 CHAPTER XVII The thought is a terrible one, and the act is desperate in itself. Of a man, however justified his conduct may be, slain with his own hand a fellow being and sending his soul unprepared, perhaps, before its maker. But it is a still more desperate thing, because it strikes us nearer home, to yield up one's life into the hands of an agent of injustice. There is here an alternative of two very great evils. It is a question of two lives, his and mine. I must lay, or I must die, without having done anything to forfeit my life. But the law of charity, founded in nature, makes my life more precious to me than his, for charity begins at home. Then, to save his life, I must give mine, and he risks his to take mine. I do not desire to kill my unjust aggressor, but I do intend, as I have a perfect right, to protect my own life. If he without cause places his existence as an obstacle to my enjoyment of life, then I shall remove that obstacle, and to do it I shall kill. Again a desperate remedy, but the situation is most terribly desperate. Being given law of my being, I cannot help the inevitable result of conditions of which I am no wise responsible. The man who attacks my life places his own beyond the possibility of my saving it. This, of course, supposes a man using the full measure of his rights. But is he bound to do this, morally? Not if his charity for another be greater than that which he bears towards himself. If he go beyond the divine injunction to love his neighbor as himself, and to love him better than himself. If he feel that he is better prepared to meet his God than the other. If he have no one depended on him for maintenance and support. Even did he happen to be in the state of mortal sin, there is every reason to believe that such charity as will sacrifice life for another greater than which no man has would wash away that sin and open the way of mercy. While great indeed must be the necessity of the dependent ones to require absolutely the death of another. The aggression that justifies killing must be unjust. This would not be the case of a criminal being brought to justice or resisting arrest. Justice cannot conflict with itself and can do nothing unjust in carrying out its own mandates. The culprit therefore has no grounds to stand upon for his defense. Neither is killing justifiable if wounding or mutilation would affect the purpose. But here the code of morals allows much latitude on account of the difficulty of judging to a nicety the intentions of the aggressor, that is whether he means to kill or not, and of so directing the protecting blow as to inflict just enough and no more disability than the occasion requires. Virtue in woman is rightly considered a boon greater than life, and for that matter so is the state of God's friendship in the soul of any creature. Then here too applies the principle of self-defense. If I may kill to save my life, I may for better reason kill to save my soul and to avoid mortal offense. True, the loss of bodily integrity does not necessarily imply a staining of the soul, but human nature is such as to make the one an almost fatal consequence of the other. The person therefore who kills to escape unjust contamination acts within his or her rights and before God is justified in the doing. We would venture to say the same thing of a man who resorts to this extreme in order to protect his rightly-gotten goods on these two conditions, however. That there be some kind of proportion between the loss and the remedy he employs to protect himself against it, and that he have well-grounded hope that the remedy will be effective, that it will prevent said loss and not transform itself into revenge. And here a last remark is in order. The killing that is permitted to save is not permitted to avenge lost sustained. The law sanctions self-defense, but not vengeance. If a man on the principle of self-defense has the right to kill to save his brother and fails to do so, his further right to kill ceases. The object is past saving and vengeance is criminal. If a woman who has been wronged, once the wrong effected, there can be no lawful recourse to slaying, for what is lost is beyond redemption, and no reason for such action exists except revenge. In these cases killing is murder, pure and simple, and there is nothing under heaven to justify it. Between the injunction to love our neighbor as our self, we add that we have the same right to defend our neighbor's life as we have to defend our own, even to protect his or her innocence and virtue and possessions. A husband may defend the honor of his wife, which is his own, even though the wife be a party to the crime and consent to the defilement. But the right is only to prevent and ceases on the event of accomplishment even at the incipient stage. The injury done to another in order to repair an insult is criminal, and if said injury result in death, it is murder. Here we consider an insult as an attack on one's reputation or character, a charge or accusation, a slurring remark, et cetera, without reference to the truth or falsity thereof. It may be objected that whereas reputation, like chastity and considerable possessions, is often valued as high as life itself. The same right exists to defend it even at the cost of another's life. But it must be remembered that the loss of character sustained in consequence of an insult of this kind is something very ephemeral and unsubstantial. And only to a mind abnormally sensitive can any proportion be perceived between the loss and the remedy. This is especially true when the attack is in words and goes no farther than words, for sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you, as we used to say when we were boys. Then words are such fleeting things that the harm is done. Whatever harm there is before any remedy can be brought to bear upon it, which fact leaves no room for self-defense. In such a case the only redress that can be had is from the courts of justice, established to undo wrongs as far as the thing can be done. The power to do this belongs to the state alone, and is vested in no private individual. To assume the prerogative of privately doing one's self-justice, when recourse can be had to the tribunals of justice, is to sin, and every act committed in this pursuit of justice is unlawful and criminal. This applies likewise to all the other cases of self-defense, wherein life, virtue and wealth are concerned, if the harm is already done, or if legal measures can prevent the evil or undo it. It may be that the justice dealt out by the tribunal in case of injury being done to us prove inferior to that which we might have obtained ourselves by private methods, but this is not a reason for one to take the law into one's own hands. Such loss is accidental and must be ascribed to the inevitable course of human things. Dualing is a form of murder and suicide combined, for which there can possibly be no justification. The code of honor that requires the reparation of an insult at the point of the sword or muzzle of a pistol has no existence outside the befogged intelligence of godless men. The duel repairs nothing and aggravates the evil it seeks to remedy. The justice it appeals to is a creature dependent on skill and luck. Such justice is not only blind, but crazy as well. That is why the church anathematizes dueling. The duel she condemns is a hand-to-hand combat prearranged as to weapons, time and place, and it is immaterial whether it be to the death or only to the Latina first blood. She fulminates her major excommunication against dualists, even in the event of their failing to keep their agreement. Her sentence affects seconds and all those who advise or favor or abet, and even those whose simple presence is an incentive and encouragement. She refuses Christian burial to the one who falls, unless before dying he shows his positions of repentance. Prize-fighting, however brutal and degrading, must not be put in the category of dueling. Its object is not to wipe out an insult, but to furnish support and to reap the incidental profits. In normal conditions there is no danger to lie for limb. Sharkey might stop with the point of his chin, a blow that would send many another into kingdom come. But so long as Sharkey does the stopping, the danger remains non-existent. If, however, hate instead of lucre bring the men together, the motive would be sufficient to make the game one of blood, if not of death. Lynching is another kind of murder, and a cowardly, brutal kind of that. No crime, no abomination on the part of the victim, however great, can justify such an inhuman proceeding. It brands, with the crime of willful murder, every man or woman who has had a hand in it. To defend the theory of lynching is as bad as to carry it out in practice. And it is greatly to be feared that the Almighty will one day call this land to account for the outrageous performance of unbridled license and heartless cruelty that occurs so frequently in our midst. The only plea on which to ground an excuse for such prohibitions of brutality and disrespect for order and justice would be the inability of established government to meet out justice to the guilty. But this is not even the case. For government is deified, and lawful authority capable and willing to punish is spurned. The culprit is taken from the hands of the law and delivered over to the vengeance of a mob. However popular the doctrine of judge-lynch may be in certain actions of the land, it is nevertheless reprobated by the law of God and stands condemned at the bar of his justice. Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton On the Ethics of War In these days since we have evolved into a fighting nation, our young men feel within them the instinct of battle, which like Job Steed, when it heareth the trumpet sith, ha ha, that smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains, the shouting of the army. Military trappings are no longer looked upon as stage furniture, good only for fourth of July parades, and sham maneuvers. War with us has become a stern reality, and promises to continue such. For people do not yield up willingly their independence, even to a world power with a providential destiny to fulfill. And since war is slaughter, it might be apropos to remark on the morality of such killing as is done on the field of battle and of war in general. In every war there is a right side and a wrong side. Sometimes perhaps more frequently there is right and wrong on both sides, due to bungling diplomacy and the blindness of prejudice. But in every case justice demands the triumph of one cause and the defeat of the other. To determine in any particular case the side of right and justice is a very difficult matter, and perhaps it is just as well that it is so. For could this be done with truth and accuracy, frightful responsibilities would have to be placed on the shoulders of somebody, and we shrink instinctively from the thought of any one individual or body of individual standing before God with the crime of war on his or their souls. Therefore it is that grave men are of the opinion that such a tremendous event as war is not wholly of man's making, but rather an act of God, like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the like, which things he uses as flails to chastise his people or to bring them to a sense of their own insignificance in his sight. Be this as it may, it is nevertheless true that a private individual is rarely, if ever, competent to judge rightly by himself of the morality of any given cause, until such time at least as history has probed the matter and brought every evidence to light. In case therefore of doubt every presumption should favour the cause of one's own country. If in my private opinion the cause of my country is doubtfully wrong, then that doubt should yield to the weight of higher authoritative opinion. Official or popular judgment will be authority for me. On that authority I may form a strong probable opinion, at least, and this will assure the morality of my taking up my country's cause even though it be doubtful from my personal point of view. If this cannot be done, and one's conscience positively reproves such a cause, then that one cannot, until a contrary conviction is acquired, take any part therein. But he is in no wise bound to defend with arms the other side, for his convictions are subjective and general laws do not take these into account. Who are bound to serve? That depends on the quality of danger to which the Commonwealth is exposed. First the obligation is for those who can do so easily. Young men, strong, unmarried, with a taste for such adventures war affords. The greater the general peril, the less private needs should be considered. The situation may be such as to call forth every able-bodied man, irrespective of family necessities, to shirk this duty when it is plainly a duty, a rare circumstance indeed, is without doubt a sin. Obedience to orders is the alpha and omega of army discipline. Without it a cause is lost from the beginning. Numbers are nothing compared to order. A mob is not a fighting machine. It is only a fair target. The issue of a battle or even of a whole war may depend on obedience to orders. Army men know this so well that death is not infrequently the penalty of disobedience. Consequently a violation of discipline is usually a serious offense. It may be easily a mortal sin. War being slaughtered, the soldier's business is to kill or rather to disable as many of the enemy as possible on the field of battle. This disabling process means of course and necessarily the main mean unto death the many. Such killing is not only lawful but obligatory. War, like the surgeon's knife, must often lop off much in order to save the whole. The best soldier is he who inflicts most damage on the enemy. But the desire and intention of the soldier should not be primarily to kill, but only to put the enemy beyond the possibility of doing further harm. Death will be the result of his efforts in many cases, and this he suffers to occur rather than desires or intents. But he has no right to slay outside of battle or without the express command of a superior officer. If he does so he is guilty of murder. Neither must there be hate behind the aim that singles out a foe for destruction. The general hatred which he bestows on the opposing cause must respect the individual enemy. It is not lawful to wantonly torture or maim an enemy, whoever or whatever he may be, however great his crime. Not even the express command of a superior officer can justify such doings, because it is barbarity, pure and unmitigated. In war these things are morally just what they would be if they were perpetrated in the heart of peace and civilization by a gang of thugs. These are abominations that not only disgrace the flag under which they are committed, but even cry to heaven for vengeance. The Massacre of the Innocence Herod, the bloody, slew all under two. A modern bollock, a creature of lust and blood, disguised often under the cloak of respectability, stalks through a Christian land denying the babe the right to be born at all, demanding that it be crushed as soon as conceived. There is murder and murder, but this is the most heartless, cowardly and brutal on the catalogue of crime. It is bad enough to cut down an enemy, to shoot him in the back, but when it comes to slaying a victim as helpless as a babe, incapable of entering a protest, innocent of all wrong save that of existing, when even baptism is denied it, and thereby the sight of God for all eternity, when finally the victim is one's own flesh and blood, the knowledge of hell alone is capable of qualifying such deeds. Do not say there is no injustice. Every innocent human being at every stage of its existence, from the first to the last, born or unborn, has a natural and inalienable right to live, as long as nature's laws operate in its favor. Being innocent it cannot forfeit that right. God is no acceptor of persons. A soul is a soul, whether it be the soul of a pontiff, a king or a sage, or the soul of the unborn babe of the last woman of the people. In every case the right to live is exactly the same. The circumstances, regular or irregular, of its coming into life, not being of its own making, do not affect the right in the least. It obeyed the law by which every man is created. It could not disobey, for the law is fatal. Its presence therefore cannot be morally obnoxious, a crime on its part, whether its presence is a joy or a shame that depends solely on the free act of others than itself. And it is for them to enjoy the privilege or bear the disgrace and burden. That presence may occasion poverty, suffering, it may even endanger life. What if it does? Has a person in misfortune the right to strike down another who has had no part in making that misfortune? Life does not begin at birth, but precedes it. Prenatal life is truly life. That which is conceived is. Being it lives as essentially as a full-grown man in the prime of life. Being the fruit of humanity it is human at every instant of its career. Being human it is a creature of God, has an immortal soul with the image of the maker stamped thereon. And the veto of God, thou shalt not kill, protects the life, or it has no meaning at all. The psychological moment of incipient life, the instant marked by the infusion of soul into body, may furnish a problem of speculation for the savant. But even when certitude ends and doubt begins, the law of God fails not to protect. No man who doubts seriously that the act he is about to perform is a crime, and is free to act or not to act, is anything but a criminal, if he goes ahead notwithstanding and does the deed. If I send a bullet into a man's head doubting whether or not he be dead, I commit murder by that act, and it matters not at all in point of fact whether said person were really dead or not before I made sure. In the matter therefore concerns us here, doubt will not make killing justifiable. The law is, when in doubt do not act. Then again, as far as guilt is concerned, it makes not a particle of difference whether results follow or not. Sin, you know, is an act of the will. The exterior deed completes, but does not make the crime. If I do all in my power to effect a wrong, and fail in the attempt through no of my own, I am just as guilty before God as if I perpetrated the crime indeed. It is more than a desire to commit sin, which is sinful. It is the specific sin in itself, and in this matter it is murder, pure, and simple. This applies with equal force to the agent who does the deed, to the principal who has it done, or consents to its being done, to those who advise, encourage, urge, or cooperate in any way therein, as well as to those who having authority to prevent neglect to use it. The stain of blood is on the soul of every person to whom any degree of responsibility or complicity can be attached. If every murderer in this enlightened Christian land of ours received the rope which is his or her due, according to the letter of the law, business would be brisk for quite a spell. It is a small town that has not its professional babe-slaughterer, who succeeds in evading the law, even when he contrives to kill two at one time. He does not like to do it, but there is money in it, you know. And he pockets his unholy blood-money without a squirm. Don't prosecute him. If you do, he will make revelations that will startle the town. As for the unnatural mother, it is best to leave her to listen in the dead of night to the appealing voice of her murdered babes before the tribunal of God's infinite justice. Their blood calls for vengeance. Killing is not the only thing forbidden by the Fifth Commandment. Thereby are prescribed all forms of enmity, of which killing is one. That attack either directly or indirectly in thought or desire, as well as indeed, the life, limbs, or health of the neighbor. The Fifth Precept protects the physical man. Everything therefore that partakes of the nature of a design on the body of another is an offense against this commandment. All such offenses are not equally grievous, but each contains a malice of its own which is prescribed under the head of killing. Inmity that takes the form of fighting, assault, and battery, is clearly a breach of the law of God. It is lawful to wound, maim, or otherwise disable an assailant on the principle of self-defense, when there is no other means of protecting one's self against attack. But outside this contingency, such conduct as Ruffianism before man and sin before God, the state alone has the right to inflict penalties and avenge wrongs. To turn this right over to every individual would be destructive of society. If this sort of thing is unlawful and criminal, when there might be some kind of an excuse for it on the ground of injury received, the malice thereof is aggravated considerably by the fact of there being no excuse at all or only imaginary ones. There is another form of enmity or hatred that runs not to blows but to words. Herein is evil not because of any bodily injury wrought, of which there is none, but because of the diabolical spirit that manifests itself, a spirit reproved by God, and which in given circumstances is ready to resort to physical injury and even to the letting of blood. There can be no doubt that hatred in itself is forbidden by this commandment, for whosoever hates his brother is a murderer according to St. John. It matters little, therefore, whether such hatred be in deeds or in words. The malice is there and the sin is consummated. A person too weak to do an enemy bodily harm may often use his or her tongue to better effect than another could his fists, and the verbal outrage thus committed may be worse than a physical one. It is not even necessary that the spirit of enmity show itself at all on the outside, for the incurring of such guilt as attends the violation of this commandment. It is sufficient that it possesses the soul and go no farther than a desire to do harm. This is the spirit of revenge, and it is none the less sinful in the eyes of God because it lacks the compliment of exterior acts. It is immoral to nourish a grudge against a fellow man. Such a spirit only awaits an occasion to deal a blow, and when that occasion shows itself, will be ready, willing, and anxious to strike. The Lord refuses the gifts and offerings and prayers of such people as these. They are told to go and become reconciled with their brother, and lay low the spirit that holds them. Then and only then will their offerings be acceptable. Even less than this suffices to constitute a breach of the fifth commandment. It is the quality of such passions as envy and jealousy to sometimes be content with the mere thought of injury done to their object without even going so far as to desire to work the evil themselves. These passions are often held in check for a time, but in the event of misfortune befalling the hated rival, there follows a sense of complacency and satisfaction, which if entertained, has all the malice of mortal sin. If on the contrary the prosperity of another inspires with the feeling of regret and sadness which is deliberately contented and consented to, there can be no doubt as to the grievous malice as such a failing. Finally, recklessness may be the cause of our harming another. It is a sound principle of morals that one is responsible for his acts in the measure of his foreseen and consenting to the results and consequences. But there is still another sound principle according to which every man is accountable, at least indirectly, for the evil consequences of his actions even though they may be unforeseen and involuntary in the measure of the want of ordinary human prudence shown in his conduct. A man with a loaded revolver in his hand may not have any design on the lives of his neighbors, but if he blazes away right and left to fulfill this or that one with lead, he is guilty if he is in his right mind, and a sin, a mortal sin, is still a sin, even if it is committed indirectly. Negligence is often culpable and ignorance frequently a sin. Naturally, just as a soul is superior to the body, so evil example, scandal, the killing of the soul of another, is a crime of far greater enormity than the working of injury unto the body. Scandal comes properly under the head of murder, but it is less blood than lust that furnishes it with working material. It will therefore be treated in its place and time. Recording by Brian Keenan. Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton Chapter 75 Our Enemies What is an enemy? A personal and individual enemy is he who has done us a personal injury. The enemy, in a general or collective sense, are they, a people, a class or party, who are opposed to our interests, whose presence, doings or sayings are obnoxious to us for many natural reasons. Concerning these latter, it might be said that it is natural, oftentimes necessary and proper, to oppose them by all legitimate means. This opposition, however lawful, is scarcely ever compatible with any high degree of charity or affection. But whatever of aversion, antipathy or even hatred is thereby engendered, it is not of a personal nature. It does not attain the individual, but embraces a category of beings as a whole, who become identified with the cause they sustain and thereby fall under the common enmity. The law that binds us unto love of our enemy operates only in favor of the units, and not of the group as a group. Hatred, aversion, antipathy, such as divides peoples, races and communities, is one, though not the highest, characteristic of patriotism. It may be called the defect of equality. When a man is whole sold in a cause, he will brook with difficulty any system of ideas opposed to, and destructive of, his own. Anxious for the triumph of what he believes the cause of right and justice, he will rejoice over the discomforture of his rivals and the defeat of their cause. Wars leave behind an inheritance of hatred. Persecution makes wounds that take a long time to heal. The descendants of the defeated, conquered or persecuted, will look upon the generations of their father's foes as typifying oppression, tyranny, and injustice. Will wish them all manner of evil and gloat over their downfall. Such feelings die hard. They spring from convictions. The wounds made by injustice, fancied or real, will smart. And just as naturally will men retain in their hearts aversion for all that which, for them, stands for such injustice. This is criminal only when it fails to respect the individual and become personal hate. Him who has done us a personal injury, we must forgive. Pardon drives hatred out of the heart. Love of God is incompatible with personal enmity. Therefore, such enmity must be quelched. He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar, according to divine testimony. What takes the place of this hate? Love. A love that is called common love, to distinguish it from that special sort of affection that we have for friends. This is a general kind of love that embraces all men and excludes none individually. It forbids all unsherity towards a man as a unit, and it supposes a disposition of the soul that would not refuse to give a full measure of love and assistance if necessity required it. This sort of love leaves no room for hatred of a personal nature in the heart. Is it enough to forgive sincerely from the heart? It is not enough. We must manifest our forgiveness, and this for three good reasons. First, in order to secure us against self-illusion and to test the sincerity of our dispositions. Secondly, in order to put an end to discord by showing the other party that we hold no grudge. Lastly, in order to remove whatever scandal may have been given by our breach of friendship. The disorder of enmity can be thoroughly cured and healed only by an open renewal of the ties of friendship, and this is done by the offering and acknowledgment of the signs of friendship. The signs of friendship are of two sorts, the one common, the other special. Common tokens of friendship are those signs which are current among people of the same condition of life, such as saluting, answering a question, dealing in business affairs, etc. These are commonly regarded as sufficient to take away any reasonable suspicion of hatred. Although, in matter of fact, the inference may be false. But the refusal to give such tokens of pardon usually argues the presence of an uncharitable feeling that is harmful. It is nearly always evidence of an unforgiving spirit. There are certain cases wherein the offense received being of a peculiar nature justifies one in deferring such evidence of forgiveness. But these cases are rare. If we are obliged to show by unmistakable signs that we forgive a wrong that has been done, we are in no wise bound to make a particular friend of the person who has been guilty of the wrong. We need not go out of our way to meet him, receive or visit him, or treat him as a long-lost brother. He would not expect it, and we fulfill our obligations toward him by the ordinary civilities we show him in the business of life. If we have offended, we must take the first step toward reconciliation and apologize. That is the only way we have of repairing the injury done, and to this we are held in conscience. If there is equal blame on both sides, then both are bound to the same duty of offering an apology. To refuse such advances on the part of one who has wronged us is to commit an offense that might very easily be grievous. All this, of course, is apart from the question of indemnification in case of real damage being sustained. We may condone an offense and at the same time require that the loss suffered be repaired. And in case the delinquent refuse to settle amicably, we are justified in pursuing him before the courts. Justice is not necessarily opposed to charity. End of Chapter 75. Recording by Brian Keenan Chapter 76 of Explanation of Catholic Morals This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Brian Keenan Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton Chapter 76. Immorality The natural order of things brings us to a consideration of the sixth commandment and at the same time of the ninth as treating of the same matter, a matter so highly immoral as to deserve the specific appellation of immorality. People as a rule are tolerably well informed on this subject. It is a knowledge acquired by instinct, the depraved instinct of our fallen nature, and supplemented by the experiences weaned from the daily sayings and doings of common life. Finally, that sort of journalism known as the yellow, and literature called pornographic, serve to round off this education and give it the finishing touches. But on the other hand, if one considers the innocent, the young and inexperienced, who are not a few, and likewise the morbidly curious of sensual tendencies, who are many, this matter must appear as a high explosive, capable of doing any amount of damage if not handled with the utmost care and caution. Much therefore must be left unsaid, or half said. Suggestion and insinuation must be trusted to go far enough in order that, while the knowing understand, the ignorant may be secure in the bliss of their ignorance and be not prematurely informed. They, for whom such language is insufficient, know where to go for fuller information. Parents are the natural teachers. The boy's father and the girl's mother know what to say, how and when to say it, or at least should know. And if parents were only more careful in their own way to acquaint their children with certain facts when the time comes for it, much evil would be avoided, both moral and physical. But there are secrets too sacred even for parents' ears that are confided only to God through His appointed minister. Catholics know this man is the confessor, and a place for such information and counsel, the holy tribunal of penance. These two channels of knowledge are safe. The same cannot be said of others. As a preliminary, we would remark that sins of the sort here in question, as well as all kinds of sin, are not limited to deeds. Exterior acts consummate the malice of evil, but they do not constitute such malice. Evil is generated in the heart. One who desires to do wrong offends God as effectively as another who does the wrong indeed. Not only that, but he who makes evil the food of his mind and ponders complacently on the seductive beauty of vice is no less guilty than he who goes beyond theory into practice. This is something we frequently forget, or would fain forget. The greed of passion blinding us more or less voluntarily to the real moral value of our acts. As a consequence of this self-illusion, many a one finds himself far beyond his depth in the sea of immorality before he fully realizes his position. It is small beginnings that lead to lasting results. It is by repeated acts that habits are formed, and evil grows on us faster than most of us are willing to acknowledge. All manner of good and evil originates in thought, and that is where the little monster of uncleanness must be strangled before it is full-grown, if we would be free from its unspeakable thralldom. Again, this is a matter the malice and evil of which very, very rarely, if ever, escapes us. He who commits a sin of impurity and says he did not know what was wrong lies deliberately, or else he is not in his right frame of mind. The maker has left in our souls enough of natural virtue and grace to enable us to distinguish right and wrong, clean and unclean. Even the child with no definite knowledge of the matter, meeting it for the first time, instinctively blushes and recoils from the moral hideousness of its aspect. Conscience here speaks in no uncertain accents. He alone does not hear who does not wish to hear. Catholic theologians are even more rigid concerning the matter itself, prescending altogether from our perception of it. They say that here no levity of matter is allowed. That is to say, every violation, however slight, of either of these two commandments, is a sin. You cannot even touch this pitch of moral defilement without being yourself defiled. It is useless, therefore, to argue the matter and enter a plea of triviality and inconsequence. Nothing is trivial that is of a nature to offend God and damn a soul. Weakness has the same value as an excuse as it has elsewhere in moral matters. Few sins are of pure malice. Weakness is responsible for the damnation of all, or nearly all, the lost. That very weakness is the sin, for virtue is strength. To make this plea, therefore, is to make no plea at all, for we are all weak, desperately weak, especially against the demon of the flesh, and we become weaker by yielding. And we are responsible for the degree of moral debility under which we labor just as we are for the degree of guilt we have incurred. Finally, as God is no preceptor of persons, he does not distinguish between souls, and sex makes no difference with him. In this his judgment differs from that of the world which absolves the man and condemns the woman. There is no evident reason why the violation of a divine precept should be less criminal in one human creature than in another. And if the reprobation of society does not follow both equally, the wrath of God does, and he will render unto everyone according to his and her works. The Sin of Iniquity The malice of lust consists in the abuse of a natural, a quasi-divine faculty which is prostituted to ignoble purposes foreign to the ends by the Creator established. The lines along which this faculty may be legitimately exercised are laid down by natural and divine laws, destined to preserve God's right to maintain order in society and to protect man against himself. The laws result in the foundation of a state called matrimony, within which the exercise of this human pre-argative, delegated to man by the Creator, receives the sanction of divine authority, and becomes invested with a sacred character as sacred as its abuse is abnormal and odious. To disregard and ignore this condition of things, and to seek satisfaction for one's passions outside the domain of law, is to revolt against this order of creative wisdom and to violate the letter of the law. But the intrinsic malice of the evil appears in the nature of this violation. This abuse touches life, not life in its being, but in its source, in the principle that makes all vitality possible which is still more serious. Immorality is therefore a moral poisoning of the wells of life. It profanes and violates a faculty and pre-argative so sacred that it is likened to the almighty power of the Creator. A manifold malice may attach to a single act in violation of the law of moral purity. The burden of a vow in either party incurring guilt, whether that vow be matrimonial or religious, is a circumstance that adds injustice or sacrilege to the crime, according to the nature of that vow. The verbal guilt is on both parties. If the vow exists in one and the other delinquent, then the offense is still further multiplied and the guilt aggravated. Blood relationship adds a specific malice of its own, slight or grievous according to the intimacy of said relationship. Fornication, adultery, sacrilege, and incest, these to give things their proper names, are terms that specify various degrees of malice and guilt and although they do not sound well or look well in print, they have a meaning which sensible folks should not ignore. A lapse from virtue is bad. The habit or vice voluntarily entertained is infinitely worse. If the one argues weakness, even culpable, the other betrays studied contempt for God and the law, an utter perversion of the moral sense that does not even esteem virtue in itself. An appalling thralldom of the spirit to the flesh, an appetite that is all ungodly, a gluttony that is bestial. Very often it supposes a victim hell fast in the clutches of unfeeling haggishness, fascinated or subjugated, made to serve while serviceable, and then cast off without a shred of respectability for another. It is an ordinary occurrence for one of these victims to swallow a deadly potion on being shown her folly and left as consequences, and the human ogre rides triumphantly home in his red automobile. But the positions may be reversed, the victim may play the role of seductress and displaying charms that excite the passions in snare the youth whose feet are not guided by the lamp of experience, wisdom, and religion. This is the human spider, soulless and shameless, using splendid gifts of God to form a web with which to invagle and entrap a two-willing prey, and the dead flies who will count them. The climax of infamy has reached when this sort of thing is made not a pastime, but a business, when virtue is put on the market with its fixed value attached and bartered for a price. There is no outrage on human feeling greater than this. We are all born of women, and the sight of womanhood thus degraded and profaned would give us more of a shock if it were less common. The curse of God is on such wretches as plie this unnatural trade and live by infamy, not only on them, but on those who also make such traffic possible and lucrative, considering all things more guilty the latter than the former, perhaps. Active cooperation and evil makes one a joint partner in guilt. To encourage infamy is not only to sin, but also to share all the freedom thereof. While he who contributes to the perpetuation of an iniquity of this nature is in a sense worse than the unfortunates themselves. The civil law which seeks to eliminate the social evil of prostitution by enactment and process divorce is a creature of the law, and divorce opens the door to concubinage, legalized if you will, but concubinage just the same. The marriage tie is intact after as well as before the decree of divorce. No human power can break that bond. The permission therefore to remarry is permission to live in adultery, and that permission is of its very nature, null and void. They who avail themselves of such a permission and live in sin may count on the protection of the law, but the law will not protect them against the wrath of the Almighty who condemns their immoral living. CHAPTER XVII. Certain excesses such as we have already alluded to, however base and abominable in themselves and their effects, have nevertheless this to their credit, that while violating the positive law of God they respect at least the fundamental laws of nature according to which the universe is constructed in order to satisfy one's depraved appetites along forbidden, but natural lines is certainly criminal. But an unnatural and beastly instinct is sometimes not satisfied with such abuse and excess. The passion becomes so blinded as to ignore the difference of sex, run even lower, to the inferior order of brutes. This is the very acme of ungodliness. There are laws on the statute books against abominations of this sort. And be it said to the shame of a Christian community, said laws find in only two frequent application. Severe as are the penalties, they are less an adequate punishment than a public expression of the common horror inspired by the very mention of the crimes they are destined to chastise. To attain this depth of infamy is at one and the same time to sin and to receive the penalty of sin. Here culminates repeated violence to the moral law. When one is sated with ordinary lusts and is bent on sweeping the whole gamut of mundane experiences and excitations that one invariably descends to the unnatural and extraordinary and lives a life of protest against nature. St. Paul confirms this. According to him, God in punishment for sin delivers over people to shameful affections, to reprobate sins. He suffers them to be a hell unto themselves. A nature seldom fails to avenge herself for the outrages suffered. She uses the flail of disease and remorse, of misery and disgust, and she scourges the culprit to the verge of the grave, often to the yawning pit of hell. People shudder at the very thought of such unmentionable things, but there are circles in society in which such sanctimonious shuddering is a mighty thin veil of hypocrisy. Infinitely more common, and little if any, less unnatural and abominable, are the crimes that are killing off the old stock that once possessed the land and making the country dependent for increase of population on the floods of immigration. The old Puritan families are almost extinct. Boston is more Irish than Dublin. The phenomenon is so striking here that it is called New Englandism. Why are there so few large families outside the Irish and Canadian elements? Why are there seen so few children in the fashionable districts in our large cities? Why this blast of sterility with which the land is cursed? Look behind the phenomenon and you will find the cause and the finding will make you shudder. And if only those shudder who are free from stain, the shuddering will be scarcely audible. Onan and Malthus as household gods are worse than the gods of Rome. Meanwhile the unit deteriorates alongside the family, being given over to a reprobate sense that is centered in south, that furnishes against all law its own satisfactions, and reaps in all justice its inevitable harvest of woe. To what extent this vice is common it would serve no purpose to examine. Students of criminology have more than once made known their views on the matter. The character of its malice, both moral and physical, needs no comment. Nature is outraged, but it has this among its several features. The thrall them to which it subjects its victim has nothing outside itself to which it may be compared. Man's self is his own greatest tyrant. There are no tortures so exquisite as those we provide for ourselves. While therefore we reprove the culprit we commiserate with the unfortunate victim, and esteem that there is none more worthy of sympathy, conditioned of course on a state of mind and soul on his part that seeks relief and freedom, otherwise it were pity wasted. We have done with his infernal category of sin and filth, yet we would remark right here that for the most part, as far as they are general and common, these excesses are the result of one cause, and that cause is every day's systematic godlessness such as our public schools are largely responsible for. This system is responsible for a want of vital Christianity, of a lack of faith in religion that penetrates the human fiber and makes God and morality a factor in every deed. Deprived of this, youth has nothing to fall back on when the hour of temptation comes, and when he falls, nothing to keep him from the bottom of the pit. It is impossible to put this argument in detail before the Christian and Catholic parent. If the parent does not see it, it is because that parent is deficient in the most essential quality of a parent. Nothing but the atmosphere of a religious school can save our youth from being victims of that maelstrom of impurity that sweeps the land, and that alone with the rigid principles of morality, their inculcated, can save the parents of tomorrow from the blight and curse of New Englandism. End of Chapter 78. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton Hearts The heart, the seat of the affections, is after the mind whose authority and direction it is made to obey, man's noblest faculty. But it may, in the event of its condemning reasons, dictates, become the source and fountainhead of inordinate lust and an instrument of much moral disaster and ruin. When the intelligence becomes powerless to command and to say what and when and how the affections shall desport themselves, then man becomes a slave to his heart and is led like an ass by the nose hither and thither. And when nature runs thus unrestrained and wild, it makes for the mud holes of lust wherein to wallow and besot itself. The heart is made to love what is good. Now good is real or apparent. Love is blind and needs reason to discern for it what is good and what is not. Reason to direct its affections into their legitimate channels. But the heart may refuse to be thus controlled, swayed by the whisperings of ignorant pride and conceit. Or it may be unable to receive the impulse of the reason on account of the unhealthy fumes that arise from the two exuberant animal nature unchastened by self-denial. Then it is that free to act as it lists. It accepts indiscriminately everything with an appearance of good, and which gets mixed up much of that which appeals to the inferior appetites, and in the end it gets lost. Again the heart is a power for good or evil. It may be likened to a magazine holding within its throbbing sides an explosive deposit of untold energy and puissance capable of all things within the range of the human. While it may lift man to the very pinnacle of goodness, it may also sink him to the lowest level of infamy. Only in one case it is spiritualized love. In the other it is carnal. In one case it obeys the spirit. In the other the flesh. In one case its true name is charity. In the other it is animal, sexual instinct, and is only improperly called love. For God is love. Love therefore is pure. That which is not pure is not love. People who trifle with the affections usually come to woe sooner or later, sooner rather than later. Affairs of the heart are always morally malodorous affairs. Frequently there is evil on one side, at least in intention from the heart. The devil's game is to play on the chaste attachment, and in an unguarded moment, to swing it around to his point. If the victim does not balk at the first shock in surprise, the game is won. For long experience has made him confident of being able to make the counterfeit look like the real, and it requires as a general rule little argument to make us look at our faults in their best light. Many a pure love has degenerated, and many a virtue fallen. Why? Because people forget who and what they are. Forget they are human. Forget they are creatures of flesh and blood predisposed to sin, saturated with concupiscence, and naturally frail as a reed against the seductions of the wily one. They forget this, and act as though theirs were art angelic, instead of a human nature. They imagine themselves proof against that which counts such victims as David and Solomon, which would cause the fall of a father of the desert, or even of an angel from heaven, encumbered with the burden we carry, if he despised the claims of ordinary, common sense. And this forgiveness on their part, let it be remembered, is wholly voluntary and culpable, at least in its cause. They may not have been attentive at the precise moment that the flames of passion reached the mind of their affections, but they were well aware that things would come inevitably to such a pass. And when the mind went up as it was natural, what wonder if disaster followed? Who is to blame but themselves? People do not play with matches around a powder magazine, and if they do, very little consolation comes with the knowledge of their folly when they are being picked up in sections from out of the ruins. Of course there are easier victims than these, such as would not recognize true intersexual love if they saw it through a magnifying glass. Everything of the nature of a fancier whim, of a sensation or emotion with them is love. Love's sick maidens are usually soft-brained and their languorous swains lascivious. The latter pose as killers, the former wear their heart on their sleeve and are convinced that every second man they meet who treats them gallantly is smitten with their charms and is passionately in love with them. Some go in for excitement and novelty to break the monotony of virtuous restraint. They are anxious for a little adventure in romance. A good thing, too, to have these exploits to narrate to their friends. But they do not tell all through their friends. They would be ashamed to. If said friends are wise they can supply the deficiencies. And when it is all over it is the same old story of the man that did not know the gun was loaded. They therefore who would remain pure must of all necessity keep custody over their heart's affections, make right reason and faith their guide, and make the will force obedience thereto. If wrong attachments are formed then there is nothing to do but to eradicate them, to cut, tear, and crush. They must be destroyed at any cost. A penny-weight of prudence might have prevented the evil. It will now take mortification and large and repeated doses to undo it. And this alone is their salvation. CHAPTER 80 Occasions of sin are persons, places, or things that may easily lead us into sin. This definition of the little catechism is simple and clear and requires no comment. It is not necessary that said places or things or even said persons be evil in themselves. It is sufficient that contact with or proximity to them induce one to commit an evil. It may happen and sometimes does that a person without an evil design whatever becomes an occasion of sin for another. The blame therefore does not necessarily lie with objects but rather with the subject. Occasions are of two kinds, the remote or far, and the proximate or near. They differ in the degree of facility with which they furnish temptation, and in the quality and nature of such temptation. In the former the danger of falling is less. In the latter it is more probable. In theory it is impossible to draw the line and say just when an occasion ceases to be proximate and becomes remote. But in the concrete the thing is easy enough. If I have a well-grounded fear, a fear made prudent by experience, that in this or that conjuncture I shall sin, then it is a near occasion for me. If however I can feel with knowledge and conviction that I am strong enough to overcome the inevitable temptation arising from this other conjunction of circumstances, the occasion is only remote. Thus, since danger and moral matters is nearly always relative, what is a remote occasion for one may be approximate occasion for another. Prwness to evil is not the same in all of us, for we have not all the same temperament in the same virtue. Two individuals may assist in a ball or a dance or a play, but one secure from sin, immune against temptation. The other a manifold victim of his or her folly. The dancer's spectacle may not be bad in itself, but it is not bad in fact for one. It is positively evil for the other in a near occasion of sin. Remote occasions cannot always be avoided. There are so numerous and frequent. Besides the evil they contain is a purely imaginative and therefore negligible quantity. There may be guilt however in seeking such occasions, and without reason exposing ourselves to their possible dangers. Temerity is culpable. He that loves danger shall perish. With the other kind it is different. The simple fact of embracing a proximate occasion of sin is a grievous fall, even in the event of our accidentally not succumbing to the temptation to which we are exposed. There is evil in such rashness independent of its consequences. He therefore who persists in visiting a place where there is every facility for sinning and where he has frequently sinned does a deed of crime by going there. But whatever afterwards occurs or does not occur affects that crime not in the least. The same is true of reading certain books, novels, and love stories for people of a certain spiritual complexion. The same is true of company keeping, street walking, familiarity and loose conversation. Nor can anything different be said of such liberties, consented to or merely tolerated, as embracing and kissing, amorous effusions and all perilous amusements of this nature. When experience shows these things to be fraught with danger then they become sinful in themselves and can be indulged in only and contempt of the law of God and to our own serious spiritual detriment. But suppose I cannot avoid the occasion of sin, cannot remove it. What then? If it is a clear case of proximate occasion of sin and all means fail to change it then the supposition of impossibility is a ridiculous one. It is paramount to asserting that sin and offensive God is sometimes necessary. And to talk to us is to talk nonsense. Sin is a deliberate act of free will. Mention necessity in the same breath and you will destroy the notion of sin. There can never be an impossibility of avoiding sin. Consequently there can never be an impossibility of avoiding a near occasion of sin. It may be hard, very difficult, but that is another thing. But as we have already said the difficulty is rather within than without us. It arises from a lack of willpower. But hard or easy these occasions must nevertheless be removed. Let the suffering until be what it may. The eye must be plucked out. The eye must be lopped off to use the Savior's figurative language. If in no other way the soul can be saved from sin. Better to leave your father's house. Better to give up your very life than to damn your soul for all eternity. But extremes are rarely called for. Small sacrifices often cost more than great ones. A good dose of ordinary everyday mortification and penance goes a long way toward producing the necessary effect. An ounce of self-denial will work miracles in a sluggard cowardly soul. It would be well sufficient to remember this, especially when one in such a state is thinking seriously of going to confession. If he is not prepared to make the required effort, then he better stay away until such time as he is willing. For if he states his case correctly, he will not receive absolution. If his avowal is not according to fact, his confession is void, perhaps sacrilegious. Have done with sin before you can expect your sins forgiven. CHAPTER 81 SCANDAL Unonly rare occasions to people who follow the bent of their unbridled passions, they think themselves of the double guilt that frequently attaches to their sins. Seemingly satisfied with the evil they have brought unto their own souls, they choose to ignore the wrong that they may have done unto others as a consequence of their sinful doings. They believe in the principle that every soul is personally responsible for its own damnation, which is true, but they forget that many elements may enter as causes into such a calamity. We are a know-wise, isolated beings in this world. Our lives may and do affect the lives of others and influence them sometimes in an extraordinary extent. We shall have each of us to answer one day for results of such influence. There is no man but is, in this sense, his opinion. They are who deny this, like Cain, yet we know that Jesus Christ spoke clearly his mind in regard to scandal, and the emphasis he lays on his anathemas leaves no room to doubt of his judgment on the subject. Scandal, in fact, is murder, not corporal murder, which is the vengeance, crying, abomination, but spiritual murder. Hanus over the other in the same measure as the soul's value transcends that of the body. Kill the body, and the soul may live and be saved. Kill the soul, and it is lost eternally. Properly speaking, scandal is any word or deed, evil or even with an appearance of evil, of a nature to furnish an occasion of spiritual downfall, to lead another into sin. Does not even matter whether the results be intended or merely suffered to occur. It does not even matter if no results follow at all. It is sufficient that the stumbling block of scandal be placed in the way of another to his spiritual peril and designed by nature to make him fall. On him who placed it is the guilt of scandal. The act of scandal consists in making sin easier to commit, as though we're not already easy enough to sin for another. Natural grace of which we are not totally bereft, raises certain barriers to protect and defend the weak and feeble. Conspicuous among these are ignorance and shame. Evil sometimes offers difficulties, the one's physical, the other's spiritual, such as innate delicacy, sense of dignity, timidity, instinctive repugnance fulfilled, human respect, dread of consequences, etc. These stand on guard before the soul to repel the first advances of the tempter, which are the most dangerous. The devil seldom unmasked the heavy batteries until the advance posts of the soul are taken. It is the business of scandal to break down these barriers and for scandal this work is as easy as it is nefarious. For curiosity is a hungry appetite. Virtue is often protected with a very thin veil and vice can be made to lose its hideousness and assume charms to untrod virtue, irresistible. There is nothing doing for his satanic majesty while scandal is in the field, he looks on and smiles. There may be some truth in the Darwinian theory after all if we judge from the imitative propensities of the species, probably an inherited trait of our common ancestor, the monkey. At any rate, we are often more easily led by example than by conviction. Example leads us against our convictions. Asked why we did this or that, knowing we should not have done it, we answer with simian honesty, because such a one did it or invited us to do it. We get over a good many old fashioned notions concerning modesty and purity after listening to the experiences of others. We forget to be ashamed in the presence of the brazen, the unabashed and the impudent. We feel partially justified in doing what we see done by one to whom we are accustomed to look up. If he acts thus we say, how can it be so very wrong in me? And if everybody, and everybody sometimes means a very few, if everybody does so it cannot be so bad as I first imagined. Scandal may be seen the workings of scandal in the mind and soul of its victim. Remembering our natural proneness to cardinal indulgence, it is not surprising that the victims of scandal are so many. But this cannot be taken as an apology for the scandal giver, rather the contrary, since the malice of his sin has possibilities so unbounded. Scandal supposes an inducement to commit sin, which is not the case when the receiver is already all disposed to sin and is as bad as the giver. Nor can scandal be said properly to be given when those who receive it are in all probability immune against the evil. Some people say they are scandalized when they are only shocked. If what shocked them has nothing in it to induce them into sinning, then the receive scandal is only imaginative. Nor has any been given. Then the number of persons scandalized must be considered as an aggravating circumstance. Finally, the guilt of scandal is greater or less according to the helplessness of the victim or intended victim, and to the sacredness for his or her right to immunity from temptation. Children being most sacred in this respect. Of course God is merciful and forgives us our offenses, however great they may be. We may undo a deal of wrong committed by us in this life and die in the state of grace, even after the most abominable crimes. Theologically, therefore, the idea has little to commend itself, but it must have occurred to more than one. How does one feel in heaven, knowing that there is in hell at that moment one or more through his or her agency? How mysterious is the justice of God to suffer such a state of affairs? And although theoretically possible, how can anyone count on such a contingency in his or her particular case? If the scandalous would reflect seriously on this, it would be less willing to take the chances offered by a possibility of this nature. End of Chapter 81 Chapter 82 of Explanation of Catholic Morals. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton Chapter 82 Not Good to Be Alone A man may come to discover that the state in which he finds himself placed is not the one for which he was evidently intended by the maker. We do not all receive the same gifts because our callings are different. Each of us is endowed in accordance and in harmony with the ends of the Creator and making us. Some men should marry, others may not. But the state of celibacy is for the few and not for the many, those few depending solely on an abundant grace of God. Again one may become alive to the fact that to remain in an abnormal position means to seriously jeopardize his whole salvation. Celibacy may, as for many it does, spell out for him clearly and plainly eternal damnation. It is to no purpose here to examine the causes of and reasons for such a condition of affairs. We take the fact as it stands, plain and evident. A stern hard fact that will not be downed because it is supported by the living proof of habit and conduct. Living and continuing to live a celibate, take him as he is and as there is every token of his remaining without any reasonable ground for expecting a change. This man is doomed to perdition. His passions have made him their slave. He cannot, it is morally impossible for him to do so, remain content. We suppose again that the Almighty has created the state of wedlock for just such emergencies whereby a man may find a remedy for his weaknesses and outlet for his passions. A regulator of his life here below and a security against damnation hereafter. And this is precisely the case for the ends of merit are not only to perpetuate the species but also to furnish a remedy for natural and to raise a barrier against the flood of impurity. Now the case being as stated, need a Catholic young or a no longer young man look long or strive hard to find his path of duty already clearly traced. And in making this application we refer to man not to women for reasons that are obvious. We refer again to those among men whose spiritual sense is not yet holy dead who have not entirely lost all respect for virtue in itself who still claim to have an immortal soul and hope to save it but who have been caught in the maelstrom of ice and whose passions and lusts have outgrown in strength the ordinary resisting powers of natural virtue and religion incomplete and half-hearted. These can appreciate their position. It would be well for them to do so. The faculty for so doing may not always be left with them. The obligation to marry to increase and multiply was given to mankind in general and applies to man as a whole and not to the individual that is in the common and ordinary run of human things. But the circumstances with which we are dealing are outside the normal sphere. They are extraordinary. That is to say they do not exist in accordance with the plan order established by God. They constitute a disorder resulting from unlawful indulgence in wild impiety. It may therefore be and it frequently is the case that the general obligation to marry particularize itself and fall with its full weight on the individual, this one or that one, according to the circumstances of his life. Then it is that the voice of God's authority reaches the year of the unit and says to him, in no uncertain accents thou shalt marry. And behind that decree of God stands divine justice to vindicate the divine right. We do not deny but that absolutely speaking recourse to this reminine may not be imperiously demanded. But we do claim that the absolute has nothing whatever to do with a question which is one of relative facts. What a supposed man may do in this or that given circumstance does not in the least alter the position of another real life man who will not do this or that thing in a given circumstance. He will not because morally speaking he cannot. And he cannot simply because through excesses he has forgotten how. And of other reasons to justify non-compliance with the law there can be none. It is here a question of saving one's soul. Inconveniences and difficulties and obstacles have no meaning in such a contingency. And, mind you, the effects of profligate celibacy are farther reaching than many of us would suppose at first blush. The culprit bears the odium of it in his soul. But what about the state of those who rather of her, whoever she may be, known or unknown, whom he and the order of evidence is destined to save from the precariousness of single life. If it is his duty to take a wife whose salvation as well as his own perhaps depends on the fulfillment of that duty. And if he shirks his duty shall he not be held responsible for the results in her as well as in himself since he could and she could not ward off the evil. It has come to such a past nowadays that celibacy as a general thing is a misnomer for proflicacy. Making all due allowance for honorable exceptions the unmarried male who is not well saturated with spirituality and faith is notoriously galleonacious in his morals. In certain classes he is expected to sow his wild oats before he is out of his teens. And by this is meant that he will begin young to tear into shreds the sixth commandment so as not to be bothered with it later in life. If he married he would be safe. Finally what kind of an existence is it for any human being with power to do otherwise to pass through life a worthless good-for-nothing non-entity, living for self, shirking the sacred duties of paternity, defrauding nature in God and sowing corruption where he might be laying the foundation of a race that may never die. There is no one to whom he has done good and no one owes him a tear when his barren carcass is being given over to food to the worms. He is a rotten link on the chain of life and the curse of oblivion will vindicate the claims of his unborn generations. Young man, marry marry now and be something in the world besides an eyesore of unproductiveness and worthlessness. Do something that will make somebody happy besides yourself. Show that you passed and leave something behind that will remember you and bless your name. End of Chapter 82 Not Good to Be Alone. Chapter 83 of Explanation of Catholic Morals This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Sylvia M. B. in Washington State Exponation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton Chapter 83 A Helping Hand The moralist is usually severe and the quality of his censure is merciless when he attempts to treat the unwholesome theme of moral deformity and all his efforts are mere attempts for no human language can do full justice to such a theme such excesses deserve. It is just then that when he stands in the presence of the moral leper who blushes not for his degradation he flay with the whip of scorn and contempt, scourge with anathema and brand him with every stigma of infamy in order that the load of opobrium thus heaped upon his guilty head may at least deter the clean from such defilement. But if guilt is always guilt the quality of guilt is varied just as all virtue is not equally meritorious so to other sources that personal unworthiness may often be traced to moral debility that strives against natural causes, necessary conditions of environment, and an ever-present and ever-active influence for evil. A fall does not always be token profound degradation nor a stain, an acute perversity of the will, those therefore who wrestle manfully with the effects of regretted lapses or weaknesses, who fight down sometimes perhaps unsuccessfully the strong tendencies of a too exuberant animal nature, who strive to neutralize an influence that unduly oppresses them. Against these, guilty though they may have been, is not directed the moralist's unmeasured censure. His reproaches in such cases tend less to condemn than to awake to a sense of moral responsibility. Earnestness in pointing out remedy and safeguards takes the place of severity against willfulness, for he knows that not a few sentences of condemnation Christ writes on the sands, as he did in a celebrated case, and many an overzealous accuser he has confounded, like the villainous Pharisees whom he challenged to show a hand quite enough to be worthy to cast the first stone. Evidently such pity and commiserations should not serve to make vice less unlovely and thus undo the very work it is intended to perform. It should not have the characteristics of certain books and plays that pretend to teach morality by exposing vice in all its seductiveness. Oversensitive and model and sympathy is as ridiculous as it is unhealthy. Its tendency is principally to encourage and spoil, but a judicious, discreet and measured sympathy will lift up the fallen, strengthen the weak, and help the timorous over many a difficulty. It will suggest to the means best calculated to ensure freedom from slavery of the passions. The first of these is self-denial, which is the inseparable companion of chastity, when they are not found together seldom does either exist. And by self-denial is here meant the destruction of that eternal reference for self that is at the bottom of all uncleanness, that makes all things, however sacred, subservient to one's own pleasures, that considers nothing unlawful but what goes against the grain of natural impulse and natural appetites. There may be other causes, but this self-love is a primary one. Say what you will, but one does not fall from his own level. The moral world is like the physical. If you are raised aloft in disregard for the laws of truth, you are going to come down with a thud. If you imagine all the pleasures of life made for you and become lawful because your nature craves for them, you are taking a too high estimate of yourself. You are going before a fall. He who takes a correct measure of himself gets his bearings in relation to God, comes to realize his own weak points and several deficiencies, and acknowledges the obligations such as state of affairs places upon him that one may sin, but he will not go far. He may fall because he is human, because strength sufficient to guard us against the assaults of impurity is not from us, but from God. The spirit of humility therefore, which makes known to him his own insufficiency, must be fortified with the spirit of faith which makes him ask for support through prayer. It is faith that makes prayer possible, and living faith, the spirit of faith that makes us pray a right. This kind of prayer need not express itself in words. It may be a habit, a long drawn-out desire, and habitual longing for help coupled with firm confidence in God's mercy to grant our request. No state of soul, however disordered, can long resist such a power, and no habit of evil, but in time will be annihilated by it. The manner woman who undertakes to keep himself or herself pure, or to rise out of a habit of sin without the liberal use of divine supplication, has in hand a very ungrateful task, and he or she will realize it before going far. And unless that prayer is sincere and heartfelt, a prayer full of faith that will not entertain the thought of failure, every effort will be barren of results. You must speak to God as to one near you, and remember that he is near you all the time. Then there are the sacraments to repair every breach, and to heal every wound. Penance will cleanse you. Communion will adorn and equip you anew. Confession will give you a better knowledge of yourself every time you go. The food of God will strengthen every fiber of your soul, and steal you against the seductions that otherwise would make you a ready victim. Don't go once a year. Go ten, twenty times and more, if necessary. Go until you feel that you own yourself, that you can command and be obeyed. Then you will not have to be told to stop. You will be safe. End of Chapter 83 Chapter 84 of Explanation of Catholic Morals This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Brian Keenan Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton Chapter 84 Thou Shalt Not Steal The Seventh Commandment is protective of the right of property which is vested in every human being enjoying the use of reason. Property means that which belongs to one, that which is one's own, to have and to hold, or to dispose of at one's pleasure, or to reclaim in the event of actual dispossession. The right of property embraces all things to which may be affixed the seal of ownership, and it holds good until the owner relinquishes his claim, or forfeits or loses his title without offense to justice. This natural faculty to possess excludes every alien right and supposes in all others the duty and obligation to respect it. The respect that goes as far as not relieving the owner of his goods is not enough. It must safeguard him against all damage and injury to said goods. Otherwise his right is nonexistent. All violations of this right come under the general head of stealing. People call it theft when it is affected with secrecy and slinus, robbery when there is a suggestion of force or violence. The swindler is he who appropriates another's goods by methods of gross deception or false pretenses, while the embezzler transfers to himself the funds entrusted to his care. Petty thieving is called pilfering or filching. Stealing on a large scale usually has less dishonorable qualificatives. Boodling and lobbying are called politics. Watering stock, squeezing out legitimate competition, is called financiering. Bullsail confiscation and unjust conquest is called statesmanship. Give it whatever name you like. It is all stealing. Whether the culprit be liberally rewarded or liberally punished, he nevertheless stands amenable to God's justice which is outraged wherever human justice suffers. Of course the sin of theft has its degrees of gravity, malice and guilt, to determine which, that is, to fix exactly the value of stolen goods sufficient to constitute a grievous fault, is not the simplest and easiest of moral problems. The extent of delinquency may be dependent upon various causes and complex conditions. On the one hand, the victim must be considered in himself, and the amount of injury sustained by him. On the other, justice is offended generally in all cases of theft, and because justice is the cornerstone of society, it must be protected at all hazards. It is only by weighing judiciously all these different circumstances that we can come to enunciate an approximate general rule that will serve as a guide in the ordinary contingencies of life. Thus, of two individuals deprived by theft of the same amount of worldly goods, the one may suffer thereby to a much greater extent than the other. He who suffers more is naturally more reluctant to part with his goods, and a greater injustice is done to him than to the other. The sin committed against him is therefore greater than that committed against the other. A rich man may not feel the loss of a dollar, whereas for another less prosperous the loss of less than that sum might be of the nature of a calamity. To take therefore unjustly from a person what to that person is a notable amount is a grievous sin. It is uniformly agreed that it is a notable loss for a man to be unduly deprived of what constitutes a day's sustenance. This is the minimum of grievous matter concerning theft. But this rule will evidently not hold good applied on a rising scale to more and more extensive fortunes, for a time would come when it would be possible without serious guilt to appropriate good round sums from those abundantly blessed with this world's goods. The disorders necessarily attendant on such a moral rule are only too evident, and it is plain that the law of God cannot countenance abuses of this nature. Justice therefore demands that there be a certain fixed sum beyond which one may not go without incurring serious guilt, and this independent of the fortune of the person who suffers. Theologians have fixed that amount approximately in this country at five dollars. This means that when such a sum is taken, in all cases, the sin is mortal. It is not always necessary, it is seldom necessary, that one should steal this much in order to offend grievously. But when the thief reaches this amount, be his victim ever so wealthy, he is guilty of grave injustice. This rule applies to all cases in which the neighbor is made to suffer unjustly in his lawful possessions, and it affects all wrongdoers whether they steal or destroy another's goods, or cooperate efficaciously in such deeds of sin. It matters not whether the harm be wrought directly or indirectly, since in either case there may be moral fault, and it must be remembered that gross negligence may make one responsible as well as malice of forethought. The following are said to cooperate in crime to the extent of becoming joint partners with the principal agent in guilt. Those in whose name the wrong is done, in obedience to their orders, or as a result of any other means employed. Those who influence the culprit by suggesting motives and reasons for his crime, or by pointing out efficient means of arriving thereat. Those who induce others to commit evil by playing on their weaknesses, thereby subjecting them to what is known as moral force. Those who harbor the thief and conceal his stolen property against their recovery. Those whose silence is equivalent to approbation, permission, or official consent. Those finally who before, during, or after the deed abstain from performing a plain duty in preventing, deterring, or bringing to justice the guilty party. Such persons as the foregoing participate as a betters in crime, and share all the guilt of the actual criminals. Sometimes the former are even more guilty than the latter. The tenth commandment, which forbids us to covet our neighbor's goods, bears the same relation to the seventh as the ninth does to the sixth. It must, however, be borne in mind that all such coveting supposes injustice in desire, that is, in the means by which we desire to obtain what is not ours. To wish for, to long ardently for something that appeals to one's like and fancy is not evil. The wrong consists in the desire to acquire it unjustly, to steal it, and thereby work damage unto the neighbor. It is a natural weakness in man to be dissatisfied with what he has, and to sigh after what he has not. Very few of us are free from this failing. But so long as our cravings and hankerings are not tainted with injustice, we are innocent of evil. End of Chapter 84. recording by Brian Keenan Chapter 85 of Explanation of Catholic Morals this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. recording by Brian Keenan explanation of Catholic morals by John H. Stapleton Chapter 85 Petty Thefts A question may arise as to Question may arise as to petty thefts, venial in themselves, but oft repeated and aggregating in the long run a sum of considerable value. How are we to deal with such cases? Should peculations of this sort be taken singly, and their individual malice determined, without reference to the sum total of injustice caused? Or should no severe judgment be passed, until such a time as sufficient matter be accumulated to make the fault grievous? In other words, is there nothing but venial sin in thefts of little values, or is there only one big sin at the end? The difficulty is a practical one. If petty thefts are committed with a view to amass a notable sum, the simple fact of such an intention makes the offence a mortal one. For, as we have already remarked in treating of the Human Act, our deeds may be, and frequently are, vitiated by the intention we have in performing them. If we do something with evil intent and purpose, our action is evil, whether the deed in itself be indifferent or even good. Here the intention is to cause a grave injustice. The deed is only a petty theft, but it serves as a means to a more serious offence. The act therefore takes its malice from the purpose of the agents, and becomes sinful in a high degree. As to each repeated theft, that depends again on the intention of the culprit. If in the course of his pilferings he no longer adverts to his first purpose, and has no intention in stealing beyond that of helping himself to a little of his neighbor's goods, he is guilty of nothing more than a venial sin. If, however, the initial purpose is present at every act, if at every fresh peculation the intention to accumulate is renewed explicitly or implicitly, then every theft is identical with the first in malice, and the offender commits mortal sin as often as he steals. Thus, the state of soul of one who filters after this fashion is not sensibly affected by his arriving at a notable sum of injustice in the aggregate. The malice of his conduct has already been established. It is now completed indeed. A person who thievishly appropriates small sums, but whose pilferings have no moral reference to each other, will find himself a mortal offender the moment his accumulated injustices reach the amount we have qualified as notable, provided he be at that moment aware of the fact, or even if he only have a doubt about the matter. And this is true whether the stolen sums be taken from one or from several persons. Even in the latter case, although no one person suffers serious damage or prejudice, justice however is seriously violated, and the intention of the guilty party is really to perpetrate grave injustice. However, such thefts as these which in the end become accumulative, must of their nature be successive and joined together by some bond of moral union, otherwise they could never be considered a whole. Why this is meant that there must not exist between the different single thefts an interruption or space of time such as to make it impossible to consider reasonably the several deeds as forming one general action. The time generally looked upon as sufficient to prevent a moral union of this kind is two months. In the absence therefore of a specific intention to arrive at a large amount by successive thefts, it must be said that such thefts as are separated by an intervening space of two months can never be accounted as parts of one grave injustice, and a mortal sin can never be committed by one whose venial offenses are of this nature. Of course if there be an evil purpose, that alone is sufficient to establish a moral union between single acts of theft however considerable the interval that separates them. Several persons may conspire to perlorn each a limited amount. The circumstance of conspiracy, connivance, or collusion makes each co-operator in the deed responsible for the whole damage done, and if the amount thus defrauded be notable, each is guilty of mortal sin. We might hear add in favor of children who take small things from their parents, and of wives who sometimes relieve their husbands of small change, that it is natural that a man be less reluctant to being defrauded in small matters by his own than by total strangers. It is only reasonable therefore that more latitude be allowed such delinquents when there is question of computing the amount to be considered notable. Perhaps the amount might be doubled in their favor. The same might be said in favor of those whose petty thefts are directed against several victims instead of one, since the injury sustained individually is less. The best plan is to leave what does not belong to one severely alone. In other sins there may be something gained in the long run, but here no such illusion can be entertained. For the specter of restitution, as we shall see, follows every injustice as a shadow follows its object, and its business is to see that no man profit by his ill-gotten goods. End of Chapter 85, Recording by Brian Pena Chapter 86 of Explanation of Catholic Morals. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Sylvia M.B. in Washington State. Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton. It is not an infrequent occurrence for persons given to the habit of petty thefts and fraud to seek to justify their irregular conduct by a pretense of justice, which they call secret compensation. They stand arraigned before the bar of their conscience on the charge of niching small sums, usually from their employers. They have no will to desist. They therefore plead not guilty and have nothing so much at heart as to convince themselves that they act within their rights. They elaborate on a theory of justice after their ideas, or rather according to their own desires. They bolster it up with facts that limp all the way from half-truths to downright falsities, and thus acquit themselves of sin and go their way in peace. A judge is always lenient when he tries his own case. Secret compensation is the taking surreptitiously from another of the equivalent of what is due to one, of what has been taken and is kept against all justice, in order to indemnify oneself for laws of sustain. This sort of a thing, in theory at least, has a perfectly plausible look, nor in fact is it contrary to justice when all the necessary conditions are fulfilled to the letter. But the cases in which these conditions are fulfilled are so few and rare that they may hardly be said to exist at all. It is extremely difficult to find such a case, and nearly always when this practice is resorted to the order of justice is violated. And if common sense in the case of any given individual fail to show him this truth, we hear a quote for his benefit, an authority capable of putting all his doubts at rest. The following proposition was advanced. Domestic servants who adjudged themselves underpaid for services rendered may appropriate to themselves by stealth a compensation. This proposition has received the full weight of papal condemnation. It cannot be denied that it applies to all who engage their services for hire. To maintain the contrary is to revolt against the highest authority in the church. To practice it is purely and simply to sin. A case is often made out on the grounds that wages are small, work very hard, and the laborer therefore insufficiently remunerated. But to conclude therefrom the right to help oneself to the employer's goods is a strange manner of reasoning, while it opens the door to all manner of injustice. Where is there a man, whatever his labor and pay, who could not come to the same conclusion, who may not consider himself ill-paid? And who is there that really thinks he is not worth more than he gets? There is no limit to the value one may put on one's own services, and he who is justified today in taking a quarter of a dollar would be equally justified tomorrow in appropriating the whole concern. And then what becomes of honesty and the right of property? And what security can anyone have against the private judgment of his neighbor? And what about the contract according to the terms of which you are to give your services and to receive in return a stipulated amount? Was there any clause therein by which you are entitled to change the terms of said contract without consulting the other party interested? You don't think he would mind it. You don't think anything of that kind. You know he will and does mind it. He may be generous, but he is not a fool. But I make up for it. I work overtime, work harder, and more attentive to my work, and thereby save more for my employer than I take. Here you contradict yourself. You are therefore not underpaid, and if you furnish a greater amount of labor than is expected of you, that is your business and your free choice. And the right you have to a compensation for such extra labor is entirely dependent on the free will of your employer. People usually pay for what they call for. Services uncalled for are gratuitous services. To think otherwise betokens a befuddled state of mind. But I am forced to work harder and longer than we agreed. Then it is up to you to remonstrate with your employer, to state the case as it is, and to ask for a raise. If he refuses, then his refusal is your cue to quit and go elsewhere. It means that your services are no longer required. It means at any rate that you have to stand, the cut, or seek to better your condition under other employers. It is hard. Of course it is hard, but no harder than a great many other things we have to put up with. If my neighbor holds unjustly what belongs to me, or if he has failed to repair damages caused, to recover my losses by secret compensation, has the same degree of malice and disorder. The law is instituted for just such purposes. You have recourse there too. You may prosecute and get damages. If the court fails to give you justice, then perhaps there may be occasion to discuss the merits of the secret compensation theory, but you had better get the advice of some competent person before you attempt to put it in practice. Otherwise you are liable to get into a bigger hole than the one you were trying to get out of. Sometimes the bold assertion is advanced that the employer knows perfectly that he is being systematically robbed and tolerates it. It is incumbent upon this party to prove his assertion in a very simple way. Let him denounce himself to his employer and allow the truth or falsity thereof hang on the result. If he does not lose his job inside of twenty-four hours after the interview, he may continue his speculations in perfect tranquility of conscience. If he escapes prosecution through the consideration of his former employer, he must take it for granted that the toleration he spoke of was of a very general nature, the natural stand for a man to take who is being robbed and cannot help it. To justify oneself on such a principle is to put a premium on shrewd dishonesty. End of Chapter 86 Chapter 87 of Explanation of Catholic Morals. This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Explanation of Catholic Morals by John H. Stapleton is contumaly. The Eighth Commandment concerns itself with a good name of the neighbor. In a general way it reproves all sins of the tongue, apart from those already condemned by the Second and Sixth Commandments, that is to say blasphemous and impure speech. It is as a weapon against the neighbor, and an instrument of untruth that the tongue is here considered. By a good name is here intended the esteem in which a person is held by his fellow man. Catholic reputation, character, fame, renown, etc. A good name means that the bearer is generally considered above reproach in all matters of honesty, moral integrity and worth. It does not necessarily imply that such esteem is manifested exteriorly by what is technically known as honored, the natural concomitant of a good name. It simply stands for the knowledge entertained by others of our respectability and our title to honor. A good name is therefore one thing, honor is another. An honor consists precisely in that manifestation on the part of our fellows of the esteem and respect in which they hold us, the fruit of our good name, the homage rendered to virtue, dignity and merit. As it may therefore be easily seen, these two things, a good name and honor, differ as much as a sign differs from the thing signified. The Eighth Commandment protects every man's honor. It condemns contumally which is an attack upon that honor. Contumally is a sign of contempt which shows itself by attempting to impair the honor one duly receives. It either strives to prevent that honor being paid to the good name that naturally deserves it, or it tries to nullify by offering just the contrary, which is contumally or commonly called affront, outrage, insult. Now, contumally, as you will remark, does not seek primarily to deprive one of a good name, which it nearly always secedes in doing, and this is called detraction. But its object is to prevent your good name from getting its dessert of respect, your character supposedly remaining intact. The insult offered is intended to affect this purpose. Again, all contumally presupposes the presence of the party affronted. The affront is thrown in one's face, and therein consists the shocking and decency of the thing and its specific malice. It must be remembered that anger, hatred, the spirit of vengeance, or any other passion does not excuse one from the guilt of contumally. On the other hand, one's culpability is not lessened by the accidental fact of one's intended insults going wide at the mark, imbaring no fruit of dishonor to the person assailed. To the malice of contumally may and is often added that of defamation. If, apart from the dishonor received, one's character is besmirched in the bargain, contumally against parents' offence at the same time, filial piety, against God and his saints, it is sacrilegious. If provoked by the practice of religion and virtue, it is impious. If perpetrated, indeed, it may offend justice properly, so-called. If it becasants sin and others, it is scandalous. If it drive the victim to excesses of any kind, the guilt, therefore, is shared by the contumalius agent. Sometimes insult is offered gratuitously, as in the case of the weak, the old, the cripple, and other infortunates who deserve pity rather than mockery. The quality of contumally of this sort is brutal and fiendish. Others will say for justification. But he said the same, he did the same to me. Can I not defend myself? That depends on the sort of defense you resort to. All weapons of defense are not lawful. But man uses evil means to wrong you. There is no justification in Christian ethics for you to employ the same means in order to get square, or even to shelter yourself from his abuse. The eye for eye principle is not recognized among civilized and Christian peoples. This gross violation of personal respect may be perpetrated in many ways. Any expression of contempt offered to your face or directed against you through a representative is contumally. The usual way to do this is to fling vile epithets, to call appropriate names, to make shameful charges. It is not always necessary that such names and epithets be inapplicable or such charges false. If notwithstanding, the person in question has not therefore forfeited his right to respect. In certain circumstances, the epithet fool may hold all the appropriateness of contumally. Thief and drunkard and others of the fowler nature may be thus malicious for a better reason. An accusation of immorality in oneself or in one's parents is contumally us in a high degree. Our mothers are a favorite target for the shafts of contumally that through them reach us. Abuse is not the only vehicle of contumally. Scorn, wanton ridicule, indecent mockery and caricature that cover the unfortunate victim with shame and confusion serve the purpose as well. To strike one, to spit on one and the other, ignoble attacks and assaults belong to the same category of crime. The malice of contumally is not, of course, equal in all cases. Circumstances have a great deal to do in determining the gravity of each offense. The more conspicuous a person is in dignity and the more worthy of respect, the more serious the affront offered him. And still more grave the offense if through him many others are attainted. If again no dishonor is intended and no offense taken or could reasonably be taken, there is no sin at all. There may be people very low on the scale of respectability as the world judges respectability. But it can never be said of a man or a woman that he or she cannot be dishonored, that he or she is beneath contempt. Human nature never affords all respect. It always has some redeeming feature to commend it. End of chapter 87.