'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

New Zealand Tablet, 5 August 1915, Page 11

'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the N.Z. Tablet by Ghimel.)

THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS. A reader wants some information about this axiom, which is so frequently thrown in the face of Catholic moralists. The axiom may be taken in the sense given it by nearly all moralists. Catholic and non-Catholic, and then it means that a good purpose bestows a higher moral value upon means that are in themselves either good or indifferent. If I am moved to give an alms on account of some good motive, I at once lift an action which is in itself good into a higher moral plane. If I go for a walk with a friend for no other reason than to cheer him up in his troubles, I change an action that is indifferent into one that is morally good. But Catholic, especially Jesuit writers are accused of holding that even sinful actions are permissible or morally good, if only they tend to the attainment of some good and holy object. It is, for example, naturally sinful to kill another, but if I kill the Protestant sovereign of a country to make way for a Catholic, I am doing something good —the end makes all the difference. Such is the charge. Since 1852, Jesuit writers have time and time again offered substantial rewards to anyone who could show that this principle was laid down in any book written by a Jesuit. The rewards were never claimed. A Protestant writer, Zbckler, explains this fact on the ground that the Jesuits did not teach the axiom explicitly, but only in the form of certain equivalents. What an admission ! Equally significant is- his admission that Pascal’s charge (similar to the one above) has never yet been found clearly expressed in the works of any Jesuit, but ‘ a fuller knowledge of the Jesuit writers on casuistry nil/ prohabl;/ reveal it.’ The opponents of the Jesuits are fond of quoting an expression found in the works of a Jesuit, named Busenbaum, who died in 1668; ‘When the end is lawful, the means are also lawful.’ This looks conclusive at first kight, but when a Protestant writer, Griinberg, examined the context he found ‘that here it has none of the objectionable meaning imputed to it b}’ controversialists. Apart from the fact that the means arc said to be sanctioned, not justified or sanctified, Busenbaum, in using these words, had no intention at all of laying down a new or oven a moral j>rinciplc, but he employed them as a universally recognised logical rule, or as stating an obvious fact.’ Busenbaum is arguing that if it is not a sin for, a prisoner to attempt to escape, the preparations for it cannot be forbidden as immoral. It would be absurd to tell a prisoner he could run away but must not break a lock. On March 31, 1903, Dasbach, a member, of the German House of Deputies, offered two thousand florins to anyone who could prove that the Jesuits really maintained this odious principle. An ex- Jesuit, P. von Iloensbroech, came lo light. A court of arbitration could not be formed, as Protestant professors refused to have anything to do with it, so the eager claimant of the reward went to law. During the examination of tile case, he made this very interesting admission ; ‘ Criticism has refuted all the evidence adduced from the time of Pascal to the present day in favor of the occurrence of this notorious principle in the works of Jesuit writers. . . . The evidence now brought forward is new.’ The new evidence was taken, and the Court of Appeals at Cologne declared on March 30, 1905, that the required evidence had not been supplied. It gave these reasons for its verdict: ‘All the passages quoted by the complainant from the writings of Jesuits refer exclusively to definite, individual actions, and the authors answer the question whether, assuming certain definite things to be the case, these actions are permissible. In a, particular case the question is discussed whether it is permissible to advise a man to commit a lesser sin, who is fully determined to commit a greater

one, there being no other means of deterring -him. . -We must not lose sight of the fact that the point is always whether -it is permissible to advise a man to commit a slight sin, never whether slight sins . are : permissible, so that the whole question turns upon a very definite action— the giving of scandal. . . If it be regarded as permissible to give such advice, the supporters of this opinion take pains to show that the action does not become permissible on account of the end, but is good by reason of its object, and they explain in very various ways that the object of the action or advice is not the perpetration, of a sin, but the diminution of a greater, or the choice of a lesser sin, and that this is a good object.’ In the concrete, these Catholic moralists saw no harm in advising a man who was on the point of shooting another, to give him a flogging instead. qi The Court stated that while it was possible to challenge this argument, it was impossible to discover in it the obnoxious principle of the end justifying the means.