The Evolution of Moral Theology: Part 1

MORAL PATHOLOGY AND THE MANUALISTS

James F. Keenan, SJ
Professor of Theological Ethics, Boston College

Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Catholic Social Thought
Summer Lecture Series
July 2, 2008

The moral manuals existed well into the first fifty years of the twentieth century. To appreciate their development, we examine three texts spanning those years: Thomas Slater’s A Manual of Moral Theology for English-speaking Countries (originally published in 1906) ; Heribert Jone’s Moral Theology (originally published in 1929), and Henry Davis' Moral and Pastoral Theology in Four Volumes (originally published in 1934). No other manual of moral theology in English had more influence on the English-speaking clergy and church throughout the world, than these three.

Thomas Slater (1855-1928)

Like other contemporary moral theologians at the beginning of the twentieth century, Slater was an innovator. After two centuries of moral manuals being published in Latin, twentieth century manuals appeared for the first time in the vernacular. Slater’s A Manual of Moral Theology is the first manual in the English language and the most consulted manual in English, going through five editions, the last appearing in 1931.

The vernacular made the text more accessible to a greater audience. While Slater reminded the reader that the role of the moral theologian was to assist the priest in the confessional, a task explicitly stated in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, still, Slater, like his colleagues from other language backgrounds, believed that persons other than priests could benefit from their texts.

But Slater argued that moral theologians are singularly interested in the confessional and sin and thus noted that the manuals “are necessary for the Catholic priest to enable him to administer the sacrament of penance and to fulfill his duties.” This duty restricted him from writing on other matters, and so he pled that the manuals “should not be censured not being what they were never intended to be.”

In the preface, in remarkably stark terms, he described moral theology as:

the product of centuries of labor bestowed by able and holy men on the practical problems of Christian ethics. Here however, we must ask the reader to bear in mind that the manuals of moral theology are technical works intended to help the confessor and the parish priest in the discharge of their duties. They are as technical as the text-books of the lawyer and the doctor. They are not intended for edification, nor do they hold up a high ideal of Christian perfection for the imitation of the faithful. They deal with what is of obligation under the pain of sin, they are books of moral pathology.

Slater acknowledged that if anyone was looking to learn how to become a better disciple of Christ, they should look elsewhere: to the manuals of ascetical, devotional, or mystical theology, where they would find the “high ideal of Christian perfection.” “Moral theology,” he added, “proposes to itself the humbler but still necessary task of defining what is right and wrong in all the practical relations of the Christian life. This all, but most especially priests, should know.”

Slater concluded the stunning preface, basically bisecting the natural law’s fundamental principle, “do good and avoid evil.” “The first step on the right road to conduct is to avoid evil.” By referencing the doing of the good, that is, Christian perfection to other manuals, Slater held that the natural law has only a singular task: to guide us to avoid evil.

Slater’s Manual was classical in form and divided into two parts. The first was made up of five “books” for the basic manualist topics: human acts, conscience, law, sin, and the theological virtues. After two hundred pages on these fairly formal issues, he turned to four other books: the ten commandments, contracts, the commandments of the church, and the specific duties of clergy, religious and “certain laymen” (physicians and those with different roles in the courts.). It is worth noting that these four hundred and sixty pages focus on fairly institutional issues. Alone, the ten commandments covered two hundred and seventy pages, with one hundred and twelve dedicated to the combined seventh and tenth commandments and another ninety to the book of contracts. While thirty pages each were dedicated to the first and fourth commandment, a mere twenty were dedicated to the fifth, and ten each to the second and third. Only sixteen pages were dedicated to the combined sixth and ninth commandments, with one topic, consummated sins against nature (masturbation, sodomy, and bestiality), appearing in Latin, presumably so as not to lead a less educated reader into sin.

Along the way, Slater cited St. Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Alfonso Liquori, Francisco Suarez, Januarius Bucceroni, and Viktor Frins. His sources differed significantly from what we will see in successive generations, with Jone in the twenties and Davis in the thirties, and John Ford and Gerald Kelly in the fifties and sixties. Those moral theologians relied more and more on Vatican documents. So, when Slater referred to “the teaching of the Catholic Church,” clearly he meant what theologians who wrote on morality have been handing on for centuries, that is, the moral tradition. Unlike his successors, he was not referring to magisterial teaching coming from the Vatican.

In order to appreciate Slater’s contribution to the “matter” of morality, we can examine his exposition of three commandments. Throughout we will see that Slater made his case and cited authorities for his positions. This follows the casuist model that required every solution to have a double authority for probability: the internal authority from the argument’s own internal cogency and the external authority of the moralist's own recognized competency. Regarding the latter, Slater used a wide variety of such experts, in each instance depending upon the particular framework. If a matter is “settled,” that is, if he could call it a law, he invoked a pontiff's teaching, a national law, or some other form of legislation; otherwise, if it were not yet settled, he invoked another moralist or offered his own opinion.

He divided the fourth commandment into seven chapters, each basically framed on some issue of authority and subservience: Duties of children to parents; parents to children; guardians to children; between parents; masters and servants; masters and scholars; and rulers and subjects.

He began the second chapter with love, piety, and emotional and material support. He thenspecifically mentioned the obligation to breast feed: a mother “is bound at least under venial sin to nourish it with her own milk, unless some good reason excuse her.” He quickly turned to education:

The Church condemns all non-Catholic schools, whether they be heretical and schismatical, or secularist, and she declares that as a general rule no Catholic parent can send his young children to such schools for educational purposes without exposing their faith and morals to serious risk, and therefore committing a grave sin.

He added that only a bishop, and not a priest, could deny the sacraments to parents who act in this regard. Here he cited the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (November 9–December 7, 1884), and then argued that if a bishop (as happened in St. Louis) expressly prohibited all parents in his diocese from sending their children to a non-Catholic school, then no priest may absolve such parents if they continue to send their children.
Later, he turned to university education, noted that the Holy See allowed English Catholics to attend Oxford and Cambridge, but granted no analogous permission in the United States, nor, in fact, was the Third Plenary Council at all in favor of such a policy. Still, exceptions were granted by the Council if two conditions could be met: that there be grave cause and that “suitable means are to be employed in order that danger to faith and morals be rendered remote.” If a student did not observe these means, he should not be absolved; if his parents condoned his conduct, they should not be absolved either. Clearly, no other topic was as extensively parsed by Slater as this one, simply because on this matter the Holy See and the specific Episcopal offices made their decisions law. In conclusion, he referred the reader to the “many pronouncements” from the Holy See as well as to the manuals of other Jesuits and Dominicans who had previously weighed in on the topic.

On the fifth commandment, Slater treated six issues: suicide, capital punishment, justifiable homicide, killing the innocent, war and dueling. Throughout, he appealed to applications of the principle of double effect. In the first chapter, he established that since “God is the Author of life and death, He has reserved the ownership of human life to Himself,” “we have not the free disposal of our lives.” Thus suicide, which has one’s death as “the direct and immediate object of the will,” was prohibited, but that did not mean that we cannot do something that could cause our own death. He applied the principle of double effect to the case of the captain of a ship who, during war fears his ship will be seized and become a danger to his own country, destroys the ship, knowing that he and his crew will lose their lives. The captain “does not intend the destruction of human life; the immediate effect of his action is to prevent the ship from falling into the enemy’s hands. The public advantage counterbalances the loss.”

With his usual economy, he differentiated in one single paragraph suicide from foregoing extraordinary means to preserve one’s life. He gave two instances of such means: a painful and costly operation, and, the situation of one who would die if he were to spend the winter in England; to this case he concluded, he “is not bound to expatriate himself and go and live in a milder climate."

He justified capital punishment from Scripture with Romans 13.4 and “natural reason.” He began the chapter on justifiable homicide stating simply, “In defense of my own life from unjust attack I may use whatever violence is necessary and even to the length of killing the aggressor.” He then added that no one should use greater force than necessary, nor act out of vengeance or anticipation of attack. Under these limitations, one may use such violence to defend limbs, property (as long as it is of considerable amount), and chastity. He noted that some theologians once held that one could commit justifiable homicide over an insult, but noted that Popes Alexander VII and Innocent XI condemned these positions.

On killing the innocent, he noted that not even the good of the State makes it right to take an innocent life, though he invoked the principle of double effect to demonstrate the liceity of civilian deaths in an attack on a “beleaguered town.” He declared the direct procuring of abortion an intrinsic evil, but noted that a pregnant woman may appropriate a life-saving means even if that means were to cause the fetus’s death.

While in three pages he invoked several popes and the Council of Trent to demonstrate the unequivocal wrongness of dueling, in four pages he upheld the certain teaching of Catholic theology on just war.

Finally the sixth and ninth commandments were treated in four chapters: the nature of impurity, consummated sins of impurity, consummated sins against nature, non-consummated acts of impurity. He upheld the teaching that there was no light moral matter concerning sins of impurity: “all sins of impurity of whatever kind or species are of themselves mortal.”

Under the consummated sins of impurity he treated in six paragraphs the following sins: fornication, adultery, incest, criminal assault, rape, and sacrilege. The last five violate other virtues as well. On the consummated sins against nature, he treated in Latin, masturbation, sodomy, and bestiality. Clearly the parsing of the first sin evidenced widespread pastoral anxiety. Sadly, in the final chapter he treated touching, kissing and embracing as sins.

Henry Davis (1866-1952)

Davis’ four volume work Moral and Pastoral Theology underwent eight editions and revisions). We are looking at his fourth edition from 1943.

While he wrote in the preface of the first edition that, as in Slater’s manual, the “chief aim of this work is to present the common teaching of modern Catholic authors on Moral Theology,” still, there was a remarkable shift in the self-understanding of the moral theologian. Beyond a doubt, the publication of the Code of Canon Law in 1917 made moral theologians more aware that they were not the only ones offering norms for moral conduct. Before considering Davis' central themes, let us focus briefly on the nature of the development of normative teachings that were promulgated from the Vatican.

Above all, the influence of the code is unmistakable. Davis began the preface of the first edition writing, “Several Manuals in English on Moral Theology have been published within recent years. The Manual of Moral Theology of Fr. T. Slater, S.J., held an honored place for many years, but its author was unable to incorporate in the later editions of his works, as much as the codified Canon law as he would have wished.” After commenting on the limits of other works, he wrote: “Since a knowledge of Canon law is essential to the student of Moral Theology, and since frequent reference must be made to the canons that bear on the Sacraments” a work such as his was needed.

Clearly, as the twentieth century unfolds, the Vatican, from its different dicasteries, began instructing on moral matters with greater frequency and specificity. These instructions changed moral theology from being a guild of arbiters of the moral tradition to becoming more and more interpreters of contemporary magisterial utterances. This shift cannot be underestimated as shaping moral theology today.

An indication of the shift is clear in Davis’s preface to the fourth edition: “Some emendations and additions have been made in the fourth edition of this work, which are necessary in view of both recent Instructions issued by the Sacred Roman Congregations” The two instructions were the problem of a social tolerance of prostitution and the issue of female dress. On the latter instruction, first issued on January 12, 1930, Davis presented a two page "faithful translation" of the twelve main points. A look at these is instructive in terms of appreciating the direct influence of the Sacred Congregation on ordinary life.

The first point summoned “parish priests most of all and preachers, should, on occasion, address words of severe admonition to women that they should employ dress that bespeaks modesty and serves as an ornament and a safeguard of their virtue.” The second and fourth point called on parents and school mistresses respectively to foster modesty and chastity in the children. The third point told parents to “deter their daughters from public gymnastic exercises.” The fifth through eighth points instructed school mistresses, women of religious institutes and pious associations of women to aim at checking abuses in modest dress and to ban those who violate such codes. Remarkably, the ninth resorts to excommunication and as such should be quoted in full.

Girls and women who dress unbecomingly are to be refused Holy Communion, and not allowed to be sponsors in Baptism or Confirmation, and should occasion demand, they shall be forbidden admittance into the Church.

The tenth urged that feast days of the Blessed Virgin be used as occasions to preach on modesty. The eleventh instructed diocesan councils every year to develop strategies “for the more efficacious promotion of female modesty” and the twelfth requires bishops and other local ordinaries “to give an account of these matters every third year to the Sacred Congregation.” In 1943, while England was in the midst of World War II, this is the only transcription of a Vatican instruction that appeared at length in the fourth edition of Davis' work.

The concern about the education of children in Slater developed into a fixation on the dress of girls and young women by Davis’ time. Vatican directives coupled with punitive sanctions were published continuously as the century unfolds. The instruction on female dress was but an indicator of these teachings.

Davis’ second volume is dedicated to the Decalogue. The proportionality among the commandments is somewhat similar to Slater's. The seventh and tenth commandment are more than one hundred and fifty pages. The second, third, and eight commandment are each under twenty pages. The fifth commandment is sixty pages, with much material, as we shall see, on bioethical issues.

He differs from Slater in several areas but one of note concerns the conscience. He defined conscience as “an act of practical reason.” He noted that “if conscience were never interfered with by passion or ignorance there would be only one kind of conscience, namely the true conscience.” The simplicity of his assumptions allowed him to describe a variety of ways that one lacks a true conscience, that is, a conscience which acts out of ignorance or out of the passions. He gave then a startlingly long list of categorically problematic consciences (the false, doubting, perplexed, scrupulous, and laxed conscience), allowing us to see just how easily and frequently the average Catholic avers from the true conscience. But coupled with this insight is another: that often Catholics are not strong or wise enough to do otherwise.

For instance, when he turned to sin, he noted that for a mortal sin to occur there must be “serious matter, full advertence to the gravity of this mater, and full consent to the act of sinning.” Discussing full advertence, Davis referred to other authors and argued that these authors have caused confusion by failing to be clear and by departing from the tradition. These authors tried to argue that mortal sin could be committed by a “virtual advertence” to the gravity of matter. Davis responded: “In any true sense such a term is unintelligible, for when a person sins, he must actually know he sins… Such confusion of thought is the result of not clearly defining terms, and also---which is almost worse----of departing from commonly-received meaning of terms.

The confessor’s advisor, Henry Davis, wanted not only to be clear and orthodox one, he also wanted to remind his own peers of their obligation to avoid confusion for those who labored in the pulpit and the confessional. Clarity unraveled confusion; confusion led to chaos. Behind so much of this material, then, was a certain vision of good order in which each understood her or his role. Not surprisingly, when he turned to the capital vices, the first was pride, “the inordinate desire to excel.” Humble workers, not ambitious visionaries, conveyed the nature of the true, early twentieth century Catholic.

Davis is well known for writing on cooperation in the wrong-doing of another. The lucidity of his expression prompted these passages to be quoted with some frequency. Not only were the rules clear, so were the examples. Davis presented a variety of cases: a servant bearing letters concerning illicit assignations; a priest giving communion to an unworthy recipient; nurses assisting in operations in hospitals; judges presiding over divorces; married couples when the husband practices withdrawal; the sale of furniture to “heretical places of worship;” etc. In a very particular way, the painstaking clarity of Davis paid off when matters were murky or grey. He tended to illuminate exactly where the traditional lines had been drawn so as to let priests and laity comfortably negotiate what appeared to be ambivalent issues by following his probable, clear opinion.

The second volume of the fourth edition was published in 1945, two years after the first volume. There Davis presented the treatise of the Decalogue and there we see how Vatican teaching immediately affected Catholic life. But we also find Davis’s own descent into the particular with considerable vigor. For instance, among the sins against the first commandments were those contrary to religion by excess. Davis parsed twelve of them: magic, divination, casting of lots, automatic writing, invocation of the devil, etc. On contracts that were adjudicated under the seventh commandment, Davis discussed twenty different ones: from a promise, gift, or a last will and testament, to leases, insurance, employment, stake-holding, and lotteries. On the fourth commandment, we find the same concern regarding the education of children as we saw in Slater, however, there were no fewer than eight appendices from Pope Pius XI; some on the education of children, sex education, co-education, and even naturalism. But there were other teachings of the same pope on socialism, communism, and state order.

In light of World War II, we should look at Davis on the fifth commandment. The commandment was divided into ten sections: three on foundational issues (the precept, preservation of life, and, murder and suicide) and seven practical applications (dueling, war, capital punishment, indirect killing, mutilation and sterilization, abortion, and ectopic embryos). He concluded the chapter with three appendices: some medical views on ectopic pregnancies; some medico moral problems; and, contagious diseases. The second appendix treated twenty-two different problems, from fibroid cysts, cancer of the cervix, eclampsia, to premature delivery, cesarean deliveries, and sterilization, to organ transplants, euthanasia, and embalming.

The framework for arbitrating most of these issues rested with the fundamental assumption about the boundaries between the rights of God and the limited freedom of the human before those rights:”

Thus, on suicide Davis held: “it is never permitted to kill oneself intentionally, without either explicit divine inspiration to do so, or --- probably---the sanction of the State in the case of a just death penalty.” Among practical issues related to suicide, he treated hunger strikes. Noting that much had been written on both sides (but not offering any citations), Davis basically argued that if an imprisonment was just, a hunger strike would never be just; but if the imprisonment was unjust then a hunger strike could be held to win one’s release “if there is a good chance of being freed from prison before death ensues.” If the strike were held simply to shame the prison authorities, then the probable death would be too great an evil to legitimate the strike. Interestingly, he did not raise the question whether a group of prisoners can strike for the purpose of winning the eventual release of all. Could all intend to fast until death, if they believe that eventually they would win and some would then be released before their deaths?

Other instances of suicide dealt with “indirect” death. He discussed the legitimacy of the following cases: the messenger pursued by an enemy who preferred drowning to surrender, the officer who exposed himself to enemy fire so as to induce his men to the courage of a full charge on the enemy, and the soldier who jumped from an overloaded ship so as to lighten the load. Remarkably he also argued that a virgin may (but is not required to) leap to her death to preserve her virginity. He used the principle of double effect to say that by her leaping her death “is not directly wished but only permitted.”

On dueling he cited six papal condemnations.

The section on war covered a mere four pages. After presenting the traditional standards for just war, he remarked that when the grounds for war are “not certainly just, it is more generally taught that war may not be undertaken.” Though like Slater, he argued that one could not act from a doubtful conscience, still soldiers “may usually presume their country is in the right; in doubt, they are bound to obey.” Were we to ask whether Davis is inconsistent, he would argue, I believe, that the soldiers acted not from doubt but in confidence of their obligation to obey the State.

He dedicated only two sentences to unjust war and soldiering: “If the war is manifestly unjust, a soldier may not lawfully inflict any damage on the enemy, though he may, of course, defend his life. Soldiers who freely join up after a war has begun, must satisfy themselves that the war is just.”

Though upholding non-combatant immunity, he noted that air raids on fortified towns and munition facilities “are permissible, but reasonable care must be taken, if possible, though usually this is impossible, to spare the lives and property of non-combatants. Indiscriminate air raids on non-combatants to sap the morale of a people, and on places of no military significance are wrong.” Still, he raised the case of a ship, either a passenger or hospital vessel, without munitions, which could eventually become a necessary instrument for later aggression. Though the action is “deplorable, we think the sinking may be justified, for what is attacked is the ship, the death of those on board are incidental and not wished, and the loss of a few lives is nothing in comparison with the defeat of a nation.” He concluded: “When a nation’s existence at stake, the principles of humanity---as they are called---must be regretfully sacrificed to the very existence of a people, but never the principles of justice.”

Davis, like his predecessors, thought of the killing of humans precisely and singularly in terms of God’s Lordship over life and not of the intrinsic worth of human life itself. That is, he thought simply of what God forbade and permitted; in as much as God forbade direct killing of the innocent, the ambit for indirectly killing human beings was significant. In his encyclical of 1981, Evangelium vitae, Pope John Paul both upheld God's Lordship and also asserted that human life is itself sanctified. For John Paul, taking any human life, violated both the will of God and the integrity of the human being made in God’s image. The pope’s position undermines the thinking of manualists who in many ways gave a pass to collateral damage.

Davis addressed the insidiousness of reprisals, but then, in a lapse that reflected some of the horror of the war, he wrote: “Soldiers, however, in the heat of battle, or in desperate situations, cannot be expected to see the application of true principles through the medium of war. The State that acts on the principles of justice and forbearance from evil in victory and defeat, will preserve the honour of its people and save its soul.” At one point, however, we have to press Davis and ask, is there at any point that the actions of soldiers are to themselves attributable?

On Capital punishment, he declared, “God has given to the State the right over life and death… This moral power of the State has been universally acknowledged by the Christian tradition.”

Davis concluded the second volume with two treatises. The first concerned “certain precepts of the church” which are basically eleven sections on fasting and abstinence. The final treatise concerns church law on books, their censorship and prohibition. This second treatise, a sign of the ever expanding Vatican’s influence, was no where in evidence in Slater.

Heribert Jone (1885-1967)

Heribert Jone’s Katholische Moraltheolgie in 1929 went through eighteen editions in the original German and was eventually translated into eight other languages. WE are examining the eighth English edition from 1951.

If Davis was clear and thorough, Jone was quick and convenient. In the original edition, in 1929, Jone wrote from Muenster that his text is for busy priests and “aims to provide them with quick and convenient answers to moral questions.” He added that special effort has been made to work the new Code into the text. He also noted, hopefully, that the educated laity might benefit from the text.

For the thirteenth German edition, in 1949, he noted that he has “always endeavored to incorporate the decisions of the Holy See in each new edition,” but “the number of these improvements has mounted considerably in the course of years and consequently many parts of this newest edition differ very much from the corresponding parts of the first edition.”

Then in an evident (but the only ) reference to the war and Europe’s reconstruction, he remarked on “the necessity of this present revision” because of the fact “that no new edition has appeared for several years because of European conditions.”

The one section that shows considerable development over the Jesuits was in the first chapter on human acts where Jone provided a section called the imputability of human acts. Here like Davis, Jone is seeking to “understand” the lay Catholic’s question of competency. On the obstacles to the human act, Jone developed the topic far more than we have seen. In Slater, the obstacles were simply, ignorance, concupiscence, fear and violence, and Davis added habitual obstacles as in vices that have not yet been checked. Jone provided a host of nervous conditions that diminished the agent’s moral responsibility: neurasthenia, hysteria, compulsive disorders, melancholia, hypochondria, inferiority, etc. We saw in Davis a tendency to find the conscience of the agent more ignorant, confused and incompetent than in Slater; in Jone we find the penitent more prone to psychological disorders. In both cases, while compassion for the sinner was probably what motivated them, still the newer writers found more occasions to view the ordinary penitent as less capable, less responsible and less mature. Clearly the average lay person, is in the eyes of the hierarchy, the moralists, and the confessors, progressively less able to discern and execute morally right conduct.

The meticulousness of Jone appeared throughout the commandments. For instance, under the third commandment he explained that:

Servile works are forbidden even though done gratis, as a form of recreation, or for some pious purposes. About two and a half or three hours of such work, according to its arduousness, is a grievous sin. Thus, operating a modern washing machine, which consists in putting the clothes in the machine, pressing a button, removing and hanging clothes, would be only a venial sin.

He later acknowledged that indispensable housework is legitimate Sunday work.
He provided innumerable excuses for missing mass, including persons who cannot endure the air of the church (e.g., certain neurotic persons and sometimes pregnant women in the first or last months of pregnancy)…women and children who would incur the grave displeasure of their husbands or parents by attending mass….those who have reason to think that by staying at home they can hinder sin; or who would suffer injury to their good name or possessions by going to Church.

For the fourth commandment, regarding the education of children, Jone stated the simple facts. Attendance in Catholic schools was obligatory; canon 374 forbade attendance in non-Catholic schools; only the local Ordinary could rule on exceptions.

For the fifth, aside from material on ectopic pregnancies and premature deliveries and the lists of lawful and unlawful hospital procedures, Jone had little time for consideration of the bioethical issues that we saw in Davis. His section on war is even pithier and astonishing. Without any reference to the just war tradition, Jone described the morality of war simply with these words:

Both offensive and defensive war is lawful for a just cause which must be serious enough to justify the great evils associated with war. The lawfulness of war is evident from the fact that one is allowed to defend himself against an unjust aggressor or to prosecute his rights with force if there is no higher authority that will protect them. It is always presupposed that there is no other means to obtain justice, e.g., by arbitration, etc.

On participation in warfare, he had the same position as Davis: a soldier may fight in a doubtful war; no one may take part in an evidently unjust war. He added, “In modern times, it is almost always impossible for the private citizen to solve doubts concerning the justice of war.” On methods of warfare, he wrote: “In waging war anything necessary or useful for the attainment of the end is lawful provided it is not forbidden by either divine or international law.” He then briefly referred to non-combatants but for the most part seemed more interested in the seizure of property.

He concluded this section with a discussion on atomic warfare. He upheld the possible use of the atomic or hydrogen bomb, which did not in itself violate any principle per se, by offering three insights: today’s concept of “total war” greatly restricts the term non-combatant, such that the term had little utility or reference; the modern conscription of industry and manpower extended the war effort on the home front; and, it is difficult to harness the defense action of a people threatened by a godless tyranny. Clearly, thinking of the emergent Cold War, Jone contended that while atomic weapons must be greatly restricted, they could be justifiable.

Jone became expansive with the sixth commandment. He parsed direct and indirectly voluntary sexual pleasure and wrote at length about direct and indirect voluntary pollution, in particular addressing the issue of seeking “relief from itching in the sex organs.” He covered a variety of expressions of sodomy and gave his most sustained attention to external sins of modesty, wherein he listed at least seventy problematic situations, among which we find: “it is venially sinful to glance at the indecent parts of another of the same sex or to look at them out of curiosity,” “it is venially sinful out of curiosity to observe animals mating if no sexual pleasure is caused.” “Touching animals indecently is generally not gravely sinful, unless it is done with an evil intention or for a long time or until the animal suffers pollution.”

These comments were followed by internal sins against chastity (again related to “pollution”) and finally he concludes on sexual perversions.

Still like all the other manualists, Jone wrote more on the seventh and tenth commandments. Like Davis he wrote about the property rights of children and married women, and covered topics like ownership, contracts, restitution, and reparations.

He concluded his book on the Commandments by looking at the precepts of the church (fasting, abstinence and annual confession, here a variety of canonical codes are invoked), the censorship and prohibition of books, and then something not present in Slater or even Davis, ecclesiastical penalties in general and individual censures (excommunication, interdicts and suspension, consisting of a full twenty-two paragraphs, eleven times the length of the chapter on war. Clearly the more directive and juridical the church became in the twentieth century, the more punitive it became as well.

Conclusion

Manualist theology at the beginning of the twentieth century shaped the clergy’s own disposition toward the pastoral care of Catholics on moral matters. Manualists operated out of a very principle-based world in which the principles themselves were safeguarded by their very interpreters. These principles were indelibly linked to a vision of moral truth that was fairly certain, universal, ahistorical, and remote.

The manualist himself exuded a competency to interpret these principles. He was well read both of his own colleagues and of canon law. He understood experientially the priesthood and its ministry. He accepted the moral laws that hover over his discipline and tried to compassionately and instructively hand on his practical wisdom to those around him. He offered his own humble opinion, endorsing often the schema that the priest and the lay person could choose whosesoever opinion they wanted, as long as it was someone from their guild, and did not contradict a defined teaching. He also knew that priests and people were busy, so he did not want to waste their time with long arguments; terseness was the style.

As the century unfolds, however, four developments occurred within the manualist tradition. First, the Vatican defined more and more. To the extent it did, to that extent, the moralist became the translator of the teaching and no longer a scholar offering an informed opinion. By the eve of Vatican II, in fact, the manualist became primarily dependent on Vatican dictates. Second, with greater research into human psychology, the manualist’ perception of the lay Roman Catholic as a wounded and uncertain penitent became more and more evident. Though the manualist was always known as a physician of souls, now he became the psychiatric care-giver of the inculpable sinner. Third, he became more and more opposed to innovation. In particular, he chided those who look for moral theology to be more integrated into both dogmatic or fundamental theology and ascetical or devotional theology. In fact, as other church leaders tried to persuade the manualist in this more holistic direction, the more the manualist receded from moral theology into canon law. Fourth, the metaphysical principles that the manualist/canonist followed were unable to address the real critical issues of the day. One only has to see that girls' dresses and sperm received more attention than atomic weapons to appreciate how distant the manualists were from the world as it emerged out of the rubble of World War II and faced the possibility of nuclear war.

Copyright Jim Keenan.