Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

On the Matter and Quality of Ecclesiastical Law.

325. The matter of ecclesiastical law in general. — The matter of human law are all the acts whose positing or omission can contribute to the common good, even those which in themselves are indifferent, inasmuch as they can be ordered to virtue or to vice. The common good which the Church intends is the worship of God and the supernatural sanctification of men ; whence it can enact laws about those things which pertain to the spiritual life, such as faith, Christian virtues, remission of sins and indulgences ; about those things which regard worship, such as sacrifice, sacraments, prayers, vows, oaths, processions, pilgrimages, ceremonies, feast days ; about persons of sacred life set over spiritual life and worship ; about temporal goods necessary to provide for all these things.

Moreover in all these matters law can either instill natural and divine law (e.g. by forbidding heresy, by prescribing Baptism), or determine what they leave indeterminate (e.g. annual confession, paschal communion, Sunday, fasting), or impose what is conformed to them (to celebrate Christmas), or prescribe and forbid what they permit (to abstain from meat, from servile or forensic work), or urge all these by an added special sanction of penalty (e.g. excommunication), and also add conditions for the validity of the act, established by natural, divine, or ecclesiastical law (so for religious profession, for matrimony e.g. that it be celebrated before the parish priest).

326. In particular, what acts can be prescribed. — On the part of matter ecclesiastical law, as being human law, must prescribe acts which are

1. generally honest, i.e. not contrary to a superior law, e.g. natural or divine,

2. specifically just, i.e. not opposed to anyone's right,

3. contained within the scope of the legislator's jurisdiction : for subjects are bound to obey superiors according to the reason of superiority ; whence besides jurisdiction in the superior, competence is required, i.e. power in the particular matter about which the law is concerned ; 4) useful for the common good. Such of themselves and regularly are only acts

a) morally possible and accommodated to the powers of men ; otherwise the law would not be conformed to reason nor would it promote the common good, but would more often be an occasion of sins. Note however that the judgment about the difficulty of the law belongs to the legislator, not to the subjects, otherwise action would be taken about laws ; moreover arduous and heroic acts can be imposed on those who have freely chosen the state to which they pertain (such as perpetual continence to priests and religious, perpetual enclosure to nuns, missions to missionaries in places of barbarians), or also when the public good requires it (e.g. the administration of sacraments by a parish priest in time of plague) ;

b) future : for to prescribe, forbid, permit past acts, or if irrevocable to invalidate them, would be useless ; likewise past acts cannot be punished unless they were already forbidden by some law, nor revocable acts invalidated or persons made unfit or incapable for past acts, unless because of the great necessity of the common good : for always the good of a part must yield to the good of the whole. Hence can. 10 : « Laws regard future [acts], not past, unless in them provision is expressly made about past ones » (cf. can. 2226, § 2 and 3, and 2222). But a law not constitutive of new right but merely declaratory of older right can affect past acts ;

c) external which alone put us in relation to society and alone directly pertain to external government.

327. Can internal acts be prescribed? — Many recent [authors], in distinction from the older, prefer to extend the legislative power of the Church to merely internal acts¹. This they assert without foundation. For :

1. As the power of the internal forum directly and immediately regards the internal sanctification of individuals, so the legislative power of the external forum of itself first tends to external and common government, for society, even ecclesiastical, is a visible and external body.

But merely internal acts are not fit matter for such external government. Therefore. And truly human law, since it is enacted for the community, affects individuals insofar as they are parts of a visible society, and communicate socially among themselves ; whence social power is necessarily of the external forum. But merely internal acts do not pertain to social communication : for by them we do not communicate with others. Therefore internal acts cannot of themselves and directly be the object of human law and of social power.

2. The legislator cannot enact laws except about those things about which he can judge and which he can compel, otherwise the law would be useless and inefficacious for obtaining its effect ; whence legislative, judiciary, and coercive power are of the same order, as parts of one integral power of jurisdiction, which therefore of themselves are contained within the same limits. But the human legislator cannot judge or punish except external acts. Therefore neither can he prescribe except external ones².

3. Whence Innocent III : The Church does not judge about hidden things.

Hence legislative power of the internal forum cannot be conceived except as vicarious of God and to be exercised in the name of God ; but from revelation or the practice of the Church no trace is given of such a power granted by God. For the words of Mt. XVI, 19 and XVIII, 18 are to be understood with a restriction according to the nature of the thing, and they are only general within the breadth which is always assigned to a human legislator ; otherwise they would also prove that the Pontiff can dissolve natural or divine law, or enact law in temporal and civil matter.

Therefore a) it is not proved that ecclesiastical law can prescribe merely internal acts, and it is certain that it does not do so ;

b) it can directly reach all external acts even hidden ones ; for external acts are of themselves and by their nature public and are only accidentally occult ; but law regards those things which are done of themselves and commonly ;

c) it can indirectly reach all internal acts which are the form of external ones and are joined with them, whether necessarily and of themselves, or also accidentally, provided they in some way manifest themselves externally : by this very fact they are reachable by law. Thus is reached 1° the internal cause of an external act, e.g. the will to fast is also prescribed and the will to eat meat is forbidden ; likewise 2° the condition necessary so that the external act may have its species, validity, honesty, and even special morality, e.g. intention in an oath or sacrament or sacrifice, attention in prayer, sorrow in contrition, intention of obligating oneself in a contract, consent in matrimony, the qualities so that acts (e.g. confession or communion) are good (cf. prop. 14 damned by Alex. VII and 55 damned by Inn. XI, and c. 907 and 861) ; 3° likewise the special motive or accidental end for which the act is to be placed : Mass to be celebrated for the flock, prayer for rain, for the souls in purgatory, etc. : it is namely a condition of the public act as it is intended by the Church³.

328. Remark. — Although by legislative power the Church does not reach merely internal acts, it can however reach them by another power ; and indeed

1. it can attach a favor to an internal act, e.g. an indulgence, as it did to meditation on the way of the cross ;

2. it can in the name of God interpret natural and divine law even as to merely internal acts, to which we are then bound not by the force of ecclesiastical law, but by the force of the superior law : thus in the name of God it can remit vows or oaths even internal ones ;

3. it can in the name of God in the internal forum of conscience absolve from sins even internal ones and prescribe even merely internal ones, e.g. pious meditation ;

4. it can, through superiors, prescribe internal things to religious, by the force of the vow of obedience, e.g. mental prayer, examination of conscience.