrupus, which is a rough little stone entering the shoe of one walking, whence the foot is injured and the step impeded. Therefore a scruple is a vain apprehension, or an empty specter of sin, by which the eyes of the mind are struck, as infants are terrified by apparitions. But it belongs to the malignant spirit to inject a greater anxiety of sinning than is proper, so that the soul, rushing into the abyss of despair, may no longer truly fear any sin.

Three things concur for a scruple: 1. a futile reason, whose solution does not appear; 2. a vain fear of sinning arising thence; 3. disturbance of soul (Billuart, de act. hum., Diss. 5, a. 5).

You will infer: 1. Scrupulous conscience, as such, is not conscience, but only a shadow and likeness of conscience; for it is not the dictate of reason, but of imagination. Yet if someone were to judge firmly that sin is present where it is not, he would have a conscience formed by scruples and therefore erroneous, but properly so called. 2. It differs entirely from a tender and timorous conscience, which indeed solicitously, but wisely, according to the rules of Christian prudence, avoids every sin, even the slightest.

n. ¶28.

Since the present matter is to be treated elsewhere (n. 1835 seqq.) in order to practice, it suffices here to note two things:

I. To act against scruples is always licit, and often obligatory. 1. It is licit, because a scruple is not a dictate of reason, but an empty fear, as lacking a prudent and reasonable foundation. Therefore that fear does not prevent the one acting from forming for himself a practically certain conscience from extrinsic principles, especially from the authority of the confessor. Hence, to act against a scruple is not to act against conscience.

It is obligatory, because excessive anxiety greatly harms spiritual progress, and brings grave detriment to body and soul at once (I, 19).

II. The principal and almost sole remedy against scruples is to acquiesce in the judgment of a superior or confessor. - Thus very commonly the Doctors, and the reason is clear. For since the scrupulous, while they are agitated by scruples, cannot form for themselves a true dictate of conscience, nothing else remains except that they hand themselves over to be ruled by the counsel of others, and use extrinsic reasons rather than intrinsic ones (I, 12).

Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis

Dominic M. Prümmer, O.P. — 5 passages

Vol. I, Pt. I, Tract IV. On Conscience, Ch. IV, Article II. On Scrupulous Conscience

n. 319.

319. Notion and effects. Scrupulous conscience is that which from futile and altogether insufficient motives thinks and fears that some act is sinful. And so a scruple or so-called scrupulous conscience is rather fear or empty anxiety than conscience properly so called or the judgment of a sound mind.⁵² Hence although it is never licit to act against conscience, it is not only licit but also necessary to act against scrupulous conscience. Such a conscience is a true torture almost equally for the penitent and for the confessor. Rather rarely does it produce good effects, but often it causes harms both of body and of soul. For it weakens the brain and the nervous system, sometimes harms health, impedes spiritual progress, renders life sad, indeed sometimes leads to madness or to suicide. Sometimes also suddenly, as if from desperation, a scrupulous man becomes of lax conscience and loosens the reins to vices. - Scrupulous conscience is by no means to be confused with tender conscience, which flees all sins, even small ones. Hence the signs proving the existence of scrupulous conscience are to be attended to.

⁵² Therefore physicians deservedly call scruples a phobia (religious compulsory ideas); cf. P. Raymond, O. Pr., Le guide des nerveux et des scrupuleux. Paris 1911, p. 100 sqq.

n. 320.

320. Signs⁵³ (Symptomatology). 1. Excessive anxiety concerning the sufficiency of actions⁵⁴ and notably concerning past confessions. But I say: excessive anxiety; for sometimes anxiety of this kind is present not without foundation. But that excessive anxiety is truly present may be concluded from this, that it returns again and again in the penitent, even if the confessor has certainly declared it unfounded.

2. Prolix accusations of circumstances which do not pertain to the matter. This holds especially concerning internal sins. For the scrupulous are accustomed to have great anxieties concerning depraved thoughts and desires freely admitted, and concerning a depraved or at least not sufficiently good intention had in acting.

3. Obstinacy of judgment, which refuses to acquiesce in the decisions of the confessor and leads the penitent to migrate from one confessor to another. - Scruples sometimes turn on the whole state of the soul and on all sins; but more often they touch a special object, for example, chastity, the recitation of the Breviary, the pronunciation of words during the consecration, etc.

⁵³ Cf. A. Gemelli, O. M., Skrupulositat u. Psychasthenie (1915) 91 sqq.

⁵⁴ By moderns it is called sentiment d'incompletude, Gefuhl der Unzulanglichkeit.

n. 321.

321. Causes (Aetiology) of scrupulous conscience sometimes (although rather rarely) are supernatural, namely God, who sends scruples that the soul may be exercised in patience and humility, as is narrated concerning St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, and other saints; but such scruples are not accustomed to last for a long time, but, once they are soon overcome, the sweet peace of the soul is reborn. - God permitting, the devil sometimes causes scruples in order to disturb the soul or to take vengeance on it; but these scruples also are not accustomed to persevere for a long time, but they will cease with divine grace assisting and with the soul's strenuous struggle.

Much more often natural causes produce scruples, although God must be said to be the first cause, who employs natural causes to produce effects. The natural causes which proximately produce scruples are either moral or physical. Among the physical causes of scruples there stands out a pathological⁵⁵ bodily disposition, namely of the brain, heart, and nerves, arising not rarely from heredity or atavism. Hence often with a bodily pathological disposition of this kind scruples not only arise, but also cease with it. Those things are to be recalled which were said above in n. 95 concerning "fixed ideas." Perhaps it is not alien from the truth if someone were to say that the greatest part of scruples is nothing other than religious fixed ideas, or rather a religious phobia. Sometimes the physical cause of scruples is also weakness and inconstancy of soul, which modern psychiatrists call "psychasthenia." - The moral causes of scrupulous conscience are excessive flight from human intercourse and honest recreation, intercourse with fearful men,⁵⁶ reading of writings that are too rigid, hidden pride, by which someone trusts his own judgment more than the opinion of the confessor.⁵⁷ Hence St. Alphonsus⁵⁸ says: "Often scruples have their origin from the vice of pride."

⁵⁵ St. Antoninus (Sum. theol. I, 3, 10) already recognized this, saying: "Sometimes pusillanimity or scruple is caused from manic or melancholic illness ... through which imagination and sometimes reason are injured... But sometimes it proceeds ... from negligence of bodily regimen, namely through excessive abstinence ... vigils and things of this kind."

⁵⁶ Beaudouin, O. Pr., rightly writes, Tract. de consc. p. 57: "An extrinsic cause of scrupulous conscience is the society of the scrupulous; for one scrupulous person makes another scrupulous, just as one fearful person makes another fearful."

⁵⁷ Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 173, a. 2; Billuart, De consc. diss. 5, a. 5, quaer. 4°.

⁵⁸ Theol. mor. l. 1, n. 12.

n. 322.

322. Remedies of scruples. (Therapy.) 1. The first remedy, from which the cure of this disease is to be begun, consists in the removal of the causes which produced and produce scrupulous conscience. Hence if the cause of scruples is a pathological bodily quality, this is to be eliminated through a good and God-fearing physician. Certainly, since very often a disturbance of the nerves is the cause of scruples and since this disturbance can be healed only with difficulty, great patience is necessary. When the confessor suspects that a bodily disease is the cause of scruples, let him use skillful prudence and circumspection, especially with younger scrupulous women, lest he give occasion to malicious detractions. Let him say simply to the penitent: moral Theology teaches us that scruples rather often arise from an unhealthy bodily disposition, and therefore go to a prudent and God-fearing physician, so that it may be detected whether a disease is truly present.

2. The second remedy, and one proclaimed with one voice both by psychiatrists and by theologians, is perfect obedience to be rendered to a wise director.⁵⁹ For the scrupulous person cannot direct himself nor judge rightly concerning his own state and his own acts, and therefore he is bound to submit himself to the direction of a prudent man, by whose help he will gradually cast away vain fears. Therefore the confessor, as soon as he has clearly known that the penitent labors under scrupulous conscience, ought to strive: a) by paternal kindness to capture his perfect trust. This indeed he will obtain if he clearly shows that he is affected with great Christian charity toward the penitent and is prepared to help him with all the powers by which he can. But the penitent ought not only to have persuaded himself of the charity of the confessor, but also to revere his authority. b) Let the confessor always speak with the penitent not hesitantly and doubtfully, but as one knowing with certainty and speaking from the authority of God. Therefore again and again let him inculcate that he does not speak by his own authority only, but also as a minister of God, to whom the illumination of the Holy Spirit will most certainly never be lacking when he rightly performs his office. Let him bring forward either no reasons at all, or only brief reasons, for his way of acting; otherwise there will be interminable, indeed harmful, discussions between confessor and penitent. This also is a good and efficacious rule to be observed: not only with brief words, but also with the same words, let the confessor constantly judge concerning the acts and state of the penitent; otherwise the scrupulous person easily thinks that he has not rightly understood the words of the confessor. Not rarely good effects are also obtained if the confessor gives the penitent in writing a way of acting; then he has greater security, often reading the things which have been written.

3. The third remedy against scruples is: not continually to approach other confessors or directors for the sake of taking counsel. For if the scrupulous person goes about from one confessor to another, his disturbance becomes greater as he hears diverse answers, and he himself does not obey so perfectly as if he were always directed by the same man.

4. The fourth remedy is suitable bodily or spiritual labor drawing the mind away from scrupulous thoughts, and honest recreation. For experience establishes that the scrupulous think too much about their own state; and therefore, if their mind is detained by other suitable occupations, their scruples are diminished.

5. The fifth remedy (which should never be omitted) is fervent and assiduous prayer to God, the Father of light. From such prayer not only is special grace obtained, but trust in divine mercy is also increased and peace of soul is gradually restored.

⁵⁹ "Let him earnestly take care to persuade penitents troubled by scruples that he walks altogether safely who acquiesces in and obeys the counsels of his director in all things in which evident sin does not appear: for then he does not obey man, but God Himself saying: He who hears you, hears Me, and he who despises you, despises Me (Luke 10, 16)." Thus St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 1, n. 13.

n. 323.

323. The so-called privileges of the scrupulous. Since the judgment of the scrupulous is so disturbed that they themselves are not able to judge clearly and certainly in that matter around which their scruples turn, hence neither can they sin gravely in such a matter, since clear and certain knowledge is necessary for grave sin. Hence the first privilege of the scrupulous is that they are excused from diligent examination of conscience, and are not burdened with grave sin in such a matter unless they are able to swear that they certainly and with clear knowledge committed an act gravely sinful. - The other privilege of the scrupulous is excuse from the material integrity of confession. For the integrity of confession is prescribed by a positive divine precept, which does not oblige with great extrinsic inconvenience or with moral impossibility. Now the scrupulous are in such moral impossibility, and therefore they are not bound to the material integrity of confession. Hence let the confessor not permit the scrupulous to make long confessions, but let him say to them: I know sufficiently the state of your soul, so that I am able to bear a right judgment concerning it. Therefore say nothing further concerning your sins. - But if the scrupulous penitent has already exercised strict obedience for some time, a general confession could be permitted to him if he asks, but only once.

Konings, Theologia Moralis

Anthony Konings, C.SS.R. — 13 passages

Vol. I, Treatise on Conscience, CHAPTER II: ON SCRUPULOUS AND LAX CONSCIENCE

n. ¶38.

- A scrupulous conscience is that which, resting upon slight foundations, doubts, or rather fears, that such an action is a sin, although nevertheless it is not; or that it is a grave sin, although it is only light. From these things it is clear who a truly scrupulous man is; for they err by the whole heaven who call that Christian scrupulous who, solicitous for his salvation and led by filial love toward his God, searches all his works, lest perhaps in some matter he offend God Himself: such a one is to be called not scrupulous, but God-fearing.

We shall speak briefly concerning the causes, signs, harms, remedies of scruples, and also concerning rules for scrupulous penitents and their confessors.

I. Causes of Scruples.

n. ¶39.

- Some are intrinsic, others extrinsic. The intrinsic are: a character very much disposed to suspicions and fears, as is the melancholic; weak health of the head, especially in women; slowness of understanding, by which someone does not well perceive the precepts of God and of the Church; hidden pride, by which someone trusts too much in his own judgment; excessive abstinence and immoderate vigils, by which, when the head has been weakened, the soul is easily disturbed.

But the extrinsic are:

1° God, who permits scruples in the just, that, being purified, they may make greater progress; in the tepid, that they may perform the duties of Christian piety more fervently; in penitents, that they may pay the penalty of past sins. Moreover, scruples are judged to be from God if those harassed by them become better.

2° The demon, who, God permitting, can move the melancholic humors in a man, through which the imagination can either err or be disturbed unto inordinate fear.¹ Scruples are thought to come from the demon if the scrupulous person feels himself being brought to tepidity, withdrawn from virtue, and especially inclined to despair.

3° The society of scrupulous persons, especially if scrupulous persons are ruled by their counsels and converse frequently with them about spiritual matters; for those with whom we associate, we imitate more easily.

4° The reading of books which are excessively strict, establishing harder precepts which the human condition cannot sustain;² for gradually and without perceiving it we assent to those opinions which we study.

II. Signs of a Scrupulous Conscience.

n. ¶40.

- It is of very great importance that directors of souls discern true scrupulous persons from false ones. For often those who are not scrupulous are thought to be so, and vice versa; and from this great errors in direction flow, with no slight danger of spiritual harm: therefore much circumspection is needed here. Now the chief signs of scruples are:

1° Pertinacity of judgment, by which someone refuses to obey the counsels of the confessor, or of wise men; and while he consults various persons, he acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed, the more persons he hears, the more he becomes entangled.

2° Frequent change of judgment from slight motives, whence there is frequent inconstancy in acting, and continual disturbance of mind.

3° Fear of sinning in all things, joined with pertinacity of mind against the judgment of the confessor, of prudent men, or even against one's own judgment; whence follows frequent questioning about the confessor's answers, and repeated inquiry whether, in acting according to the counsel given, the conscience can be free from fault.

4° Impertinent reflections about circumstances which were present in the action or could have been present, and certainty anxiously sought in all things.

5° Obstinacy in always repeating the same sin in confession, or in holding as a sin that which has already several times been declared by the confessor not to be such.

6° Continual anxiety about past confessions, notwithstanding the judgment of the confessor, or the repetition of confessions.

7° If he makes no end of examining his conscience, and explains the most minute things.

8° If he uses ridiculous signs, gestures, and other similar things to drive away temptations; for example, suddenly closes his eyes, contracts his eyebrows, nods and shakes his head, mutters to himself: I do not will; depart, devil.

But he cannot, at least immediately, be judged scrupulous, 1° who is moderately solicitous, or anxious, lest he offend God; 2° who, after a life spent in sins, is still distressed, nor after confession seems to have satisfied his obligation, but wishes to confess again and expiate his sins; 3° who deliberately still consents to grave sins, although after the sin has been committed he is greatly troubled and confesses anxiously, for there is a just cause of anxiety, at least moderate: nevertheless even in this case there can be a true scrupulous person; 4° who in only one or another case has a passing scruple.

Moreover, it sometimes happens that the confessor, after hearing the penitent the first or second time, cannot at once determine whether he is scrupulous, even if he appears anxious about many things; for some just and reasonable cause of anxieties can be present. Much less can a scrupulous confessor easily judge whether the penitent is scrupulous or only fearful.¹

III. Harms of Scruples.

n. ¶41.

- Scruples generally draw with themselves grave inconveniences and spiritual harms, and often also bodily harms, provided they have not been sent in by God, but persevere from man's fault. The principal ones are these:

1° They harm the body; for through continual anguishes they constrict the heart, corrupt the blood, consume the vital spirits, and weaken the head.

2° They render the scrupulous person unfit for fruitful action with his neighbor; for many scrupulous persons are severe, and no less peevish toward those of their household than toward strangers.

3° They harm obedience, or even totally impede it; since the scrupulous person rather follows trifles and the mockeries of his own fantasy, and thus is impelled to act against the will of God, which is manifested to him through his spiritual father or director.

4° They weaken the pursuit and love of prayer, or even take them entirely out of the way; because they enervate the force of the mind, distracting it by leading it to trifles, fill the soul with anxieties, and make it unfit for union with God. Hence follows not only spiritual profit ceasing, but also great emerging harm.

5° They break fortitude: for what great thing will he dare, who is wholly occupied in trifles and, neglecting the assault against his passions, is so easily cast down in soul?

6° They greatly diminish hope, or even destroy it, because the matter is finally brought to this point, that, confidence in God having been lost, he declines into laxity. For how will he duly trust God, who always beholds Him as a most severe exactor? Therefore the scrupulous person, unless he fights strongly against scruples, will shortly be driven by them, while vexed, into despair, and will loosen the reins to his desires, or at least will lead a most miserable life and one with great danger of damnation.

If scrupulosity is found in a confessor, it is even more harmful; for that someone is scrupulous with himself is an infirmity: that he is so with others is a contagion. Moreover, this cannot exist without the derision of the ministry and the despair of penitents. Therefore let the confessor guard as much as possible against scruples, if he wishes to exercise usefully the parts of his office: whence, if they arise in him from ignorance, let him devote himself to studies; if from excessive subtlety, let him not be wise more than is necessary, knowing that he acts not as a mathematician, but as a moralist; but if from a certain, so to speak, perverseness, by which he wishes all to think that very thing which he himself thinks, let him know that each one has his own gift, and one indeed in this way, another in that, and therefore let him seek what is just, not what is his own.¹

IV. Remedies of Scruples.

n. ¶42.

- I. To commend oneself earnestly and confidently to God, who consoles us in all our tribulation.²

II. To attack the causes of scruples which are in man's power, so that their effect may cease. Therefore let the proud man not lean upon his own prudence; let the pertinacious man break his own judgment; let the unlearned man be instructed; let the idle man work; let the timid man meditate on the goodness of God; let the melancholic man take solace; let the infirm man be cured; for sometimes the evil proceeds from inflamed blood, etc.

III. To commit oneself wholly to the judgment of one's own director; for it is written: an obedient man shall speak victory.³ Indeed, this alone must be called the remedy of scruples. For since the reason of scrupulous persons is plainly powerless, nothing else remains except that they be governed by another's reason. In this matter no temperament is admitted.

V. Rules for Scrupulous Persons.

n. ¶43.

- 1° In moral matters certainty is not to be sought in all things. This must be applied to all, but especially to the scrupulous person.

2° Supreme and blind obedience must be rendered to the confessor, and one must proceed in all things with great humility and confidence.

3° A doubt which could seem reasonable in others is to be entirely spurned in scrupulous persons.

4° It is lawful, indeed often obligatory, and sometimes under grave obligation, to fight against scruples.¹

5° Confession is never to be repeated unless it was certainly invalid; nor is the examination of the last confession ever to be renewed, even if a doubt about a grave sin omitted seems to arise.

6° Scruples are to be contemned; nor must scrupulous persons ever dispute with themselves about them.

VI. Rules for the Confessor.

n. ¶44.

- I. With scrupulous persons let him be patient, discreet, prudent, brief.

1° Patient and full of charity; for since the care of scrupulous persons is long and difficult, and their condition most miserable, and unless they obtain a faithful friend, they are exposed to so many and such great dangers, they very greatly deserve our compassion.

2° Discreet, so that he may duly know what the origin of scruples is in the penitent; also whether he is scrupulous in all things, or in one thing only, so that he may be able to remedy the evils fittingly.

3° Prudent, namely in prescribing rules, which indeed ought to be general; for scrupulous persons are almost never able to accommodate themselves to particular rules, because they cannot apply them to themselves. Indeed they always doubt whether the case was sufficiently well explained and perceived, and whether the rule prescribed to them is well accommodated to that case.

4° Brief and peremptory in his answers, and, so far as can be done, let him define all things promptly and firmly; otherwise the penitent would be confirmed in his anxiety by the authority of the confessor himself.

II. For the various objects of scruples let him keep the following things before his eyes.

1° A scrupulous person concerning the hearing of Mass:

a) Let him not be distressed about intention; for this is present as long as it is not openly certain that he went to church solely from another end; nor b) about attention, since that external attention is sufficient which voluntarily admits nothing incompatible with advertence to those things which are carried on at the altar; c) let the confessor take care not to permit him to hear another Mass for the purpose of satisfying his scruple about Mass already heard, and let him take the same care with him who [source text breaks off after Latin: qui].

2° A scrupulous person is concerned about prayers to be recited by obligation, such as the divine office and sacramental penance. For the scrupulous person with regard to the divine office, - if a) he is anxious about intention, let it be said that the intention of satisfying the ecclesiastical law is not required, but that the intention of reciting is sufficient, even implicit and virtual, which he already has who takes the breviary in hand and in fact recites the office. - If b) about attention, let him openly say with St. Alphonsus¹ that he is not bound to repeat anything, unless he is certain that he rejected the intention of praying. - If c) about accurate pronunciation of the words, it should be advised that he not stick while reciting, but proceed without any anxious solicitude, without compression of voice, mouth, or chest, without motions of impatience or sadness. Finally, by whatsoever cause he is distressed, let him forbid repetition to him, and, if he suffers grave anxieties, even the recitation of the office.² With regard to sacramental penance, let him hold the same, with due proportion observed. Moreover, it will help to impose on him only easier penances, and to tell him that his own mind (namely, the confessor's) is once for all that he recite the imposed prayers only materially and mechanically, so that he satisfies even though he pronounces them with voluntary distraction.

3° A scrupulous person concerning past confessions. If the anxiety regards - a) preparation for the sacrament, let him render him secure, teaching that nothing is required except ordinary diligence and preparation. - If b) the confession itself, namely that he does not know whether he confessed certain things, or confessed them integrally, let him order him to be wholly silent about past things, especially if he has already made a general confession; for all sins innocently omitted have been taken away indirectly, by the force of the absolution already given, nor is anyone bound to search past things with so much inconvenience to himself, so that individual sins may be remitted directly. But if nevertheless he continues to be distressed, and affirms that he knows certainly that he has forgotten something, let him order him to confirm these three things by oath: 1° that the sin was certainly committed; 2° that it was mortal in his mind when he committed it; 3° that he certainly forgot it in confession. If he swears promptly, let him hear him; otherwise, if he hesitates. - If c) contrition and consequently the efficacy of absolution, let him teach him that confessions are not to be repeated unless it is certainly clear that they were invalid.

4° A scrupulous person concerning consent given to evil thoughts against chastity, faith, or charity should be ordered to despise these thoughts as mere phantasms, and, unless he can swear that he certainly and truly consented to them, to abstain from confessing them.

5° To scrupulous persons who in almost all actions are distressed by fear of sinning, it must be enjoined that they act strenuously against scruples, and abstain from confessing them, unless they are most certain that sin is present there. For although, in acting thus, they sometimes sin materially, they will not sin formally, by reason of the obedience which they must render to the confessor.¹ Nor does it matter that they act with an actual fear of sinning; for they do not therefore act against the dictate of conscience, but only against a vain apprehension, which vain apprehension cannot remove the judgment about the honesty of the action, previously formed from the judgment of the confessor or in some other way.

Notes to preceding text.

1 L. I. 17.

Merkelbach, Pastoral Questions

Benedict H. Merkelbach, O.P. — 10 passages

Ch. III, Question IV: Concerning the Scrupulous

n. ¶2848.

VIII. A scrupulous conscience is not a rule of acting prudently, both because it is uncertain and because it is vincibly erroneous; but it is to be put aside, at least by a judgment from indirect principles handed down by the confessor, e.g., in the following manner: Whatever may be the case concerning the material liceity or illicitness of this action, it is certain that in such doubts one must obey the confessor; that I can and must act as the confessor said; that I can neglect my doubt or judgment; that by obeying I cannot sin, etc. But in the case such a doubt or such an apprehension is present. Therefore...⁷

⁷ You will find this proposed among theologians in various formulas. Thus, for example, Lessius: "Although I, as regards myself, would rather judge this to be sin, nevertheless because my confessor says the contrary, I can and will do this which he told me, since he is for me the interpreter of the divine will." And Reuter, o. c., n. 263, remedy 2: "Although I judge this to be sin, nevertheless because my judgment is fallible, and the confessor told me that this is licit for me, I can and will do what he told me must be done, and I am certain that I do well, because God wills that I obey him"; and remedy 7: "In rightly forming conscience there is no difficulty or danger. Only think: 1) that it is the will of God that I contemn scruples; theologians indicate this to me..., my confessor who bears the place of God; but by following the will of God I cannot sin, and if it should happen that I erred materially, this cannot be imputed, since I follow directors given by God. 2) Besides, by yielding to scruples I harm body and soul, I render myself inept for God's service and become burdensome to the neighbor: I will live in perpetual torture... God does not oblige me to these things. For what brings excessive difficulty is morally impossible, nor does God oblige to it... 3) What I see prudent and upright persons do or contemn as trifles, this is licit also for me; I see prudent and upright persons do this or contemn it as trifles; therefore, etc."

n. ¶2849.

Hence, although to act against a scrupulous conscience is not licit, nevertheless one can act against scruples; indeed, lest he incur grave damage, sometimes he is bound to do so even under grave obligation. Not indeed if he remains in full doubt, for to act with a doubtful conscience is illicit, but provided that he in some way puts this aside and forms for himself a certain conscience, by judging, e.g., from the judgment of the confessor, that it is a scruple and by contemning it. For a scruple, because it is an empty apprehension of phantasy, does not render the doubt serious, and does not impede the judgment of conscience previously formed from being practically certain. Lessius, de Prud., c. 1, n. 2, is to the point:

n. ¶2850.

"Prudence is not always able to exclude scruple totally. For this often perseveres with the judgment of prudence; nevertheless in order that then the judgment be prudent, it must be reputed a scruple, and thus prudence also in a certain way excludes the scruple. For although the imagination of sin perseveres with a certain anxiety, nevertheless through prudence it is reputed a shadow, not truth."

n. ¶2851.

But one need not always actually remember the principles and rules handed down above and by them form for oneself an actual dictate concerning the honesty of the action, because this is often morally impossible for the scrupulous person. As St. Alphonsus says, Th. M., l. I, n. 19:

n. ¶2852.

"Nor is there need that in each particular act he form this judgment... for it is enough that from the judgment once formed he act against the scruple; because on account of past experience that judgment exists virtually or habitually in his conscience, although obscured by darkness. Moreover while the scrupulous person operates in that confusion, often he does not operate with scruple or deliberate fear, for ordinarily he would not wish to omit what he knew to be pleasing to the divine will."

n. ¶2853.

From this certain conclusions for practice can be noted with Fr. Vermeersch, Th. mor. I, n. 382:

n. ¶2854.

After he has been admonished by the confessor concerning scruples, the consents which he says he has given, whether into an interior depraved suggestion, or into a purpose here and now of acting even if it is evil, or into a purpose of sinning, are to be ascribed to the phantastic order. For the scrupulous person imagines himself to say: I will this, or: thus I will do, whether it is good or evil, or I will sin and then expiate the sin by confession. But phantasy represented an assent of this kind to him, so that he seemed to himself as if to behold himself thus acting. Nevertheless, not otherwise than in a dream, he gave no free consent to those suggestions or purposes; and perhaps he made this use of the foreseen confession, that from it he might become more courageous for acting against scruples. Therefore for the scrupulous person who, e.g., from the counsel of the confessor, knows habitually that his doubts must be contemned by himself, it is lawful to act while the scruple remains. For that knowledge provides him a certain conscience...

n. ¶2855.

It can happen that in the process of his doubts and little reasonings the scrupulous person labors for a long time, and is thus wearied and disturbed from the struggle, so that he rushes into the action in a blind manner: then he is deprived of true liberty necessary at least for sinning gravely.

n. ¶2856.

Similarly, promises, vows, and blasphemies which some imagine they have often, indeed almost daily, made or said can be held as fictitious. Let the confessor simply refuse to hear or esteem these things.

n. ¶2857.

Although the obligation of acting against scruples can be grave, since from them grave damage can be feared in spiritual progress, abandonment of spiritual exercises, desperation, suicide, or in nervous depression and health of body or mind, nevertheless the scrupulous person scarcely incurs subjective fault provided that with his infirm will he wishes to strive against scruples in general; indeed often it is not expedient to insist, lest a new disturbance and perplexity arise, and danger of desperation, which is especially to be feared in the sensitive.

Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis

Benedict Henry Merkelbach, O.P. — 59 passages

Vol. II, Special Moral Theology: On…, Treatise: On the Cardinal …, Second Part: On the Virtue…, Ch. III, Single Question: On the Sp…, Article III: On Narrow and Scrupulous Conscience

124. The nature and signs of scruples.¹ - A scruple, as we have already noted, is an empty apprehension and the fear and anxiety thence arising that somewhere there is sin where there is not, or that it is greater than it is. A certain mental obsession (obsession de l'esprit; kwelgedachte) and hyperesthesia of sin are accustomed to accompany this apprehension; and thus a scruple is already a mental disease, and indeed of the moral order: a morbid anxiety of soul concerning an obligation to be fulfilled, or concerning sins committed or to be committed.

¹ On scruples cf. Pitres and Regis, Les Obsessions et les Impulsions; P. Janet, Les Obsessions et la Psychasthenie; Les Nevroses; Dr. Raymond, Nevroses et Psychonevroses; Eymieu, Le Gouvernement de soi-meme (2nd vol.); Grasset, Demi-fous et demi-responsables; Le Psychisme inferieur; Gemelli, De Scrupulis; d'Agnel and d'Espiney, Psychotherapie des troubles nerveux; Le Scrupule. Likewise Scaramelli, Directorium asceticum; Reuter, Neo-confessarius, n. 255-274; Billuart, De Conscientia; St. Alphonsus, Th. M., I, n. 11-19; Praxis conf., n. 95-98; Raphael a S. Joseph, Institutiones fundamentales Theologiae moralis, de Conscientia; Dubois, L'Ange conducteur des ames scrupuleuses; P. Raymond, Le Guide des Nerveux et des scrupuleux; Grimes, Traite des Scrupules; Beaudoin, Tr. de Conscientia; and other authors in this treatise, such as Ballerini, Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mechliniensis, Prummer, and Vermeersch; Leroux in the periodical Revue Eccl. de Liege, 1912; Legrand in the periodical Coll. Brugenses, 1922 and 1923.

Therefore a threefold element is required for it: 1st, of the intellectual order, a futile reason which besieges the mind and whose solution does not appear, arising without deliberation in the manner of a fixed idea, violently forcing itself in, stubbornly recurring; - 2nd, of the affective order, an empty dread of sinning arising thence, which holds the attention fixed and impedes the will from turning the mind away from it and determining it to firm assent; - 3rd, an effect proceeding from both, agitation, unrest, and disturbance of mind. It can concern the past, as if someone from a futile reason fears lest he omitted some sin or circumstance in confession, lest he examined himself insufficiently, lest he consented to temptation; or it can concern the present or future, as if someone from a similar reason fears lest that which he is doing or is about to do is a sin.

The signs and manifestations of a scrupulous conscience are:

pertinacity in the argumentation of one's arguments and in judgment, by which someone, from fear of sin, acquiesces in no one's opinion;

on the contrary, at the same time timidity in conclusions, and therefore frequent change in judgment from a light appearance, so that he cannot pronounce definitively; and distrust of self, by which someone suspects defects either of the intellect in grasping or interpreting responses, or of words in proposing difficulties, or of memory in retaining counsels given or positive precepts, or even in his own deeds, so that he doubts about the door closed by him, about the light extinguished, about the hours recited, about the Mass heard. From both of these arise:

the desire of consulting books or questioning new confessors;

impertinent, lengthy, or repeated reflections, accusations, or questions, concerning several circumstances which were present in the action or could have been present, or concerning the response of the confessor;

disturbed and disordered ways and gestures in avoiding sins or treating affairs, and a manner, as it were compelled, of rushing into the action concerning which he was anxiously inquiring, and of proceeding as it were blindly in external works;

fear of sin in those things which are held by all as licit;

excessive unrest and anxiety concerning past actions (for example, concerning confession, the recitation of the breviary) done with moral diligence, and consequently the will of repeating them again and again;

inconstancy and defect of firmness in the purpose of preserving peace, of keeping silence concerning scruples, of omitting a new inquiry into the matter, or of simply obeying.

127. Special principles to be used for directing the scrupulous are:

I. The scrupulous person cannot be ruled by his own judgment, because his reason is impotent for this; therefore nothing remains except that he be governed by the reason of another, for example, of a superior or confessor, who says: that he is scrupulous and in what matter,⁶ and that in that matter he can and ought to follow the judgment of the superior and cannot sin by obeying, unless he is wholly certain both that sin is present and that the judgment of the superior cannot be applied here and now; - indeed even if he is certain, or if he says that everywhere he has evidence of obligation and sin, provided it is established that he is so scrupulous that his imagination forms for him the idea that he is certain. For, although by acting thus the scrupulous person may sometimes err, nevertheless he will not sin by reason of the obedience which he owes to the superior or confessor.

⁶ For in other matters he is lax. "From pusillanimity it follows that someone is withdrawn from works of the virtues on account of fear of sinning. Indeed sometimes, in order to avoid light sins, he is carried toward graver ones. This happens especially to one laboring under a scrupulous conscience concerning a special matter, for example, concerning the recitation of the hours, celebration of Mass, etc. For often other things are accounted as nothing, and with a scrupulous conscience a lax conscience is nourished. Nothing strange, since they proceed from the same root, namely, from smallness and levity of soul; for example, it not rarely happens that one anxiously repeating the words of consecration does not care about the cleanness of the vessels or of the corporal, nor attend to other duties of his office." Thus Beaudoin, Tr. de Conse., q. 4.

Namely, the presumption stands for the confessor as for the superior, who must be obeyed unless it is certainly established that he errs in prescribing the regimen, and that he cannot impose such a rule, and that the obedience is illicit. And the scrupulous person can follow such a universal rule, as being wholly necessary to him for a healthy moral life, even if from it in a particular case error could follow, or material sin: that effect can be considered as accidental and legitimately permitted on account of a proportionate cause. For he has the right to employ efficacious means, and means honest in themselves, for being healed.

II. The scrupulous person easily exaggerates or fears sin; hence in him a grave doubt, which in others would be reasonable, "that in the case sin is present," is judged empty and to be despised; and a light doubt, "that in the case there is not sin," is judged founded.

Let him not examine such doubts carefully in order to arrive at certitude: for he cannot arrive at this, and no one is held to what is useless. Whence it must be said to him that he may act freely, unless he is wholly certain that sin is present; indeed if he is certain, provided it is established that he is so scrupulous in this or that matter that his imagination forms for him the idea that he is certain.

III. A positive obligation, namely of an affirmative precept, for example, of integrally confessing sins, examining conscience, saying the hours, making fraternal correction, does not oblige with great inconvenience, whence the scrupulous person can more easily be exempted from it.

128. Thesis. Scrupulous conscience is not the rule of acting prudently, but must be laid aside at least by a judgment formed from indirect principles handed down by a confessor.

It is proved: It is not a rule of acting because it is uncertain and vincibly erroneous.

But it can be laid aside from some reflex principle which has been indicated by the director of conscience or by the confessor; for example, in the following way:

"Whatever may be the case concerning the material liceity or illicitness of this action, it is certain to me that in such doubts the confessor must be obeyed; or: that I can and ought to act as the confessor has said; or: that I can neglect my doubt or judgment; or: that by obeying I cannot sin, etc.

"But, in the case, such a doubt or such an apprehension is present.

"Therefore, in the case, it is certain to me that I can and ought to act as the confessor has said, etc."

Hence, although it is not licit to act against a scrupulous conscience, nevertheless one can act against scruples; indeed, lest he incur grave damage, he is sometimes bound, even under grave obligation: not indeed if he remains in full doubt, for to act with a doubtful conscience is illicit; but provided he in some way lays aside the doubt and forms for himself a certain conscience, by judging, for example from the judgment of the confessor, that it is a scruple and by contemning it. For a scruple, because it is an empty apprehension of the imagination, does not render the doubt serious, and does not prevent the judgment of conscience previously formed from being practically certain. Lessius speaks to the point, de Prud., c. 1, n. 2:

"Prudence is not always able totally to exclude a scruple. For this often perseveres with the judgment of prudence; nevertheless, in order that the judgment then be prudent, it must be accounted a scruple, and thus prudence also in some way excludes the scruple. For although the imagination of sin perseveres with a certain anxiety, nevertheless through prudence it is accounted a shadow, not truth."

But one must not always actually remember the principles and rules handed down above, and from them form for oneself an actual dictate concerning the honesty of the action, because this is often morally impossible for the scrupulous person. As St. Alphonsus says, Th. M., l. I, n. 19:

"Nor is there need that in each particular act he form this judgment... for it is enough that he act against the scruple from the judgment once formed; because, on account of past experience, that judgment exists in his conscience virtually or habitually, although obscured by darkness. Moreover, while the scrupulous person acts in that confusion, he often does not act with a scruple or deliberate fear, for ordinarily he would not wish to omit what he knew to be pleasing to the divine will."

Hence for practice certain conclusions must be noted:⁷

⁷ Vermeersch, Th. M., I, n. 382.

After the scrupulous person has been warned concerning scruples, the consents which he says he has given are to be ascribed to the phantastic order, whether to a wicked interior suggestion, or to a purpose here and now of acting even if it is evil, or to a purpose of sinning. For the scrupulous person imagines himself to say: I will; or: thus I will do, whether it be good or evil; or: I will sin and then expiate the sin by confession. But the imagination represented to him an assent of this kind, so that he seemed to himself as it were to behold himself thus acting. Nevertheless, no otherwise than in a dream, he gave no free consent to those suggestions or purposes; but perhaps he made this use of foreseen confession, that thence he might become more courageous for acting against scruples. Therefore for the scrupulous person who, for example from the counsel of the confessor, knows habitually that his doubts are to be contemned, it is lawful to act while the scruple remains. For this knowledge gives him a certain conscience.

It can happen that in the process of his doubts and little reasons the scrupulous person labors for a long time, and is so wearied and disturbed from the struggle that he rushes blindly into the action: then he lacks the true liberty necessary, at least for sinning gravely.

Similarly, promises, vows, and blasphemies can be held as fictitious, which some persons dream they have often, indeed almost daily, made or said. The confessor should simply refuse to hear or weigh these things.

Although the obligation of acting against scruples can be grave, since from them grave damage can be feared in spiritual progress (abandonment of spiritual exercises, despair, suicide) or in nervous depression and the health of body or mind, nevertheless the scrupulous person scarcely incurs subjective fault, provided that with his infirm will he wishes to strive against scruples in general; indeed it is often not expedient to insist, lest a new disturbance and perplexity arise and the danger of despair, which is especially to be feared in sensitive persons.

129. A threefold class of the scrupulous is chiefly distinguished:

Some are distressed by wicked thoughts concerning faith, chastity, charity (for example, by a rash judgment or a feeling of aversion), or concerning future things to be done under condition, or by blasphemies internally uttered, to which they often fear they have assented.

It must wholly be imposed upon them a) that they not fight directly against those thoughts (for example, by eliciting an act of faith, etc.): for that would excite them more and would be a great inconvenience; but b) that they despise the scruples, because not wicked thoughts but only consents, not fictitious consents but only voluntary ones, are sin; and c) that they not examine themselves concerning those thoughts or write them on paper; indeed d) it can fittingly be imposed that they abstain from confessing them, unless they knew so certainly that they had consented that they could swear it. For the very fear of consent is a sign of resistance or non-consent.

Others are anxious concerning duties A. already fulfilled:

a) Either on account of the integrity or contrition of past confessions; to these, if at some time they have made a general confession, or for a notable time have diligently made their confessions, it must be imposed that they no longer think at all about all those things nor say a word in confession, unless they continue to fear and can affirm these three things without any doubt, even with an oath: that the sin certainly was committed, that in their mind while they committed it it was mortal, and that certainly they had forgotten it. But if they do not at once affirm or swear, they are no longer to be heard; and even if they swear, they are not for that reason to be believed.

b) Or concerning the hearing of Mass, or the recitation of the hours; to these it must never be permitted to hear another Mass, or to repeat the hours, or a part.

c) Besides, those who suffer perpetual and grave anxieties concerning these things, on account of the great inconveniences of scruples, are excused from the material integrity of confession or of the hours, so that they are not bound to spend more time on the hours than upright persons are accustomed to spend, and they can omit the rest; indeed sometimes a part or the whole of the office could be prohibited to them, or a determinate space of time assigned, or the recitation suspended for a time.

B. Likewise the scrupulous are anxious concerning duties to be fulfilled:

…and 19 more passages — all of them are listed on the topic page.

Sabetti-Barrett, Compendium of Moral Theology

Aloysius Sabetti, S.J., and Timothy Barrett, S.J. — 7 passages

Vol. I, Tr. II, Chapter III. On Scrupulous and Lax Conscience

n. 37.

A conscience is called scrupulous which, from a slight, indeed even empty cause, doubts concerning the honesty of some action, and therefore fears sin where there is no sin. For a scruple is an empty apprehension, or slight suspicion, by which someone falsely judges something to be a sin. But the word scruple is said to be derived from little stones, or pebbles, which, inserting themselves into the shoes of travelers, create trouble for the feet.

But a lax conscience is called that which from a rather slight reason judges that what is illicit is licit; or finds only a venial sin there where there is a mortal one: it is namely that which, without sufficient reason, bends judgment in favor of liberty, either for avoiding the law, or for diminishing the gravity of fault. This conscience can be distinguished in three ways, namely: 1st, a lax conscience simply, which tends to extend liberty more than is fair; 2nd, a cauterized conscience, which from a long-standing habit of sinning regards grave sins, indeed even most grave sins, as nothing; 3rd, a pharisaical conscience, which makes great things small, and in turn small things great. It takes its name from the Pharisees, who spurned the most grave mandates of the law, while by eating with unwashed hands or passing over empty traditions, they considered themselves guilty of great sin.

For correcting the scrupulous, or at least for dealing more usefully with them, there will briefly be said here something concerning the signs, causes, harms, and remedies of scruples, and also concerning practical rules to be followed both by scrupulous penitents themselves and by their confessors.

n. 38.

I. Signs Of Scruples, Or Of A Conscience Subject To Scruples

It is of very great importance that directors of souls discern the truly scrupulous from the false. For often those are thought scrupulous who are not, and vice versa; and from this immense errors in direction flow, with no small danger of spiritual harm. Therefore much circumspection is needed here. But the principal signs of scruples are:

1st. Pertinacity of judgment, by which someone refuses to obey the counsels of a confessor or of wise men; and while he consults several, he acquiesces in the judgment of none; indeed the more men he hears, the more he is entangled.

2nd. Frequent change of judgment from slight motives, whence frequent inconstancy in acting, and continual disturbance of mind.

3rd. Fear of sinning in all things, joined with pertinacity of mind against the judgment of the confessor, of prudent men, or even against one's own judgment; whence follows frequent questioning concerning the responses of the confessor, and repeated inquiry whether, in acting according to counsel, the conscience can be immune from fault.

4th. Impertinent reflections concerning the circumstances which were present in an action, or could have been present, and certainty anxiously sought in all things.

5th. Obstinacy in always repeating the same sin in confession, or in holding as a sin that which already several times has been declared by the confessor not to be such.

6th. Continual anxiety concerning past confessions, notwithstanding the judgment of the confessor, or repetition of confessions.

But he cannot be judged scrupulous, at least immediately: 1st, who is moderately solicitous, or anxious lest he offend God; 2nd, who after a life passed in sins is still troubled, nor after confession seems to himself to have satisfied, but rather wishes to confess and expiate sins; 3rd, who deliberately still consents to grave sins, although after the committed sin he is greatly troubled and confesses anxiously, for there is a just cause of anxiety, at least moderate: nevertheless even in this there can be a truly scrupulous person; 4th, who in only one or another case has a scruple in a passing way, nor he who doubts whether he has sinned in this or that.

Moreover, it sometimes happens that the confessor cannot, after the penitent has been heard the first or second time, immediately decide whether he is scrupulous, even if he appears anxious concerning many things; since some just and reasonable cause of anxieties can be present. But much less can a scrupulous confessor easily judge whether the penitent is scrupulous, or only fearful. Cf. Lacroix, lib. 1, nn. 517 and seq.

n. 39.

II. Causes Of Scruples

The principal causes of scruples are the following:

1st. Divine permission. Not indeed as if God sends in false apprehensions, but because, permitting these, He withdraws His light, so that namely man, having fallen into anxieties, may return to the heart, bring himself back to better fruit, learn to run back to God, and by patiently sustaining anguish, make satisfaction for sins, increase merit, etc.

2nd. Operation of the devil. For the devil knows skillfully how to fashion scruples, by moving the blood, altering the humors, objecting various images to the imagination, composing diverse species, so that he may form a gloomy and false image of sin, trouble the mind, draw it back from spiritual progress, and finally cast it into dejection of soul, or even into desperation.

3rd. A melancholic and phlegmatic temperament. For melancholic persons are for the most part suspicious and tenacious of the things which they apprehend, and therefore prone to every suspicion of evil; and since they are of a cold temperament, they are more easily subject to fear and pusillanimity, and are terrified at the first appearance of evil.

4th. Weakness of the head, or defect of natural judgment in persons inclined to fear; likewise pusillanimity and dejection of soul, on account of which one does not know how to contemn fears.

5th. Excessive solicitude for avoiding everything which has the appearance of evil; for while the scrupulous person continually cries out to himself: Beware of sin... Attend to yourself..., he frightens and disturbs himself without cause.

6th. Association with the scrupulous; to which pertains also direction received from a scrupulous confessor, the reading of cases of conscience and of stricter ascetical writers done by someone incautious and less understanding; likewise the excessive flight from every human conversation.

n. 40.

III. Harms Of Scruples

Scruples generally draw along with themselves grave inconveniences and spiritual harms, and often also bodily ones, provided they are not specially permitted by God and do not persevere without fault of man. But the principal harms of scruples are the following:

1st. They harm the body; for through continual anguishes they constrict the heart, corrupt the blood, consume the vital spirits, and weaken the head.

2nd. They render the scrupulous person unfit for acting fruitfully with his neighbor; for most scrupulous persons are gloomy, and morose toward those at home no less than toward strangers.

3rd. They harm obedience, or even totally impede it; since the scrupulous person rather follows trifles and the mockeries of imagination; thus he is driven to act against the will of God, which is manifested to him through the spiritual father or director.

4th. They weaken the practice and love of prayer, or even remove it altogether from the midst; because they enervate the force of the mind, distract by leading it away to trifles, fill the soul with anxieties, and render it unfit for union with God. Hence follows not only spiritual gain ceasing, but also immense damage arising.

5th. They break down fortitude; for what great thing would he dare, who is wholly occupied in trifles, and, with the victory over his passions neglected, is so easily cast down in soul?

6th. They greatly diminish hope, or even destroy it; because the matter is at length brought to this, that, confidence in God having been lost, it declines into laxity. For how will he duly trust in God, who always beholds Him as a most severe exactor? Therefore the scrupulous person, unless he fights bravely against scruples, being vexed by them, will shortly be driven into desperation, and will loosen the reins to his desires, or at least will lead a most miserable life and one with great danger of damnation.

n. 41.

IV. Remedies Of Scruples

Scruples are frequently concerned: 1st, with daily actions; 2nd, with depraved thoughts; 3rd, with confessions. Therefore:

I. To scrupulous persons who in all actions are troubled by the fear of sinning, it must be enjoined that they act vigorously against scruples, and abstain from confessing them, unless they are most certain that sin is present there. For although by acting thus they sometimes sin materially, nevertheless they will not sin formally by reason of the obedience which they ought to render to the confessor. Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 17.

II. To scrupulous persons who fear to give, or to have given, assent to any depraved thought against chastity, faith, or charity, it must be imposed that they despise these thoughts as mere phantasms, and abstain from confession of thoughts of this sort, unless they can swear that they have truly consented to the same. Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 15.

III. To scrupulous persons who are always anxious concerning confessions, especially past ones, it must be prohibited that they think any more about the faults of their former life, nor say a word about them in confession, unless they can swear: 1st, that they have perpetrated mortal sins; 2nd, that they have never confessed them, especially if they have already made a general confession. Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 16.

Moreover the scrupulous and the timorous, anxious about past confessions, are to be questioned thus: 1st. Have you knowingly concealed a grave sin? 2nd. Were you proposing to repeat sins? If they answer negatively to each question, their confession must be pronounced valid.

n. 42.

V. Rules For The Scrupulous

1st. In moral matters certainty is not to be sought in all things. This is valid for all; but it must be applied especially to the scrupulous person.

2nd. The greatest and blind obedience is to be rendered to the confessor, and one must proceed in all things with great humility and confidence.

3rd. A doubt which in others could seem reasonable is altogether to be spurned in the scrupulous.

4th. It is licit, indeed often obligatory, and sometimes under grave obligation, to contend against scruples. Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 7.

5th. Confession is never to be repeated, unless it was certainly sacrilegious; nor is the examination of the last confession ever to be renewed, even if a doubt concerning a grave sin omitted seems to arise.

6th. Scruples are to be contemned; nor are the scrupulous ever to dispute with themselves about these things.

n. 43.

VI. Rules For Confessors

1st. Let the confessor scrutinize whether the penitent is truly scrupulous..., whether in all things..., and what is the origin of the scruples.

2nd. Let him be patient, kindly, and strong. To him pertain these words of the Apostle, II Tim. iv, 2: "Be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine."

3rd. Let him respond to one asking without hesitation and with command; let him not easily add reasons to responses; nor let him permit sins already confessed to be repeated several times.

4th. Let him commend to the scrupulous person great confidence in the goodness of God, frequent prayer, flight from idleness, brevity of examination, humility of heart.

5th. With the scrupulous person let him use general, not particular rules; for the scrupulous person cannot be directed by these, because he is unfit for applying them.

Billuart, Summa Summae

Charles-René Billuart, O.P. — 28 passages

Billuart, Summa Summae, Tomus II. On the Prima Sec…, On Human Acts, On Conscience, On the scrupulous conscience, through various little questions

It is asked 1° what scruple is. What a scrupulous conscience is.

I answer. Scruple is said metaphorically from a scruple, which is a rough pebble getting into the shoe of one walking, hurting him not so much as molesting him, and delaying his step. Whence a scruple is nothing else than a light and empty little reason occurring concerning the malice of an action, whose solution is not found; and thereupon the mind either opines, or suspects, or doubts, or fears with anxiety, lest the action be evil. It can be about the past, as when someone from a futile reason fears that he omitted some sin or circumstance in confession, that he consented to temptation, etc.; or about the present or future, as when someone from a like motive fears that what he does, or is about to do, be sin.

A scrupulous conscience can be distinguished two ways, as I already said in art. 1: One formed from scruples, and it is a dictamen of practical reason by which one judges, for light and empty reasons, that what he does is illicit, or doubts about it. This conscience is called scrupulous improperly, and it is either erroneous or doubtful, and of it we do not treat here: insofar as it pertains to error, it was treated in the preceding articles; insofar as it pertains to doubt, it will be treated in the following article. The other is agitated and tortured by scruples, namely while one judges what he does to be licit, yet for slight causes fears and is anxious lest it be illicit. Whence, as is plain, insofar as it is scrupulous, it is not properly conscience, but the shadow and likeness of conscience. Therefore by the name of scrupulous conscience is commonly understood either that scruple which is as it were the dictamen of a scrupulous intellect, or the very anxiety caused by scruples, or the disposition of a soul inclined to scruples. Of scrupulous conscience thus taken the following things are to be understood.

n. 4.

It is asked 2° by what signs a scrupulous conscience can be recognized.

n. 5.

I answer. Chiefly by these: 1° If he reputes as sins those things which everywhere among the wise and God-fearing are held as nothing, or often doubts about them and questions others. 2° If he either has no faith in the prudent and learned man, e.g., a prelate or confessor, asserting the action to be licit, or complies with anxious fear, again and again consulting the same man or others, trusting no one and always seeking the greatest security. 3° If in confession he sets forth his sins so exactly that he omits no circumstance, though light or most light, nay sometimes impertinent, often repeating and dwelling upon the same things, and does not acquiesce when the confessor admonishes that it suffices; or never rests concerning confessions made with due diligence, often repeating them in whole or in part. 4° If he recites the prescribed prayers, whether of the breviary, of penance, of a vow, or in the celebration of Mass, with fastidious slowness, frequently repeating them and halting to recall intention and attention. Besides these, the scrupulous man himself can and ought to acknowledge that he is scrupulous, and so to comport himself, chiefly from the testimony of his confessor or of another upright and learned man, to whom his conscience has been laid open, who judges him to be scrupulous.

n. 6.

It is asked 3° whether it is licit to act against a scrupulous conscience.

n. 7.

I answer. Not only is it licit, but expedient, nay obligatory, to act against a scrupulous conscience, such as we said is vexed by scruples.

n. 8.

The reason of the first part is, because a conscience of this kind is not, as I said, true conscience, but the shadow of conscience; nor a judgment, but a certain anxiety and ill-founded fear, or a strong imagination by which man is miserably vexed.

n. 9.

The reason of the second and third parts is, because scrupulous conscience is a certain sickness of mind disturbing peace, taking away devotion, engendering sloth, and a great hindrance in the progress of the spiritual life, nay a disposition to the most grievous sins of despair, blasphemy and infidelity. Care must nevertheless be taken lest the scrupulous man, overcome by his scruples, truly judge in practice that he acts ill, or doubt of it in practice; for then it would be a doubtful or erroneous conscience, against which it is not licit to act. But it is not easily to be believed of a scrupulous man who asserts that he acted with doubt; for ordinarily he takes doubt for anxiety or fearfulness, or for speculative doubt, which is not conscience.

n. 10.

It is asked 4° what are the chief causes of scruples.

n. 11.

I answer. That some are intrinsic, some extrinsic. The intrinsic are: First, a natural complexion suspicious and timid, such as is usually the melancholic. Second, weakness and inconstancy of mind, not holding firmly to things once determined, or to practical principles sufficiently known: under this head women are more frequently scrupulous than men. Third, an ignorance whereby one cannot discern between licit and illicit, between temptation and consent; or such subtlety of genius as suffices to devise reasons for doubting, and does not suffice to solve them. Fourth, hidden pride, whereby one, trusting too much to his own judgment, will acquiesce in no counsel. Fifth, excessive austerities, by which, with the head weakened, the mind is easily disturbed.

n. 12.

The chief extrinsic causes are: First, the society of scrupulous men, the direction of a scrupulous confessor, or the reading of cases of conscience in one who is less able to discern. Second, the devil, who by this art tempts, to turn men away from the exercise of the virtues. Third, God himself permitting it so, whether in punishment of past sins, or for the exercise of humility and patience, or to shake off tepidity in his service, or on account of other ends known to himself.

n. 13.

It is asked 5° by what remedies the scrupulous are to be cured.

n. 14.

I answer. 1° Generally speaking, the causes of scruples are to be removed by their contraries; for contraries are cured by contraries. Hence let the melancholic be healed by the help of a physician; let the timorous by frequent meditation contemplate the goodness of God, and apprehend him, not as a hard master or merciless exactor, but as a good Father; let the proud not lean upon their own prudence; and so of the rest. 2° Let him have recourse by frequent and humble prayer to God, the consoler of the afflicted; let him offer to him the troubles of his mind with patience and submissive resignation in satisfaction for his sins, meanwhile conceiving a filial confidence of obtaining help at last, and of tranquillity returning after the storm. 3° Let him take the life and common sense of God-fearing men for his rule, holding it for certain that God does not suffer these to err commonly. 4° Let him beware of idleness and vagrant thoughts, especially about the acts of past life, which open a door to scruples; but let him apply himself diligently to labor, and to that labor above all which best helps and delights the mind, provided it contain nothing evil. 5° But the remedy supremely necessary, and perhaps the only one, for curing the scrupulous, in the common judgment, is blind and absolute obedience to the sayings, counsels and precepts of a prudent and wise man, to whom his conscience has been laid open, namely his confessor or director.

n. 15.

It is asked 6° how the confessor ought to act with a scrupulous person.

n. 16.

I answer. 1° Where the confessor perceives his penitent to be scrupulous (and this he will be able to know from the signs assigned), let him admonish him that he is scrupulous and to be cured according to the rules for the scrupulous, lest perchance, despising scruples, he despise conscience itself.

n. 17.

2° Let him impress upon him the necessity of blind and absolute obedience to all the sayings and precepts of his confessor, his own judgment despised and scruples neglected; and if he be not disposed in mind to render this obedience, or to endeavor after it, he is to be dismissed as incurable, since, as I said, he can scarcely be healed by any other remedy. But that he may persuade him to this obedience entire and blind, let him set before him: 1° that the scrupulous man, having a disturbed judgment and an impaired imagination, cannot be governed by his own judgment; wherefore it was said to him before all others, Prov., I, 5: Lean not upon thy own prudence, since thou art wise in thy own conceit.

n. 18.

2° That it belongs to a proud mind, and is against the rules of prudence and humility, to prefer one's own judgment, especially when so disturbed, to the judgment of the director. 3° That although the director err, the scrupulous man himself will not sin by obeying, according to the unanimous doctrine of the Saints and of spiritual masters; because he will do what is safer and what God requires of him.

n. 19.

3° Let him teach him that positive laws, whether divine or human, do not bind under grave loss and great difficulty, which is called moral impotence; but great anxiety and molestation is great difficulty. Hence let him forbid the scrupulous man who is continually anguished in the recitation of the hours, and always fears that he omitted something or was willingly distracted, to repeat; nay, if he were so scrupulous that there would scarcely be an end of repeating, and that hence he would suffer grave and continual molestations, the recitation of the breviary would be altogether to be interdicted to him, as morally impossible.

n. 20.

4° Let him command him to repute nothing, whether act done or to be done, a mortal sin, unless it stand certain to him to be mortal, and so certainly that he could swear it to be mortal; because in doubt, as the rule of law has it, « concerning matters commonly contingent there is a prudent presumption. » Since therefore the scrupulous man is wont to doubt or imagine that sins exist, or are mortal, which are not, by law they are presumed in doubt not to be such. Moreover, since he doubts even of the most evident things, and suspects evil where there is not even a shadow of evil, the burden would be intolerable if he had to hold in practice for sin whatever falls under his doubt.

n. 21.

5° When the scrupulous man is anxious about past confessions, whether he was sufficiently contrite, whether he confessed all sins and all circumstances, never permit him to repeat them unless these two concur together: first, that he be certain they were mortal; second, that he be equally certain they were not duly confessed. Likewise do not permit him to confess doubtful present sins, but only certain ones, and simply, with the circumstances absolutely necessary; and admonish him not to institute an anxious and utterly exact examination, but only a moderate one: and when he has only doubtful sins, command him to celebrate without being heard, or to approach the holy synaxis. The reason of these things is, because the positive law of the material integrity of confession does not bind under grave loss, as we said above of positive laws in general. Grave, however, would be the loss and damage of the scrupulous man if he should have to confess all doubts, whether present or past; there would be no end of scruples, but rather they would be multiplied and entangled, and thus the anxiety would be perpetual and the torment intolerable; whence, if he omit certain sins, it is not imputed to him.

n. 22.

Finally, for a crown to all, let the confessor remember not to waver in his decisions, as if doubting or merely opining, but let him define and command with certainty; otherwise the anxiety will not be quieted, but rather increased. Moreover, with the timid let him proceed in gentleness of spirit, with the proud somewhat roughly; yet let him not drive them to despair, but mix oil with wine.

n. 23.

It is asked 7° how one ought to answer the objections of scrupulous men.

n. 24.

For that they may withdraw themselves from the counsels and precepts of confessors, the scrupulous say: 1° that the confessor did not understand everything sufficiently well; 2° that they know themselves better than anyone else; 3° if I were in danger of death, I would not wish to act thus, and to die in that state; 4° that in doubts the safer side is to be chosen, and certainty preferred to uncertainty.

n. 25.

To the first must be answered, that a prudent man does not act blindly and without deliberation, and that if the confessor had not understood sufficiently, he would not prescribe this or that. Besides, given that the confessor errs, God will never impute the error to the scrupulous man who humbly obeys the mandates of his confessor.

n. 26.

To the second answer, that the conscience of scrupulous men, insofar as they are scrupulous, is weak and erroneous, and therefore no stand is to be taken upon its judgment, according to that of Prov., I, 5: Lean not upon thy own prudence.

n. 27.

To the third answer, that scrupulous men would do many things in the article of death which are not necessary, but useless, or certainly that they would acquiesce in the counsel of a prudent man.

n. 28.

To the fourth answer, that doubt ought not to remain for scrupulous men where the authority and mandate of the confessor accede to one side, and that they ought to hold as certain and safe what he persuades or commands them.

Concina, Compendium

Daniele Concina, O.P. — 10 passages

Bk. II, Diss. I, Chapter VI — On the Scrupulous Conscience

n. I.

I. Of the scrupulous conscience, or of a scruple, this is the notion: it is a certain light suspicion of sin, with excessive anxiety in acting. A scruple is distinguished from a doubt, in that the latter is placed in a suspension of judgment; and from an opinion, which rests upon a grave foundation. The last words — with excessive anxiety in acting — constitute the true character of the scrupulous man, who is pressed by continual anguish.

n. II.

II. From this definition of a scruple, it is plain how erroneous is the opinion of the crowd. Worldly men, and men given over to corruptions, hold for scrupulous those Christians who are zealous and solicitous for eternal salvation; who with the utmost vigilance study to decline both sins and the dangers of sin; who detest the allurements of the raving world — namely dances, games, comedies, and spectacles of every kind — and devote sedulous labor to the most grave precepts of humility and to panting after evangelical perfection. But blind indeed are they who number such Christians among the scrupulous.

n. III.

III. Several causes of scruples are commonly assigned. First, the disposition of nature. A temperament which abounds in cold and melancholic humor inclines to suspicions and terrors. Suspicion paints things with a black brush and fabricates specters; these inflame the fantasy and excite fear. Secondly, infirmity of the head, and injury of the imaginative faculty, excessive maceration of the body, and prolonged vigils. That these causes may be expelled, the art of physicians is needed.

n. IV.

IV. Other causes arise either from the demon, or from one's own vices. 1. The demons stir up the melancholic and black humors, whence scruples are wont to flow. 2. Society and familiarity with the scrupulous. 3. Ignorance, which impedes the distinction of good from evil. 4. Pride, by which a man trusts too much in his own judgment. 5. God also permits at times certain souls to be vexed by scruples, either in penance for their crimes, or unto greater perfection.

n. V.

V. There are two kinds of scrupulous persons. One is of those who are in very deed upright and of the best morals, and who, through excessive anxiety of declining even the very shadow of sin, are tormented by scruples. The other is of those who stir up scruples for themselves in matters of no moment. They say they are tormented by scruples because they have prayed with a distracted mind, because they have passed a rash judgment upon their Neighbor, because they have not promptly resisted internal suggestions. Meanwhile they stir up no scruple in themselves for not having fulfilled the precept of almsgiving, for living sumptuously and studying to indulge their appetites, for neglecting to fulfill the duties of their profession. It is carried about in the place of a proverb, that the scrupulous are gluttonous, stiff-necked, and lovers of their comforts.

n. VI.

VI. Question I. What are the remedies of scruples? Answer. Authors assign many. Fr. Hermann Busembaum, among the rules which he sets forth for driving away scruples, assigns one in chapter 3 which lays open the sweetness of his Medulla; it is placed at number 4, and conceived in these words, as found in Fr. La-Croix, page 51: To accustom oneself to follow the milder opinions, and even the less safe. Fillius, at number 181, gives emphasis to this "accustoming oneself," and wanders most widely along the broad and spacious way. There is no need of persuasion that men should accustom themselves to milder and less safe opinions. For by their very nature they are prone to the milder, the laxer, and the less safe. This rule I reject as false and pernicious.

n. VII.

VII. Rule 1. Let the scrupulous enter upon the strait and narrow way which Christ prescribes, and beware of the broad and spacious way which leads to perdition: for this is most useful, not for fostering scruples, but rather for driving them off. 2. Let them accustom themselves to humility, to prayers, and to works of piety. 3. Let them exercise themselves in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. 4. Let them solicitously guard against both mortal and venial sins. 5. Let them imitate the life of the Saints. 6. Let them select a director who is learned and pious, and an assertor of sound doctrine. 7. Let them obey his counsels at his nod, and receive his decisions as those of God. Having once received the rules of direction, they ought not importunately to go to the Director, and vex him with most troublesome interrogations, and afflict him with the utmost tedium; but by the benefit of the rules which they have received they ought to drive away their scruples and specters.

n. VIII.

VIII. Question II. How should the Confessor conduct himself with the scrupulous? Answer. 1. Let him declare to the scrupulous that he will not undertake their direction unless they altogether promise exact and blind obedience. 2. Let him persuade them that their health is placed above all in obedience. 3. Let him explore the causes of the scruples. 4. If a past life full of vices and sacrileges be the cause of the scruples, let him prescribe a general confession, and the method to be observed in making it. This done, let him severely forbid them thereafter to think back upon their past vices. At most, let him hear three or four times some sin of the past life. Then let him shut altogether the door of the life that has elapsed. 5. Let him exercise them in the duties of the virtues. The devil is cunning and crafty. When he cannot assail and subdue the soul directly by the representation of crimes, he endeavors to make the yoke of Christ harsh, and to strew the way of virtue with thorns and briers: he fills the mind with continual specters, and endeavors to depict the road to heaven as impassable and unequal to human strength, so that the soul, at last oppressed by desperation, may relapse into its old crimes. Let the Confessor therefore take care to raise up the strength of the scrupulous, to foster hope in the divine mercy, and utterly to abolish in them the recollection of the past life, which disturbs the soul.

n. IX.

IX. Let the Confessor be benign and merciful in animating and inflaming the spirit of the scrupulous man; but severe in admitting the repetition of the confessions of the life that has elapsed. Let him make manifest what grave evils scruples beget. 1. They render the profession of virtue odious. 2. They induce desperation. 3. They impede the consolation and joy of a well-ordered life. 4. They fill the soul with afflictions; they beget the loss of time in vain cogitations, and innumerable other evils.

n. X.

X. Question III. Is it licit to act against scruples? Answer. It is not merely licit, but a duty, to despise scruples, and, spurning them, to act against them. When certain scrupulous persons doubt either about the attention necessary in reciting prayers, or about the omission of some psalm or hour, certain Casuists suggest demanding an oath of the scrupulous person: Would you swear that you omitted the hour, that you were not attentive, that you consented to the temptation, and so forth? This demanding of an oath I count inept and vain. Either let the scrupulous person altogether despise suspicions of this kind; or let the Confessor command that on bended knees he repeat the hours and psalms which he doubts he has omitted. Perhaps this vexation will give understanding. Yet the diversity of the scrupulous must be regarded. The common and general remedy is to despise all these things, and to urge the scrupulous person to conduct himself for the future more vigilantly and more devoutly in the discharge of his duties. The repetition of prayers is inept; and elapsed negligence is not better blotted out than if one's proper duties be fulfilled more attentively, devoutly, and fervently.

Slater, Cases I

Thomas Slater, S.J. — 9 passages

Slater, Cases I, Conscience, Case 8. A Scrupulous Penitent

Martha, a devout woman, resolves to avoid all deliberate sins, even venial ones. She proceeds well for a certain space of time; afterward, however—either by divine permission, perhaps because of some petty vainglory, or by an impulse of the demon—she is oppressed by excessive anxiety. Then she thinks that she sins in almost every action, for she detects some disorder in her manner of walking or looking around, scandal to others in her clothing, some gluttony in eating, and something depraved in her thoughts, whether against charity or against chastity. Indeed, while she fights against scruples, she sometimes does what she believes to be mortal sin. She falls almost into despair, for she fears that because of her unfaithfulness God has abandoned her. Since the confessor sees that the scruples greatly harm the penitent, he never permits her to confess more than two sins, although he believes that for this reason the penitent sometimes omits mortal sins, and although the penitent says that she is in doubt whether she sins by omitting the rest and that consequently it is necessary for her to confess the others also, because in doubt it is not lawful to act against the law. Hence it is asked:

What are the signs of scrupulosity?

How in general are scrupulous persons to be treated by a confessor?

What is to be said concerning the case?

Solution

What are the signs of scrupulosity ?

Vol. I, Case XI: Hysterical Scrupulousness of a Nun · Vol. IV, Case LXVII: Scrupulosity · Vol. V, Case LX: Feigning Scrupulousness in Confession

The confessor should know how to distinguish a really scrupulous person from one who only says that he is scrupulous or wishes to appear so. With this end in view theologians give certain signs by which scrupulosity may be known. The definition of a scruple will help us. A scruple is an idle fear and consequent anxiety that there is sin where it does not exist. The first sign, then, of scrupulosity is a tendency to idle fears and irrational dread of committing sin by a harmless action. Such idle fears and dreads are well known to physicians, and they seem only to differ from mental delusions in that a scrupulous person knows the folly he is guilty of, while one who suffers from delusions does not. Another sign of scrupulosity is that sin becomes a bugbear and is seen everywhere. The scrupulous person is fickle and inconstant in his judgment and consequent action; in fact he loses his power of forming a sane judgment on the point on which he is scrupulous. In spite of this he finds it difficult to surrender himself to the guidance of another, and is obstinately self-willed. He seems bent on torturing himself, and for this purpose apparently he fixes upon trivial points in the case which only a perverse ingenuity could suppose to be of importance.

n. ¶7.

How, in general, are scrupulous people to be treated by the confessor ?

n. ¶8.

The confessor should first of all make sure that the case is one of scruples, and this he will be able to do by attending to the signs of scrupulosity. Then, as the cure of scruples takes time, it will be well for him to ask the penitent whether he is prepared to follow his advice and to come to him regularly for confession. If he agrees, the confessor should give him some general rules of conduct, such as, never to be idle, not to read rigoristic books or frequent the society of the scrupulous, to take care of his bodily health, to mortify his pride and cultivate a spirit of humble submission to God’s will. Then he will note in what precisely the penitent is scrupulous and teach him how to act against his scruples and gradually overcome them by forming contrary habits.

n. ¶9.

The case. Martha, a pious woman, made a resolution to avoid all deliberate sin, whether mortal or venial. As she was a pious woman we may suppose that she was not in the habit of falling into mortal sin. To aim at avoiding all deliberate venial sin is not indeed to aim at the impossible, but to attain it means a high degree of perfection which is not reached without great graces from God and long and faithful endeavor. It would have been better for Martha to take one step at a time and try to conquer her faults one by one. There was probably too much self-reliance, some spirit of pride, in her otherwise good resolve, and her indiscreet fervor caused her to fall a victim to scrupulosity, of which she exhibits one of the ordinary signs. She tries to fight against her scruples, and in doing this she sometimes does what she thinks is a mortal sin. We must suppose that her scrupulous conscience makes her think that she commits mortal sin against her own better judgment and the advice of her confessor. She should despise these apprehensions and boldly follow her confessor’s advice. Her case is desperate. The confessor should tell her to act freely, that it is foolish to fear sin as she does, and that sin can not be committed without freely consenting to something which is known to be bad. He is right in not allowing her to confess all that she wants to confess, and he may limit her to two sins or even to less, if he thinks it will benefit her. He may do this even though he knows that occasionally her confessions will not be integral, for scrupulosity sometimes excuses the penitent from integrity of confession. Even though Martha says that she doubts whether she is not committing mortal sin by not making an integral confession, the confessor must be firm, and tell her that she is safe in following the advice of her confessor. By degrees if she persists in not confessing and not thinking of her scruples and in acting against them, with the help of God she will recover her sanity.’

1 St. Alphonsus, book i, no. 13.

The Casuist

Various; ed. S. Woywod, O.F.M., and J. A. McHugh, O.P. — 24 passages

Vol. I, Case XI: Hysterical Scrupulousness of a Nun

Bertha, an innocent country maiden, receives her education in a convent. After passing her examinations, she takes the veil and is employed as teacher. After a few years the Superioress is informed that Bertha shows undue attachment for some of her young girl pupils, thereby causing dissatisfaction to the others. The Superioress calls Bertha's attention to the error of her action, first in kindness, and, when this does not bring about a reform, is obliged to give her a severe reprimand. Bertha complains about this to her confessor, concluding with the words: "If this small affair, in which I have thought of nothing evil, is sinful, what a great sinner I must be! Then I am afraid I have left out many sins in my confessions, and none of them may have been valid."

The confessor takes great pains to pacify Bertha, but in vain. In fact, Bertha's trouble and anxiety increase after each confession; she becomes more and more scrupulous and answers to the admonitions and warnings of her confessor with all kinds of counter arguments. The latter at length finds himself utterly helpless, and sends Bertha to the extraordinary confessor, the pastor of the place. He also takes great trouble with her for a time, but without any good result. Not knowing what to do, he sends Bertha to his curate, a zealous man of great piety. The curate, who is besides the teacher of Catechism in Bertha's class, gains her full confidence. Whatever Bertha wishes to do or not to do, she always knows how to get her own way. If her Superioress refuses her something, she obtains permission from one of her confessors. If one refuses, she goes to the other. If one confessor orders her to do a certain thing, she gets a dispensation from another one. Before the Superioress she pleads the orders of the confessor, and before the confessor she asserts the authority of her Superioress.

In this way she gradually frees herself from observance of the rule. Meditation, prayer, spiritual reading, all these things cause her irritation. Before Confession she gets convulsions, trembles in her whole body, and becomes speechless. Notwithstanding all this her class is in excellent condition. Her looks do not betray anything unusual, except by the restlessness of her eyes and the pallor of her face. She loses her appetite and becomes more and more peculiar in her actions. By and by she takes several of the sisters into her confidence. They take her part, and the discipline of the convent is seriously impaired. When sterner measures are taken with Bertha she threatens suicide. Scenes and fits before her Superioress and the confessors become more frequent and more violent. Daily, and sometimes several times a day, she writes to the chaplain: "Permit me to call on you," or "If you do not come to see me at once, I shall jump out of the window," etc. These threats of suicide Bertha uses to keep everybody in check.

Finally these things become unbearable, and Bertha is sent to the home of her mother, a little village in the mountains. A physician of repute pronounces Bertha's health in perfect condition, but declares that her nerves are somewhat overwrought.

Dressed in the sisters' gown, Bertha goes to Confession to the village chaplain and employs here her old tactics. He listens to her repeatedly and tries in vain to pacify her with kind words. Finally he deals with her with severity, especially as Bertha begins to call several times a day at his residence, to see him about trifling matters and scruples. His change of manner suddenly ends her convulsions, and she becomes outwardly perfectly quiet. He has forfeited her confidence, and she goes no longer to him but to other priests in the neighborhood to Confession, and finding that she can not have her way she ceases going to Confession altogether. After that she writes menacing letters to her confessor at the convent, and obtains from him direction and advice. Repeatedly she visits a young physician to confide to him her scruples. After three months she returns to the convent, without having in any way improved.

Questions:

n. ¶7.

Has Bertha received proper treatment?

n. ¶8.

How should Bertha have been treated?

n. ¶9.

How is she to be treated in statu quo?

n. ¶10.

I. (a) Bertha's preference for some of her pupils was sinful (venially) because others felt hurt by these preferences (jealousy, envy), and because it was also detrimental for the welfare of her soul; namely, an obstacle to her duty of striving after perfection, and also dangerous because such attachments frequently lead to gross sensuality and to mortal sins, and in her case would have led there presumably, considering her character. The admonition and subsequent reprimand of the Superioress were therefore in perfect order.

n. ¶11.

(b) It seems clear from the conduct of the first confessor, at all stages of the case, that from the beginning he was wanting in the necessary prudence and energy. He made a great mistake in giving Bertha dispensations and orders different from those of the other confessors and of her Superioress. He should either have foregone entirely the guidance of Bertha's conscience, or have acted under a perfect understanding with the others. Bertha's condition was aggravated by the yielding and weakness of her first confessor. Her impassioned, proud, and wilful character got the better of him. When at last entreaties and complaints were of no avail and they proceeded against her with energy and severity it was too late; she fell into convulsions (which were undoubtedly at her command, at least partially), and threatened suicide. It must have greatly flattered her female pride to be able to hold four persons in check. Through dispensation from the rules she lost a strong support and the last hold for her suffering soul.

n. ¶12.

(c) It was perfectly proper and right to send Bertha home for recreation, and to consult a doctor. The surroundings of home and the reminiscences of her youth combined with suitable medical treatment, and proper spiritual guidance, should have acted in a quieting and healing manner. But all these remedies were without avail, and her recovery was frustrated through the interference of her first confessor. Bertha may be compared to a sick person upon whose ailment several physicians are unable to agree; they give counteracting prescriptions, and thus bring the patient to the brink of the grave.

n. ¶13.

The first confessor should have acquainted himself with the orders given to Bertha by her Superioress, and should have seen to it with all necessary severity that the obedience necessary in a convent was preserved. After handing her over to the spiritual care of another confessor he should have been careful not to interfere; and the pastor also should have given up the case entirely so soon as his assistant became Bertha's confessor. The three could act successfully together only with a previous understanding.

n. ¶14.

Some one should have placed before Bertha the reasons mentioned under No. 1, to justify to her mind the procedure of her Superioress. Bertha, as an intelligent person, which she was by virtue of her training as a teacher, would have been impressed with their validity. It would have been well, and even necessary, to point out to Bertha the difference between imperfection and sin, and draw the distinct line between venial and mortal sin applied to her particular case. Her attention should have been drawn to the fact, that as a religious she had made the vow of obedience, and that even in trivial affairs she was obliged to carry out the orders of her Superioress, that especially when her actions were found faulty, was she required to recognize in the decision of her Superioress the will and voice of God, and that she was moreover under obligation of obedience to her confessor when in the confessional, by virtue of which he could forbid her to harbor any thoughts of her former life. She should have been told to consider such thoughts as temptations to be resisted vigorously, that true and genuine piety shows itself in humble submission and willing obedience, etc. Bertha would most likely have been protected against getting into her deplorable condition by a sensible explanation and application of these truths.

n. ¶15.

As Bertha's nerves are affected by continuous brooding and subsequent excitements, it would be best to relieve her of as much teaching as possible, and let her pass most of her time with light work, in fresh air, under the guidance of a sensible and sociable sister. To keep her altogether away from her class, in which she seems interested, might cause much irritation, and prevent or retard her recovery.

n. ¶16.

An important question remains to be answered: What is to be done in regard to her threats of suicide? The best way would be to treat them with contempt, and keep her, without her knowing it, under constant surveillance. Suicide seems here to have been an empty threat. Boastful people are usually great cowards. Bertha should be told: "If you think it too long before the dear Lord comes and calls you, you can not improve your case by running with open eyes into hell. If you, however, think that your threats of suicide are making any impression upon me and that you can get me thus to let you do as you please, you are much mistaken. Either you obey promptly, as it becomes a sister, or you leave the convent at once," etc. I would mention also that for persons suffering from nervous irritation a careful application of the cold water cure has been found beneficial for restoring their shattered health. If all these remedies prove without avail, the only thing left is to send Bertha away from the convent, as a community must not be allowed to suffer seriously on account of the vagaries of an individual.

Vol. IV, Case LXVII: Scrupulosity

A young man of about thirty came to a confessor and confessed, with every sign of contrition, many grievous sins, especially many very serious ones contra VI. The confessor heard him patiently, asked the necessary questions, warned and admonished him suaviter, pointed out the consequences to body and soul, and then absolved and dismissed him. Some weeks later the penitent returned to the confessional and thenceforth came frequently, showing himself to be completely changed. The priest's exhortations had sunk deep into his "heart, and the grace of God worked a miraculous conversion. Yet at every confession he said: " Father, whenever I think of my past life, I am filled with fear; I never have a happy hour, I have no peace at all." Quid respondendum?

If the confessor is satisfied that his penitent has confessed all the formal mortal sins that he remembered, after a careful examination of conscience, — if there is moral certainty de validitate of his previous confessions, and if any that were not valid have been made good, he should begin by telling the penitent that his disturbed state is the work of the devil. Our adversary does all in his power to drag a soul that he considered his own back from the right path, and in order to discourage a poor mortal, and shatter his confidence in God, he has recourse to disturbance and anxiety of mind, and tortures him with doubts as to God's mercy. The confessor ought to urge his penitent to pray earnestly, and he should strive to strengthen his confidence in God.

None of us, not even the most pious priest, knows whether he is worthy of love or hatred (Eccles. ix, 1), and even the Apostle of the Gentiles had to acknowledge: "I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not thereby justified; but He who judges me is the Lord" (1 Cor. iv, 4). It is actually a dogma of our holy religion, that no one knows with certainty that he is justified (Trid. sess., VI. cap. 9, in Denzinger, n. 684). Therefore we must be satisfied with more or less moral certainty, which varies in degree according to our power of ascertaining whether we have complied with all the requirements and conditions imposed by God. We have much reason to thank Him for this incertitudo; it preserves us from carelessness and reckless presumption, and sets a barrier to our self-confidence and boastful self-complacency.

After a penitent has done his best to obtain reconciliation with God, he should set aside all disquieting thoughts and look with confidence to the future.

To elucidate the point under discussion as far as possible, I may add that, in making the preceding statements, I have had in view a sinner who has committed unusually grievous sins during a period of many years, and now, in spite of having confessed them, enjoys no peace of mind. If he is incessantly troubled by fears ob confessiones peractas, and questions their validity, or if he is in constant dread of sinning, the regulae pro scrupulosis of course hold good for his confessor.—Prof. Gspann.

Vol. V, Case LX: Feigning Scrupulousness in Confession

Case.—At a mission a female penitent confesses to one of the missionaries, and ad sextum she mentions that she includes everything, but that her regular confessor had forbidden her to go into details for the reason that he was convinced that her offences were only imaginary and due to scrupulousness. However, having listened to a sermon on invalid confessions, she had become troubled about the matter and feared that not everything was as it should be. Hence, she thought, she had better ask the advice of the missionary. In answer to some questions she admits that she had reason to think that she had simulated scrupulousness, partly because ashamed to state the facts, and partly “to get off easy,” as she puts it. The missionary decides that she must now tell him the full facts so that the past might be done with for good.

Question.—Is the decision correct?