Introduction: What is Moral Theology?

The first task for those interested in the study of moral theology is to determine the subject of their inquiry. While this basic requirement of an intellectual pursuit holds true for every area of study, the examination of moral theology in particular requires making clear what subject matter is in fact under consideration. This need arises from the fact that many persons confuse the nature of moral theology with the subject of other fields. Perhaps more precisely, many persons mistakenly substitute a fulsome definition of the field of moral theology with what is merely a description of one of its relevant parts. Studying moral theology first off requires a complete recognition of what is to be studied instead of simply examining a truncated section of it. The English Jesuit Thomas Slater (1855–1928) famously succumbed to this truncated definition of the field when he declared:

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 pain of sin; they are books of moral pathology.... Ascetical and mystical literature which treats of the higher spiritual life is very abundant in the Catholic Church, and it should be consulted by those who desire to know the lofty ideals of life which the Catholic Church places before her children and encourages them to practice. Moral theology proposes to itself the humbler but still necessary task of defining what is right and wrong. (Slater, <em>Manual of Moral Theology</em>, v–vi) 

If Slater, a distinguished and accomplished theologian, could succumb to this reductive view of his discipline, all the more so must we guard against such an error. 

For his part, the Belgian Dominican Servais Pinckaers (1925-2008) offered a more complete definition of moral theology than the one presented by his casuist forebears. Pinckaers defined moral theology, or “Christian ethics,” as “the branch of theology that studies human acts so as to direct them to a loving vision of God seen as our true, complete happiness and our final end. This vision is attained by means of grace, the virtues, and the gifts, in the light of revelation and reason” (Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 8). This definition contains the essential elements of Catholic moral theology. 

The subject of moral inquiry remains human action. Unlike other fields of theological study, the subject of moral theology is precisely the action of God drawing man to himself by means of graced human acts. In other theological disciplines, theologians study God in Himself, Christ, the Church, or the sacraments. Moral theologians seek to discover the full truth about man and his properly human acts. Moral theologians study human activity, not from a sociological or physiological standpoint, but precisely as a theological discipline. They examine human action from the perspective of how these acts perfect a person and by grace move him toward God. Father Pinckaers’s definition of Christian ethics reminds his readers that the direction of human action is fundamental to the Christian moral life. Acts are orientated toward ends. At a basic level, human life is teleological, which is to say, the Creator has impressed on man’s powers and acts specific ends which are perfective of the human person. 

Man possesses many resources in this project of reaching his perfective end, and theologians and ethicists differ in which of these resources they choose to emphasize. Some thinkers fail to appreciate the full breadth of the resources available for this transforming endeavor. With Pinckaers, Catholic moralists who situate themselves within the full tradition of the Church recognize “grace, the virtues, and the gifts [of the Holy Spirit]” as the principal resources available for this project. God’s healing and elevating grace, the acquired and infused moral virtues, the theological virtues, as well as the gifts of the Holy Spirit are the principal points of reflection in Catholic moral theology. St. Thomas Aquinas organized his seminal moral treatise around the theological and moral virtues (see the Secunda pars of the Summa theologiae). The commandments and, more generally, moral prohibitions and obligations, take their place as consequences of that which is more basic to the Christian life, namely, the perfective goods to be pursued and the virtues needed to pursue them. In other words, the virtues express more fully the goal of the Christian life than do the commandments. While nonetheless necessary, the commandments alone cannot explain fully the Christian moral life. 

Moral theologians of the Catholic tradition situate their moral investigations within the framework of creation and eschatology. One cannot undertake a moral inquiry without reference to the nature of the human person and the end for which he was created. In the very act of creation, God has impressed on the powers of man’s soul perfective ends to which specific acts lead him (by grace) toward beatific fellowship. The virtues—acquired and infused—render possible the pursuit of this morally good activity in a habitual fashion. For that reason, the virtues represent a primary point of reflection for Catholic moral theologians. 

Moral theology includes a variety of subdisciplines that utilize the tools established in fundamental moral theology. Sexual ethics, bioethics, and social ethics each represent a distinct sphere of moral inquiry. In each case, sound Catholic theologians recognize that the orientation of the moral life remains situated within creation and eschatology. For theologians to be able to express properly Christian teachings in bioethics, sexual morality, or social ethics requires knowledge of the more basic truths of human nature and human destiny. Specialized moral questions are often subdivided according to either the virtues or the commandments. Questions of sexual ethics, for example, either could be studied as part of the sixth and ninth commandments of the Decalogue or as pertaining to the virtue of chastity, a subjective part of temperance (ST II-II, q. 151). Each of the subdisciplines of moral theology depends upon the sure foundation of Catholic moral theology delineated according to the virtues and oriented toward God as man’s supreme happiness. 

I. Beatitude: Human Happiness and Human Flourishing 

The 1963 Grail Psalter offered Catholics and others a translation of the Psalms that was taken up into liturgical use for many decades. The Liturgy of Hours, prayed daily by monks, priests, and consecrated religious as well as by many lay persons, utilized this translation with spiritual profit. Psalm 119, recited in part almost every day at one of the daytime hours, begins: “They are happy whose life is blameless, who follow God’s law. They are happy who do his will, seeking him with all their hearts” (Ps 119:1–2). The Roman Breviary promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1568 utilized Psalm 119 in its entirety every day of the week. Other translations render the Psalm’s beginning as, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless” (Ps 119:1). Both translations correct the erroneous conception of the consequences of adherence to the law of God. Many persons labor under the illusion that following the law of Christ and His Church restricts their freedom or induces sadness. On the contrary, as those who pray the Psalms recognize, adherence to the law of God remains the precondition for human happiness and human flourishing. 

As the first five questions of the Secunda pars of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae make clear, the study of the Christian moral life is concerned principally with human happiness as it is rightly understood. The Church’s Common Doctor situates his moral inquiry within the framework of achieving human flourishing by means of reaching one’s perfective end. St. Thomas explains that, insofar as man acts deliberately, he acts for an end. In the final analysis, that end consists of the vision of God. Truth to tell, this end enjoys a two-fold character, one in the order of nature and one in the order of grace. To contemplate God as He is naturally knowable represents the natural end of man and the perfection of the intelligent creature in the order of nature. With Aristotle we can affirm that “all men by nature desire to know” (Metaphysics, Chapter 1). In a superabundant way, in the order of grace, man’s ultimate end rests in the beatific vision, a loving communion with the Triune God. 

In the Christian moral life, an important distinction obtains between pleasures and goods. Pleasure refers to some sensible effect that often accompanies a good act. An act of marital chastity or temperate consumption of food or drink, for example, may enjoy an accompanying pleasure. These pleasures are not evil, nor are they to be avoided. The Christian tradition rejects the error that regards all sense pleasure as evil. In fact, Aquinas designates the vice of insensibility for those given to this unfortunate rejection of how God has constructed the universe (ST II-II, q. 142, a. 1). Pleasures are not, however, sought for their own sake. Instead, the goods of marital chastity or temperate consumption of food and drink, for example, are what virtuous persons seek in an upright moral act. These goods are perfective of the human person. On the other hand, pleasures are fleeting, and no person benefits from seeking pleasure for its own sake. The consumption of six chocolate cakes may confer a momentary pleasure, but such intemperate activity ultimately will cause sickness. For that reason, no one would confuse gluttony with an act perfective of the person. True happiness consists not in the acquisition of fleeting pleasures but in the attainment of the goods proper to the human person. God, in His wise ordering of the universe, has created man and established proper ends for his deliberate actions. Living in accord with the objects of these acts and their proper ends leads to human happiness. 

In the course of his inquiry at the beginning of the Secunda pars, Aquinas considers several possible ends for man (ST I-II, q. 2). He examines wealth, honor, fame, power, and bodily goods but finds each of them wanting as man’s ultimate end. Instead, only a contemplative vision of God, man’s ultimate happiness and final end, will satisfy man’s basic desire to know. With St. Augustine, we affirm that God has made us for Himself and that we are restless until we rest in Him. We can understand this contemplative rest in God on two levels. Every person has a desire to know the ultimate ends of things.{1} The contemplation of God, the first cause and cause of all other causes, represents this natural end of the intelligent creature. Through the gift of grace, man can come to know God as a Trinity of persons who draws him into loving communion with Himself. The beatific vision, then, is the ultimate end of the person in the order of grace. The question for the realist moral theologian remains whether any particular moral act is truly happiness-inducing. Adherence to the moral law does not constrain human freedom. Rather, it renders possible true human fulfillment. 

II. Imago Dei: The Divine Image 

A sound expression of Catholic moral theology presupposes a realist anthropology grounded in Christian revelation regarding creation and eschatology. Ethical considerations depend upon a correct account of human nature and human flourishing. In fact, contemporary debates about moral matters most often are grounded in disputed conceptions of human nature more than in disagreements about specific moral prescriptions. Catholic moral theology requires a robust account of the nature of man and his destiny. God’s revelation confirms what in principle can be known through human reason: human persons are body-soul composites with both knowing and desiring powers. Human persons are not angels or pure spirits but a composite of body and soul. As the Second Vatican Council declared, “Though made of body and soul, man is one” (Gaudium et spes, no. 14). In a similar manner, the fourteenth century Council of Vienne adopted the language of the scholastic tradition when it dogmatically affirmed that the soul is the “form of the body” (Council of Vienne, Decree 1). 

Contemporary questions of gender ideology and human sexuality, as well as discussions surrounding reincarnation, cremation, and care for the body after death benefit from the knowledge of the essential interconnection between body and soul.{2} Taken together, the intellect, the will or rational appetite, and the sense appetites constitute the powers of the soul. The sense appetites can be divided into the concupiscible and irascible appetites. The concupiscible appetite refers to the sense appetitive power that deals with goods or pleasures simply in themselves. Food, drink, and sexual pleasure represent the most basic desires of the concupiscible power. When some difficulty is involved in the attainment of the good or challenge in order for one to avert an evil, the perennial philosophical tradition gives the name irascible or contending appetite to this power of the soul. The moral virtues are seated in each of these powers, with prudence in the intellect, justice in the will, temperance in the concupiscible appetite, and fortitude in the irascible appetite. 

The Biblical tradition affirms unequivocally that man is created in the image of God. Indeed, the most basic rationale for the affirmation of the unique dignity of man remains that he is made in the imago Dei (John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, no. 7). St. Thomas Aquinas delineates three ways in which God may impress His own image on the human person (Gn 1:27): in the orders of nature, grace, and glory. In the order of nature, the human person possesses the capacity to know and to love. These rational faculties stand as an image of God impressed on each human person (ST I, q. 93). In the order of grace, man in a new way is elevated to the image of God. Here, as a gift of God’s grace, man can know and love God in an elevated, supernatural fashion. In glory, through the grace of the beatific vision, man knows and loves God in a superabundant way. St. Thomas teaches: 

First, inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men. Secondly, inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of grace. Thirdly, inasmuch as man knows and loves God perfectly; and this image consists in the likeness of glory.... The first is found in all men, the second only in the just, the third only in the blessed. (<em>ST</em> I, q. 93, a. 4) 

Moral theologians do well to recall these important distinctions between the order of nature, the elevation of grace, and the bliss of heavenly glory as the three unique ways man may be said to be made in the image of God. 

The distinction—and relation—between the natural and supernatural orders occupies an important place in Catholic moral theology. Human nature possesses a certain capacity for the reception of grace, but no one should mistakenly conclude that God is forced to offer grace. As Pope Pius XII explained in the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, some theologians “destroy the gratuity of the supernatural order, since God, they say, cannot create intellectual beings without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision” (no. 26). Theologians of the Catholic tradition refer to a specific obediential potency in the human person to receive the elevation of sanctifying grace. This potentiality refers to the fact that man is created capable of being elevated to God’s friendship without thereby forcing God to so elevate him. 

The image of God in man exists on the level of human nature, in an elevated way in graced human nature, and superabundantly in glory.{3} Aquinas makes this tripartite distinction of the imago Dei in order to explain that, while every human person bears the image of God, this image is restored and perfected in grace through Baptism and reaches its zenith in glory through the beatific vision (ST I, q. 93, a. 4). Moralists grounded in the Catholic tradition will situate their work within this realist account of human nature—created, fallen, and, through the sacramental economy, elevated to God’s friendship. These distinctions—and the relations between them—remain essential for the practice of sound Catholic moral theology. On the other hand, the neglect of a realist account of man’s nature, the effects of sin, and the healing and elevating possibility of grace leaves one unable to explain accurately the contours of the moral life. 

In the treatise on sin in the Prima secundae of the Summa theologiae, St. Thomas asks whether sin diminishes the good of nature. He responds that this question can be considered in three respects. The “good of nature” may refer to human nature as created by God. The good of nature in this sense refers precisely to the intellectual and appetitive powers of man’s soul. In the second place, the good of nature can refer to a natural inclination to virtuous action. And in the third place, the good of nature may refer to the gift of original justice whereby man was constituted at creation and before the fall. Aquinas answers that, in the first sense, the good of nature as the powers of the soul is “neither destroyed nor diminished.” In the second instance, the good of nature as the inclination to virtue is “diminished but not destroyed.” In the third instance, original justice is lost in original sin (ST I-II, q. 85, a. 1). These distinctions prove crucial for theologians of the Catholic tradition who seek to offer an accurate account of human nature (and specifically of man as made in the imago Dei) in light of creation and the fall.

III. Specifications of Moral Objects and the Sources of Morality 

The determination of the moral quality of a given act is an essential element of any ethical investigation. How does one distinguish between acts of adultery and acts of marital chastity or between acts of religion and those of idolatry? In some cases, it may be difficult to distinguish a good act from a bad one. How is a lie distinct from the discreet use of language or the evil of theft from a licit act of occult compensation?{4} These questions all fall under the umbrella category of what the Catechism calls the “sources of morality” (CCC no. 1750). The three sources of every moral act are the object of the act, the circumstances surrounding it, and the intention or end (finis operantis) of the agent.{5} These three sources—object, circumstances, and intention—together constitute the sources of morality or the constitutive elements which determine the moral quality of any given act. All three sources need to be good in order for the act to be good. On the other hand, if any one of them falls short of the truth about the good of the human person, the act itself is evil. 

Most errors in fundamental moral theology result from an overemphasis on—or misunderstanding of—the intention of the agent or the circumstances surrounding a given act. In a related way, an exaltation of the consequences of the act as the principal source of its moral quality stands as a pernicious error in Catholic moral thought. Again, as Pope John Paul II taught in Veritatis splendor, “The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the ‘object’ rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas” (Veritatis splendor, no. 78, emphasis in original). The object of an act is not merely a series of movements of the physical order. Pulling a trigger, for example, does not supply enough information to determine if the object of a given action is an act of self-defense, the crime of murder, or mere target practice. Pulling the trigger of a loaded gun toward an innocent person, on the other hand, constitutes the object of the act of murder. No intention superimposed by an agent, nor any set of circumstances, makes the object of murder a worthy moral choice. A good object, however, can also be part of an evil act due to the presence of an evil intention or particular circumstances surrounding the moral choice. Praying the Divine Office, for example, represents a good moral object. However, doing so when one should be in class or engaged in some other required activity makes an otherwise good object part of a bad act. Similarly, a seminarian who gives alms to the poor chooses a good moral object. But doing so specifically to avoid being discovered as a charlatan by his seminary formators makes for a bad act of deception instead of a good act of almsgiving. In each case, all three sources of object, end, and circumstance must conform to the truth about the good of the human person in order to constitute a sound moral choice. 

The Catholic tradition delineates a series of steps for each moral act. These so-called “twelve acts of the mind” are somewhat inaptly named since they are alternatively acts of the intellect and will.{6} The renowned French Dominican of the eighteenth-century, Charles-René Billuart (1685–1757), more or less systematized these twelve steps. As Thomas Gilby observes, they are best understood as a “swirl... [of] baroque pattern” as opposed to discrete acts in which one is completed before beginning the next (Gilby, “Psychology of Human Acts,” 212). The first eight steps represent acts in the order of intention: perception, wish, judgment (which corresponds to the judgment of conscience), intention, deliberation, consent, decision, and choice. These are acts of the intellect and will alternatively. The first four steps are about the end. The fourth step of “intention,” therefore, is about the end of the act, whereas the next four steps are about the means to the end. Therefore, the act of choice is always a choice for the means to an end, where intention is always for the end itself.{7}  The final four steps—command, application, performance, and completion—are acts in the order of execution. 

The early part of the twenty-first century saw considerable dispute about how best to specify moral objects of given acts. Sound authors within the Catholic tradition disagreed about exactly how best to describe this aspect of the moral life.{8} Even those authors committed to the object-centered analysis prescribed by Veritatis splendor failed to reach a consensus about precisely how best to describe the Thomistic specification of a moral object. Disagreements about the moral liceity of embryo adoption and other biomedical procedures revolve in part around these debates about how best to specify moral objects. Nonetheless, authors committed to Veritatis splendor eschew (with good reason) consequence-based or intention-centered methods of moral reasoning. Legitimate and constrained disagreement among authors within this Thomistic tradition remains an issue in Catholic moral theology today. 

IV. Freedom for Excellence 

A proper account of human freedom remains an essential aspect of any realist description of the moral life. Difficulties abound in the attempts of Christians and others to explain how God’s providence relates to human freedom. Many contemporary persons exalt a concept of freedom that exists apart from—and is even opposed to—the good of persons. A freedom which would promote the destruction of innocent human life or celebrate unchastity or mutilation cannot be a freedom that believers will embrace as consonant with Catholic moral theology. The Belgian Dominican Servais Pinckaers distinguished between a freedom of indifference and a freedom for excellence.{9} Indeed, sound thinkers realize that freedom tethered to the truth about the good is distinct from a liberty between options that merely exalts human choice. 

Both in the world of sport and music, moralists see analogies which illustrate a proper account of human freedom in the moral sphere. Excellent athletes are said to play their games “freely.” That is not to say that they play without reference to the rules of the game or simply behave as they wish on the court or playing field. Rather, the norms of play have become so connaturalized to them that they play without constraint, difficulty, or anxious analysis of how to pursue victory. The freedom of these skilled athletes parallels the freedom for excellence of virtuous persons pursuing goods in the moral life. Freedom from sin is akin to freedom from error in sport. Likewise, excellent musicians play their instruments freely, which is to say, free from anxiety, nervousness, or error. They know intuitively that the rules of music allow man to play freely, not free from the rules as such, but from the necessity of making an analysis of them before playing each note. The best musicians are rightly declared free, not to do anything they wish, but to play music in an excellent fashion. 

Pope John Paul II famously declared: “As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism” (Centesimus annus, no. 46).  A free polity without virtuous persons provides no assurance against the emergence of the totalitarian state. Political structures of liberty require persons who understand that freedom is tethered to truth. In other words, a liberty of indifference offers no foundation for flourishing public life. In Centesimus anus, Pope John Paul II recalled the teaching of Pope Leo XIII in his 1888 Libertas praestantissimum: “Here, particular mention must be made of the encyclical Libertas praestantissimum, which called attention to the essential bond between human freedom and truth, so that freedom which refused to be bound to the truth would fall into arbitrariness and end up submitting itself to the vilest of passions.”{10} Both Leo XIII and John Paul II offered clear instruction on the dangers posed to civil society if persons and communities were to adopt the modern, truncated, and therefore erroneous account of human liberty. 

In the moral encyclical Veritatis splendor, John Paul II devoted considerable attention to authentic Catholic teaching regarding freedom. He recalls the unusual phenomenon of the contemporary period in which many persons, especially in the behavioral sciences, deny the existence of human freedom altogether. At the same time, we witness an exaltation of freedom as if it were the primary, and even exclusive, social good. The same text makes plain that both a complete freedom or autonomy in moral matters and a heteronomous conception of law as completely other, imposed upon, and outside of human goods falls short of the truth of the matter. John Paul II praised the term “theonomy” or “participated theonomy” to make clear that “man’s free obedience to God’s law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God’s wisdom and providence” (Veritatis splendor, no. 41). In this sense, theonomy refers to the reality of law as an expression of God’s wisdom. No one should conceive of human freedom as somehow independent of God’s providence or the natural law. 

To offer a proper account of human freedom requires that one possess an adequate understanding of the role of conscience in the moral life.{11} The Catechism defines conscience as “a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act” (CCC no. 1778). Some theologians who dissent from authentic Catholic teaching invoke conscience as the final arbiter of the moral quality of every ethical decision. While it is true that one should follow a well-formed conscience, nothing in Catholic teaching would suggest that one who acts according to an erroneous conscience acts virtuously. Indeed, inaccurate judgments of conscience about the moral quality of acts lead to defective human action. Pastors and moral theologians act well when they correct those engaged in this error. 

In regard to a person who makes moral judgments outside of ecclesial teaching, the following principle should be kept in mind. One may be stricter, as it were, than the Church but not more lax. For example, if in conscience one believed the consumption of veal to be immoral due to the treatment of the calf, one should refrain from eating it even though no ecclesial document requires such an action. On the other hand, one who fails to appreciate the truth announced in Humanae vitae concerning the immorality of the sterilization of marital acts is not free to practice contraception without moral fault. In short, an erroneous conscience may bind, but it cannot excuse.{12} If a person believes in conscience that he must engage in a particular act, then he needs to do so. But such a judgment of conscience may be wrong, and the one who acts according to an erroneous conscience acts badly. As John Paul II confirmed: “It is possible that the evil done as the result of invincible ignorance or a non-culpable error of judgment may not be imputable to the agent; but even in this case it does not cease to be an evil, a disorder in relation to the truth about the good” (Veritatis splendor, no. 63). 

A proper account of human freedom remains an essential component of sound Catholic moral theology. Pernicious errors about freedom fail to recognize the authentic freedom for excellence Christ ushers in. Indeed, rightly understood, it is “[f]or freedom [that] Christ set us free” (Gal 5:1). 

V. Virtue and Virtue-based Moral Reasoning 

It is hard to exaggerate the place of virtue in the moral life. When ethicists and theologians pay due regard to the virtues, they avoid several errors to which inaccurate accounts of the moral life are prone. For example, those attentive to the place of the virtues in an integral human life avoid the danger of viewing ethical considerations in isolation from the whole of the moral life. Those who attend to virtue formation recognize that habituated action shapes character. Persons are more than a series of discrete, unrelated acts. Dispositions stand as an important aspect of human character. Those attentive to the virtues recognize that promptly, easily, and joyfully embracing the good is important for human flourishing. Avoidance of bad activity alone does not suffice to make for a good life. Loving the good, embracing it promptly, and clinging to it all mark the lives of flourishing, truly happy persons. 

The term “virtue” refers to a stable disposition to do the good. The Catechism explains: “Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith” (CCC no. 1804). Those who describe the moral life according to the virtues recognize that their ethical project cannot be reduced to mere behavior modification. The transformation of the whole person, including the passions, is made possible by virtue-based moral reasoning. The moral virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—may be acquired by repeated human actions (all subject to the divine premotion) or infused directly by God, as in the sacrament of Baptism.{13}  

Theologians and philosophers who teach about virtue speak about the virtuous mean. The moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance embrace reasonable acts which exclude both excessive and defective expressions opposed to them. The mean of virtue is not meant to exclude the passionate, the heroic, or the excellent. On the contrary, observing the real or rational mean of virtue indicates that one has avoided the various ways of sinning against the virtue. A real mean refers to an objective standard (e.g., one who owes a thousand dollars fails to observe the real mean of justice if he only repays five hundred). A rational mean refers to that which is reasonable in a given case relative to a particular person. For example, a runner preparing for a long race observes the rational mean of temperance by consuming more food than one who plans a quiet day at home. To observe a real or rational mean does not indicate that one has embraced the mediocre. On the contrary, excellent moral acts include only those which avoid unreasonable expressions either of excess or defect. 

Virtue-based thinkers speak of the “connectivity of the virtues.” This expression indicates that the moral virtues go together. One cannot be virtuous in exercising one of the virtues while failing dramatically in the others. For example, the soldier given over to excess in the consumption of alcohol will be impeded in carrying out courageous acts in battle. His intemperance with drink will make courageous military efforts very difficult to achieve. The connection between the virtues opposes certain sensibilities frequently encountered in common parlance. The virtuous prostitute or Graham Greene’s “whiskey priest” do not conform with sound thinking regarding the connection of the virtues. Serious and repeated failures to live a particular moral virtue impede—and often exclude—the exercise of the other virtues. No one can live the requirements of justice without the virtues of personal discipline. No one can live any moral virtue without the prudence needed to set the right measure for whatever subject is under consideration. 

Catholic theologians distinguish between theological and moral virtues as well as between infused and acquired virtues. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity correspond to the elevated state of graced human nature which Baptism makes possible. The theological virtues cannot be self-generated as they have God as their origin and object. That is to say, acts of faith, hope, and charity begin and end with God Himself. While the object of an act of a moral virtue remains some human perfection, acts of the theological virtues reach God Himself. The virtue of religion, whose object is the proper measure of worship, perfects the capacity of the human person to render acts of worship to God. Acts of faith, on the other hand, believe in or confess God Himself (ST II-II, q. 1, a. 1). 

Acts of the theological virtues do not observe a mean in the same way that acts of moral virtue do. While one may exceed or fail to reach the rational mean of fortitude by either cowardice or foolhardiness, one cannot believe in or hope in or love God too much. Still, defective acts against the theological virtues from a human perspective could appear to sin by either excess or defect. Presumption could appear from a certain vantage point as an excess of hope while despair presents itself as an insufficient expression of hope. A kind of rash belief in an apparition is, from a certain perspective, a sin against faith by a kind of excess. Heresy, needless to say, represents a defect in the virtue of faith. Still, the mean of virtue refers principally to the moral virtues which have as their object some human perfection. 

Additionally, Catholic theology distinguishes between infused and acquired moral virtues.{14} The Catechism of the Catholic Church references this distinction when the text recognizes that the human virtues can be elevated by divine grace (CCC no. 1810). Infused and acquired virtue differ in several respects: origin, motive, and end. The origin of the acquired virtues remains repeated sound moral action. While still under the divine premotion, these acts unfold without reference to supernatural grace. Nevertheless, they do not occur outside of God’s providence. In the divine wisdom, these acts also draw man toward God. The origin of the infused virtues, theological and moral, remains the supernatural gift of God’s grace. In Baptism, Christians receive the gift of divine friendship and with it the theological and moral virtues.  

Theologians describe the acquired and infused moral virtues as divisible into various parts. Integral parts of the virtues refer to those partial virtues that are needed for the full exercise of the virtue. For example, classical ethicists recognize that both honesty (or decency) and shame are required for the exercise of the virtue of temperance. These integral parts of the virtue cause one to draw near to reasonable sense pleasures and to recoil from intemperate ones. Without any one of the integral parts of a virtue, one cannot be said to possess the virtue or be able to utilize it. 

Subjective parts of a moral virtue refer to the full exercise of a virtue restricted within a particular area of life. For example, temperance with food and drink can be distinguished as two subjective parts of temperance, abstinence and sobriety respectively. Just because one temperately consumes food does not mean one necessarily does the same with intoxicating drink. In a similar way, theologians can speak of prudence in the household (so-called “domestic prudence”) and prudence in military affairs (military prudence). Observers of political life recognize that not everyone who excels in military prudence necessarily does so in the realm of regnative prudence. In a similar way, one who excels at pastoral prudence in the parish may not without some adjustment find himself easily possessed of the pastoral prudence needed to govern a diocese. 

Finally, potential parts of the virtues refer to those virtues which utilize the virtue in some respect but in some way fall short of the full definition of the virtue. In that sense, these virtues are called “potential” in that they utilize the power of the virtue while at the same time being only potentially (but not yet fully) the virtue itself. For example, religion represents a potential part of justice as no act of religion can give fully to God what is His due. In that sense, it falls short of the full definition of the virtue of justice. Similarly, continence takes its place as a potential part of temperance. The capacity to refrain habitually from incontinent sexual activity represents a good disposition. However, to do so without rectified sense appetite falls short of the full definition of the virtue of chastity, a subjective part of temperance.{15}  

It falls to those who pastor souls to instruct believers in how to understand the moral life according to the virtues. Virtue-based moral reasoning will aid Christians to understand properly and to live accordingly the duties of Christian life. Still more, instruction in the virtues makes believers aware of the various ways in which God is offering the grace to grow in holiness and to build up the Church. 

VI. Sin and Its Sad Consequences 

In the view of many persons, moral theology can be reduced to an exercise in the cataloging of sins. The English Jesuit Thomas Slater famously opined that moral theology texts are “books of moral pathology” (Manual of Moral Theology, vi). While theologians steeped in the teaching of John Paul II’s Veritatis splendor recognize that moral theology cannot be so truncated, still moralists must be able to distinguish among sins. For example, a sin against chastity is not the same as a sin against religion. Sins vary in their objects (fornication vs. adultery), in their grievousness (a petty theft vs. a grand theft auto), and in the virtue against which they act (chastity in the case of fornication and sobriety in the case of drunkenness). Still more, good acts remain the principle by which one can identify and distinguish between disordered acts. In any case, Catholic moral theology needs to teach clearly the nature of sin and its destructive effects. 

The Catechism defines sin as “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity” (CCC no. 1849). Recalling the definition of St. Augustine, the Catechism observes that sin can be defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law” (Contra Faustum, 22). Sin, therefore, is not the violation of an arbitrary command. It represents a falling short or a missing of the mark.{16} Sins are defective acts which inhibit human loving. As St. Augustine observed, “only the lover sings” (Sermon 336). The goal of the Christian life—and for priests, the goal of Christian preaching—remains to inculcate a life given over to love. 

No sinner, insofar as he sins, engages in activity perfective of the human person. Every sin, in fact, carries its own consequence. In that sense, moral theologians committed to a realist account of human nature and human flourishing recognize that there exists no completely guiltless sin. Those who administer the sacrament of Penance act well when they seek to ensure that believers avoid bad acts which carry bad consequences—whether they are recognized as such by those who engage in them or not. For example, acts of unchastity of whatever kind affect negatively those who engage in them. Even if someone claims ignorance of the defective quality of a particular type of activity, nonetheless the choice of such an act does not conform to the truth about the good.{17} Acting in such a manner represents a failure to love and does not allow a person to grow in virtue and to develop good moral character, nor does it make future good acts easy. Acts of unchastity, for example, prepare for no known vocation in the Church.{18} 

The middle part of the twentieth century witnessed much confusion regarding Catholic teaching on sin. The decades following the Second Vatican Council saw the need for ecclesiastical intervention to uphold the classic distinction between mortal and venial sin. New theories in moral theology which would have emptied that distinction of its value necessitated interventions by the Magisterium to help Catholics recall the Church’s authentic teaching. In the 1984 Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia, Pope John Paul II taught: “some sins are intrinsically grave and mortal by reason of their matter. That is, there exist acts which, per se and in themselves, independent of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object. These acts, if carried out with sufficient awareness and freedom, are always gravely sinful” (Reconciliatio et paenitentia, no. 17). The 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor also recalled this important distinction (Veritatis splendor, no. 69). Holy Scripture itself teaches the difference between mortal and venial sin: “There is such a thing as deadly sin.... All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly” (1 Jn 5:16–17). Some theologians erroneously reduce mortal sin to those vicious acts which oppose God directly, such as blasphemy or idolatry. In point of fact, however, every grave violation of the Decalogue represents a sin of grave matter, whether directly, as in atheism or idolatry, or any sin against the precepts of the Decalogue.{19} It should be noted that some of the commandments admit of light matter (e.g., petty vs. grave theft or pernicious vs. jocose lies), while sins against others, in principle, represent grave sin (e.g., any completed sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue).{20} 

The Church recognizes the following as the classic requirements for mortal sin: grave matter, full awareness, and deliberate consent. Sins which do not meet one of these criteria would be classified as venial sins. The Catholic tradition assigns the term “enemies of the voluntary” to indicate those factors which may reduce one’s full capacity to act in a truly human mode. Ignorance, violence, fear, and lust make up this traditional list of freedom-reducing causes.{21} Ignorance of fact, such as whether or not a particular day has been declared a day of fasting, is something about which one may be faultlessly ignorant. The basic requirements of rectified living do not, however, fall under this umbrella title. True enough, some specifications of the Decalogue are sometimes not easily adjudicated. One thinks of the moral quality of certain biological procedures, where disagreement exists even among reasonable and approved authors. However, difficulty in navigating challenging cases should not obscure the fact that the basic obligations of the natural law, including those regarding the protection of human life and chaste human loving, remain clear to the human conscience. As the Catechism affirms: “no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law” (CCC no. 1860). 

The distinction between grave and mortal sin can be exaggerated in some theological quarters such that a mortal sin becomes impossible to commit. Pope John Paul II answered this difficulty when, in an exercise of his Petrine ministry, he affirmed that “in the Church’s doctrine and pastoral action, grave sin is in practice identified with mortal sin” (Reconciliatio et paenitentia, no. 17). This magisterial teaching informs the canonical discipline regarding the reception of Holy Communion. Every missalette in virtually every parish in the United States of America, for example, affirms the substance of this teaching when it declares: “a person who is conscious of grave sin is not to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord.”{22} This instruction is nearly identical with the discipline of the 1983 Latin Code of Canon Law: “a person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession” (CIC 916). Thus, the distinction between grave and mortal sin is a real one; however, it should not be used, as it often is, to countenance grave sin or give sinners encouragement about their bad acts. As the Church’s sacramental discipline and magisterial teaching make plain, gravely sinful activity does not conform to the truth about the good. No one should invoke the distinction between grave and mortal sin in a manner that leads anyone to abate the proper Christian desire to avoid acts which do not lead to human happiness. 

VII. The Moral Law 

Consideration of the topic of law takes its place as a constitutive element of any account of the Christian moral life. The role of law in the lives of Christian believers is often misunderstood. Too often individual Catholics may confuse one type of law for another. Understanding the true nature of law and distinguishing between the different types of law proves important in a realist account of the moral life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes St. Thomas Aquinas’s definition of law when it teaches that “law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator” (CCC no. 1951). Theologians distinguish between eternal, natural, divine (further distinguished between Old and New Law), and human law. Ecclesiastical law can contain elements of each of these types of laws. 

The Catechism teaches that the basis of all law is the eternal law (CCC no. 1952). The eternal law takes its place as an expression of the divine wisdom, from which all other law—natural, divine (both Old and New), and even human law—should conform. The natural law refers to the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law.{23} Confusions abound in the contemporary period about the natural law and its requirements. Some thinkers dispute its very existence while others reject its foundation in the eternal law. The natural law should not be conceived of as a set of precepts whispered in a person’s ear, as it were, as if it described merely a set of information provided outside of divine revelation. Rather, the natural law is best understood as the imprint of the divine wisdom on the powers of man’s soul. The natural law sets the proper objects and ends of man’s acts and unfolds according to the natural inclinations towards those ends. As Pope John Paul II taught in Veritatis splendor: 

Only God can answer the question about the good, because he is the Good. But God has already given an answer to this question: he did so by <em>creating man and ordering him</em> with wisdom and love to his final end, through the law which is inscribed in his heart (cf. Rom 2:15), the “natural law.” The latter “is nothing other than the light of understanding infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done and what must be avoided. God gave this light and this law to man at creation.” (<em>Veritatis splendor</em>, no. 12) 

The natural law includes both positive and negative precepts, such as the precept that one ought to worship God but refrain from murder. The negative precepts of the natural law bind always and in every case—semper and pro semper (Veritatis splendor, no. 52). For example, the intentional taking of innocent human life represents a defective act that under no circumstances can be perfective of the human person. Thus, the negative precept always obtains—murder is a malum in se, and no one can choose to commit it without moral fault in every circumstance (John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, no. 57). Positive precepts, such as the law that one ought to worship God in external, public acts, does not mean that at every instance one should engage in public worship. If one is in the hospital for heart surgery, then one is not obliged to attend one’s parish church on a Sunday or solemnity of precept. Indeed, one should not attempt to defy a doctor’s orders to do so. 

The natural law applies most deeply to the natural inclinations with which the human person is endowed.{24} Voluntarist ethical theories neglect this aspect of the natural law and reduce the natural law to merely positive and negative precepts. When we recognize the natural law as an imprint of the divine wisdom, we avoid the error which would reduce it to a series of obligations and prohibitions imposed from the outside. Instead, one who lives according to the natural law conforms to the truth about the good of the human person. 

The divine or revealed law includes both the law of the Old and New Testaments. The Old Law is best understood as containing three parts: moral, ceremonial, and juridical precepts. The prohibition on adultery or theft in the Old Law, for example, can be distinguished from the dietary law or other ceremonial precepts. Christ fulfils the ceremonial precepts of the old law (Mt 5:17) which pass now into the liturgical law of the Church. The laws of the Church regarding the celebration of Mass and the other sacraments fulfill, as it were, the old laws regarding the worship of God. Careful adherence to liturgical law today conforms to the Biblical recognition that the worship of God should unfold according to prescribed rituals. The moral precepts of the Decalogue, on the other hand, retain their full force in the Christian dispensation. The Ten Commandments give expression to the precepts of the natural law which in principle are unchanging. These laws correspond directly to human nature, and adherence to them renders human flourishing possible. Today, Christians are not obliged to fulfill the precepts of the Old Testament dietary law or practice ceremonial circumcision (Acts 15:1–29). But Christians must abide by the precepts of the Decalogue. This difference between required observance of precepts contained in Old Testament law is neither an arbitrary judgment nor a selective reading of Old Testament passages. Rather, the distinction between the different types of law itself lends to the Church’s practice of recognizing that moral precepts are unchangeable because they are based in human nature itself. Ceremonial or liturgical laws are specifications of natural law obligations but are not themselves grounded in the natural law. The Church, for example, specifies which days her members are to practice penance or on which feasts they are obliged to participate in Mass (Holy Days of Obligation). The natural moral law obliges the regular and public worship of God (CCC no. 2176), and the Church then specifies how that natural law precept will be fulfilled corporately.{25}  

In addition to moral and ceremonial laws, the Old Testament contains juridical precepts related to the political kingdom. These laws can be understood to be fulfilled in the laws of the Church, especially in the Codes of Canon Law. One thinks of ecclesiastical laws related to temporal goods and the establishment of parishes, for example. By recognizing these distinctions between moral, ceremonial, and juridical precepts, Christians avoid the antinomianist error which would dismiss the need for or usefulness of the law. Rather, Christians should specify which types of laws of the Old Testament are somehow fulfilled in the New Law. The New Law most properly refers to the New Law of grace, by which God gives His grace both to fulfill the requirements of the moral law and to heal and elevate a person into His friendship. Secondly, the New Law refers to the expressions of the moral law of the New Testament, especially Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5–7).{26}  

Human law refers most properly to positive laws of civil society. These laws should be grounded in, but are not reducible to, the natural law. For example, not every prohibition of the natural law ought to be contained in civil law. The prohibition of the nineth and tenth commandments of the Decalogue, for example, should not be proscribed in civil law. Envious thoughts are sins against the tenth commandment and, for Christians, oppose the theological virtue of charity and thus are not perfective of the human person (ST II-II, q. 36). However, interior acts of envy are not and should not be subject to civil prohibition. 

In determining whether an act should be proscribed by civil law, one should consider whether or not such a law could be enforced. Not every moral evil should be prohibited by civil law. In fact, one of the reasons for the divine law is to proscribe and punish those acts which could not be prohibited reasonably by civil legislation. In the contemporary period, some invoke this consideration of the enforceability of civil law to argue that abortion ought not be criminalized. However, such persons fail to recognize that the reason why those who perform abortions ought to be subject to civil penalty is not simply that they have committed a gravely immoral act. Rather, the protection of human beings within a geographical jurisdiction remains an obligation of a civil government. For that reason, unborn children merit legal protection, regardless of the difficulty of enforcing such civil prohibitions. 

Ecclesiastical law contains elements of the natural and divine law but also includes specific stipulations that are subject to change. Positive ecclesiastical law occupies a kind of middle position between divine and human law. The Church’s law contains elements of the divine and natural law that are unchangeable and, at other points, contains positive specifications of those laws that certainly could be—and with some regularity are—altered. Moral theologians committed to the fullness of the Catholic tradition need to be attentive to the role that law occupies in their studies. They do well to express clearly that law takes its place as one of the ways in which God moves man to Himself. Moral laws are not arbitrary impositions or restrictions on man’s freedom but rather necessary and salutary pathways to his flourishing. 

VIII. Grace and Merit 

If one were to peruse the course catalog for a school of theology one could be surprised to discover the placement for the listing of a course on grace. Depending on the university or seminary and its theological bent, grace could be taught by a dogmatic theologian or a moralist. While these divisions at times can be exaggerated, in schools grounded in the Thomist tradition the course on grace would be taught by a moral theologian. St. Thomas Aquinas includes his treatise on grace at the end of the Prima secundae, the first part of his moral treatise in the Summa theologiae. This placement affords his students several advantages. Those who recognize the importance of grace for the Christian moral life immediately avoid the error of restricting moral matters to a list of prohibitions or obligations. Once one recognizes that the moral life involves the dynamic of man’s path toward union with God, only rendered possible by the gifts of God, the need for the inclusion of instruction on grace as a fundamental aspect of moral reflection becomes apparent. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines grace as “a participation in the life of God” (CCC no. 1997). The text continues: “It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an ‘adopted son’ he can henceforth call God ‘Father,’ in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church” (CCC no. 1997). Grace involves both a healing (gratia sanans) and an elevation (gratia elevans) beyond ordinary human nature. It both heals the wounds of sin and elevates the intelligent creature into God’s friendship.{27} By grace, a human person becomes something more than he is by nature. Those baptized in Christ are recipients of His grace and are now “adopted sons.” Small wonder Pope Francis could declare that “a baptized child is not the same as an unbaptized child” (General Audience, 8 January 2014). 

One common feature of standard Catholic teaching on grace remains a series of distinctions within grace itself. For example, Catholic theologians distinguish between created and uncreated grace.{28} Uncreated grace refers to the grace of the Incarnation, the way in which God dwells in the souls of the just, and the grace enjoyed in the beatific vision. These graces refer in some way to God Himself and thus are referred to as “uncreated graces.” All other graces are examples of created grace, or graces distinct from God Himself. Graces can be exterior, like the example of the saints or the sacred liturgy, or interior, as in how God prompts our intellect or will toward some perfective good. Such graces can be distinguished between illuminating (those which prompt the intellect to embrace some truth), and inspiring (those that strengthen the will toward some good). 

Additionally, St. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between gratuitous and sanctifying grace, operating and cooperating grace, and prevenient and subsequent grace (ST I-II, q. 111). The division between gratuitous and sanctifying grace is one with significant pastoral consequences. Speaking in tongues and other spiritual gifts represent gratuitous graces freely given for the building up of the Church. Some persons lacking sufficient formation in the faith can tend to overemphasize these graces and neglect the prime importance of sanctifying grace.{29} One good Confession is worth more than these other seemingly bolder expressions of piety. The distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace will prove important in the modern period. The discussion of the De Auxiliis controversy below involves this distinction in grace. Operating graces refer to those in which God acts in us, such as in the Baptism of an infant. Cooperating graces refer to those in which God moves man to respond freely to His promptings. 

One remaining fundamental distinction in a sound account of Catholic teaching on grace is that between actual and sanctifying (or habitual) grace. Far from mere academic hair-splitting, attention to this distinction, included in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC no. 2000), remains essential for a proper understanding of God’s action in the world.{30} Without the distinction between actual and sanctifying grace, it would be impossible not to collapse and equate every movement of God in the world with the full sanctification made possible through Baptism, the sacraments, and the infusion of sanctifying grace. Alternatively, without a clear recognition of the reality of actual grace, one could falsely conclude that, unless one enjoyed friendship with Christ in sanctifying grace, God was not active at all in a person’s life and movement toward Him. Indeed, one’s awareness of this distinction remains essential for any proper account of God’s activity in the life of man. 

The relation between divine grace and human freedom has enjoyed considerable attention throughout the history of the Church. Believers have long inquired how God’s knowledge and power relate to human freedom. As early as the fifth century, followers of the lay monk Pelagius (354–418) succumbed to the error that man could save himself without the necessary aid of God’s grace. Adherents to this Pelagian error misunderstood the nature of grace, believing that it simply made easier to achieve those acts which were already naturally possible for man. In reaction to St. Augustine’s corrective of the Pelagian heresy, some embraced a form of semi-Pelagianism which still neglected to recognize the primary role of divine grace in human salvation. As the Second Synod of Orange declared in the year 529 AD, “If anyone says that the grace of God can be conferred as a result of human prayer, but that it is not grace itself which makes us pray to God, he contradicts the prophet Isaiah, or the Apostle who says the same thing.”{31} 

In the modern period, debates about grace consumed Catholic theology and deeply divided various schools of thought. The seventeenth century De Auxiliis controversy, occasioned by the publication of the Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina’s Concordia in 1600, consumed considerable energy in the theological world in the early part of the seventeenth century. Molina (1535–1600) posited that, through what he called “divine middle knowledge,” God could know how someone would respond if given a particular grace. He would give such a grace based on the person’s would-be response. The Congregatio de Auxiliis (On the Divine Help) refers to the investigation into the doctrinal orthodoxy of Molina’s claims. For their part, the Jesuits defended Molina, and the Dominicans defended the traditional Augustinian and Thomistic position exemplified in the writings of Domingo Báñez (1528–1604). Dominicans objected to Molina’s formulation, asserting that it gave too much influence to man’s free will and not enough to the primacy of the divine grace.{32} Pope Paul V (r. 1605–1621) declared the controversy over when he insisted the Dominicans not refer to the Jesuit position as semi-Pelagian and, conversely, that the Jesuits not deride the Dominican view as Calvinist.{33}  Actually, this controversy has never been definitely resolved and continues to occupy significant theological attention today.{34}

Catholic teaching on grace maintains that justification involves an inner transformation and not a mere “covering over” of sin. Broadly speaking, theologians of the ecclesial communities of the Reformation tend to describe justification differently than Catholics. Those of the Reformed school generally emphasize the declaration of God that man has become righteous in His sight without the corresponding affirmation that grace has in fact healed and elevated man’s fallen nature to receive the gift of divine friendship.{35} 

Debates over the relationship between the natural and supernatural were the most significant theological disputes of the twentieth century. Henri de Lubac’s Surnaturel: Études historiques of 1946 remains among the most significant—and disputed—texts of that century.{36} De Lubac objected to the standard Catholic teaching of the time, which stated that man possesses a specific obediential potency to receive God’s grace. De Lubac wished to emphasize the ways in which man was made ready to receive the gift of grace. He feared that theologians of the time were overemphasizing the distinction between the natural and supernatural order. In subsequent texts, he tried to clarify that he did not intend to reject the gratuity of God’s grace but only wished to point out that man was made ready at his creation to receive grace. 

Catholic teaching on grace includes the possibility of merit in the Christian life. Merit refers to those acts which deserve some reward.{37} Strictly speaking, in the Christian dispensation, no merit obtains between God and man. However, God incorporates man into His saving plan and makes it possible for man to merit grace for himself and others. Theologians distinguish between condign and congruous merit. Meritum de condigno refers to merit strictly. For example, Christ’s passion and death merit for us redemption. Meritum de congruo refers to a less strict type of merit, as in a kind of friendly “right to reward.” Our prayers and sacrifices merit condignly for ourselves and congruously for the grace of conversion for others. The texts of the sacred liturgy make regular use of the term “merit”. Priests especially need to be attentive to the importance of merit in fulfilling their pastoral charge. Poor sinners need those already in the divine friendship to merit for them the grace of conversion. They cannot merit for themselves the so-called “first grace” necessary for conversion of life. Since the state of grace is necessary to merit for oneself and others, through their role as confessors, priests occupy an essential help for the possibility of merit. The frequent reception of the sacrament of Penance, recommended to all, remains necessary to continue to merit grace for oneself and others. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title Our Lady of Fatima relies on this teaching on the place of merit in the Christian life. The popular invocation to pray, fast and “offer up” suffering for poor sinners corresponds to Catholic teaching on grace and merit. 

IX. Magisterium 

New students of moral theology may be surprised to learn that courses in fundamental moral theology include a section on the Church’s Magisterium. Since courses in ecclesiology and Canon Law discuss both the teaching office of the Church and various canonical aspects of ecclesiastical matters, one might think that instruction in moral theology need not treat the Church’s Magisterium. Traditionally, however, courses in moral theology have included some reflection on the role of the Church in the Christian moral life. For its part, the third section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church includes a treatment of the Church as Mother and Teacher (CCC no. 2030–2046). 

The Catechism explains that the Church offers believers many forms of salutary assistance for living the Christian moral life. The Church provides authentic instruction about moral matters. Catholics find in the Magisterium sound teaching about how to live and how to love. Catholics of right thinking welcome interventions of the Magisterium about moral topics, especially in difficult cases. Rightly understood, magisterial teaching serves as a guide to authentic Christian living. It is neither an extrinsic, unwanted interference nor merely one opinion among others. In recent decades, the Church has offered specific guidance on a number of moral matters, from sexual ethics, to bioethics, to social teaching.{38}  

The Church offers believers good examples through the witness of the saints. Through the sacred liturgy, the administration of the sacraments, and other devotional prayers, the Church makes possible the sanctification and transformation in grace to which the Christian moral life is directed. Thus, the Church occupies an indispensable place in the Christian moral life. Once students gain a proper understanding of the discipline of moral theology, the role of the Church becomes clear. Moral theology takes its place as the study of how God shapes man and his acts to orient them toward a beatific fellowship with God Himself. The Church, through authentic instruction, the grace of the sacraments, and the example of the saints makes this transformation and elevation possible. 

Several questions arise when discussing the role of the Magisterium in moral matters. Some theologians seek to restrict the place of the Church’s instruction to matters of dogmatic faith or revealed moral instruction. Instead, the Church recognizes that she holds the authority to instruct even on matters of the natural law. Indeed, the Catechism affirms: “The authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary for salvation” (CCC no. 2036).{39} The Church aids the faithful to see clearly the requirements of the natural moral law in order to live in a rectified fashion. If the Church’s Magisterium did not enjoy this purview, her mission to save souls would be impeded. Grave violations of the natural law inhibit human flourishing and make human salvation more difficult. For this reason, in order to fulfill her sacred charge, the Church must assist the faithful to know and abide by the natural moral law (1 Tm 3:15). 

Confusion can also arise as to the extent to which the faithful (especially teachers of theology) must assent to the teaching of the Church on moral matters. The Church herself offers a variety of appropriate responses to various levels of the teaching of the Magisterium. The 1998 Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Profession of Faith from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offers explanations and examples of moral matters under three levels of magisterial teaching.{40} The first level of teaching includes those matters formally revealed by God to which believers must assent in faith (De fide credenda). For example, the Congregation teaches that the grave immorality of the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being should be understood as being revealed by God. The second level of magisterial teaching includes those things so closely connected to revelation that they are necessary to hold in order to assent to what has been revealed (De fide tenenda). Issues of historical or logical necessity, such as the valid election of a Roman Pontiff, the canonization of a saint, or the impossibility of the valid ordination of a woman, come under this category. The Congregation includes the illicit nature of euthanasia as an example of this level of magisterial teaching. The third category includes authentic teaching that has neither been put forward as infallibly proposed nor is so closely connected to revelation as to be a matter to be held definitively. The appropriate response of the faithful even to this non-infallible teaching is the religious submission of will and intellect (Obsequium religiosum). While some aspects of the Church’s social doctrine certainly come under the level of De fide credenda or De fide tenenda, other aspects would fall under this third category of instruction. Finally, we should observe that merely prudential statements or matters of papal or episcopal opinion are not yet necessarily authentic teaching. These statements should be given the respect they deserve as comments from bishops or a Roman Pontiff, but not every word spoken by such persons is necessarily intended to be an authentic expression of the Magisterium. 

The same 1998 document of the Congregation details how to describe the failure to assent properly to the various levels of magisterial teaching. The term heresy is reserved for the rejection of a truth of the first level of magisterial teaching, namely, a truth revealed by God. One who rejects a truth of the second category is no longer in full communion with the Church. One who dissents from a proposition of the third category is said to have proposed an opinion that is erroneous, dangerous, or rash. How theologians and others should receive the teaching of the various levels of magisterial authority has been the subject of some controversy. The 1990 Instruction Donum veritatis provided clarity on the matter. In it, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith taught that theologians who question Church teaching “should avoid turning to the ‘mass media’, but have recourse to the responsible authority, for it is not by seeking to exert the pressure of public opinion that one contributes to the clarification of doctrinal issues and renders service to the truth” (Donum veritatis, no. 30). This error exists on both the ideological left and right of ecclesial affairs. “Thinking with the Church” (sentire cum ecclesia) does not include appeals to mass media designed to convince prelates to change doctrinal formulations. Private appeals for greater clarity or polite deemphasis on imprecise formulations would seem more in conformity with the Church’s vision of how to receive the teaching of the Church. Even in cases in which prelates speak imprecisely or share personal opinions which may conflict with authentic Catholic teaching, faithful Catholics should still avoid the tactics of the political square or of revolutionary movements. Instead, recourse to prayer, legitimate canonical procedures (e.g., hierarchical recourse), and more discreet methods of persuasion will both prove more fruitful for the Church and conform in a greater way to the authentic ecclesial vision presented by the Church’s Magisterium. 

X. Theological Virtues 

Faith

The full flowering of the Christian life is best expressed as the life of the theological virtues animated by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.{41} What the Catechism calls “the theologal life” (CCC no. 2686) denotes a life transformed and elevated by grace and the theological virtues.{42} It falls to the pastors of the Church to assist Christian believers to recognize that their lives as followers of Christ involve much more than the mere avoidance of mortal sin. We examine now each of the three theological virtues, followed by a treatment of the cardinal virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

The decree Dei Filius of the First Vatican Council (1870) defined faith as “a supernatural virtue by which with the help of God’s grace we believe the truth revealed by God, not on account of the intrinsic evidence of the truths themselves perceived by natural reason but on account of the authority of God who revealed them” (Dei Filius, Chap. 3). Theologians distinguish between living and dead faith. Faith animated by the charity possessed by one in a state of grace is rightly called “living faith.” Faith possessed by one who has lost the virtue of charity through grave sin remains, however, the same virtue of faith. As St. Thomas affirms, “[L]iving and lifeless faith are not distinct habits” (ST II-II, q. 4, a. 4). This theological truth carries important pastoral consequences. The baptized who possess the habits of faith and hope retain these virtues and can exercise them even after they commit grave sin and suffer the resulting loss of charity. While this lifeless faith is not salvific, and while such a sinner requires reconciliation with Christ and the Church in the sacrament of Penance, one possessed of lifeless faith still believes that God can forgive him and, by means of the virtue of hope, desires it. This theological reality explains the privileged place of the baptized sinner in God’s plan of salvation.{43} 

Sins against the virtue of faith include voluntary doubt, incredulity, heresy, and apostasy (CCC no. 2089). Believers are required “to nourish and protect [their] faith with prudence and vigilance” (CCC no. 2088). While the Catechism includes schism as a sin against faith, for his part, St. Thomas Aquinas identifies it as a sin against charity (ST II-II, q. 39). In so doing, Aquinas emphasizes that to rupture communion with the Church attacks the bond of charity which should unite all believers. Nonetheless, the order of these sins (sinful doubt, incredulity, heresy, etc.) refers to the possibility of an ever deeper and more damaging sin against faith, which can ultimately lead to total apostasy. Sometimes confusion arises regarding the distinction between sins against faith generally and those to which the Church attaches a canonical penalty. Dissent from authentic teaching of the Church may not in every case be subject to canonical penalty, but it is nonetheless a sin against the virtue of faith. For that matter, impious dismissal of ecclesiastical customs or approved private revelation is not heresy subject to canonical penalty, but it still could be a sin against the virtue of faith. 

Hope

For many Christians, their understanding of the theological virtue of hope suffers from a misunderstanding, many times because of confusion regarding the distinction between the emotion of hope and the theological virtue of the same name. While these two realities enjoy certain similarities, important differences obtain between the emotion and the virtue. The emotion of hope takes its place in the sense appetites, whereas the virtue of hope is seated in the will. The theological virtue takes its place as a desiring power of the rational appetite toward those goods known to the believer by the virtue of faith. Hope most precisely is for Heaven and for the means of obtaining heavenly rewards. The Catechism defines hope as “the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness” (CCC no. 1817).  

Theologians identify four characteristics of the virtue of hope. Christians hope for that which can be obtained by grace. One cannot hope for the impossible. For example, one cannot by means of the virtue of hope desire salvation without conversion. In fact, such a disordered movement would be an example of the sin of presumption. Likewise, one cannot hope for the salvation of all intelligent, free creatures since the authentic teaching of the Church recognizes the eternal damnation of the demons.{44}  Only those things possible in faith can be subject to hope. Those who exercise the virtue of hope desire some future good. Those goods of which one is already in possession cannot be an object of the virtue of hope. For example, even during His earthly life the Lord possessed all the virtues except those unbecoming of a human nature hypostatically joined to the Godhead. Thus, during the course of His earthly life, the Lord did not possess faith or hope but instead already enjoyed the beatific vision.{45} The object of hope must be something arduous or difficult to obtain. One does not hope for that which is easy. Finally, one can only hope for those goods which are perfective of persons. The desire for anything that does not meet these criteria would not be a desire specifically of the theological virtue of hope.{46} 

The two vices that oppose hope are despair and presumption. Here again, believers sometimes confuse other sins with these grave offenses against hope. By presumption, one desires the rewards of the Christian life without the concomitant conversion necessary to obtain them. The person who, before sinning, intends to avail himself of the sacrament of Penance has not committed the sin of presumption. On the other hand, the person who desires Heaven without any resolve to abandon a sinful lifestyle presumes on God’s mercy. God’s forgiveness demands the purpose of amendment or desire to live in a rectified manner. Despairing persons fail to recognize that the goodness of God is not thwarted by their sinful behavior. Rather, those who despair need to beg for the grace to desire once again the good things God desires to give them. Spiritual authors identify unchastity and spiritual sloth as vices which can lead to despair. For this reason, habitually unchaste persons need to be strengthened in hope in order to avoid the despair that can accompany habitual grave sin. 

The virtue of hope is perfected by the gift of fear of the Lord. This gift of the Holy Spirit ensures that the fear of the loss of Heaven passes from the servile fear of punishment to the full filial fear of offending the Lord. Catholics benefit from knowing that servile fear does not represent a bad act, but, in fact, represents the beginning movement of turning away from sin and toward the good God. As the Council of Trent taught, “If anyone saith, that the fear of hell, whereby, by grieving for our sins, we flee unto the mercy of God, or refrain from sinning, is a sin, or makes sinners worse; let him be anathema” (Council of Trent, Session VI, Canon VIII). Theologians designate the fear that includes elements of both servile and filial fear as initial fear. 

Charity

St. Thomas Aquinas begins his treatise on charity by asking if charity is a type of friendship (ST II-II, q. 23, a. 1). He recognizes with Aristotle that not every kind of love can be characterized as a friendship. Love can be concupiscible (where one desires some good for oneself), or benevolent (where one wishes some good for another). The love of wine or candy represents a concupiscible love. Benevolent but not concupiscible love may have the quality of a friendship. Specifically, St. Thomas teaches that benevolent love with mutual communication can be said to characterize the friendship of charity. This benevolent love requires a mutuality or certain—even if limited—equality to take its place as a type of friendship. The Catechism defines charity as “the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC no. 1822). The Council of Trent identified “the inner renewal of man” as the result of justification.{47} In Baptism, one really does become a friend of God, and this friendship is the chief characteristic of charity. Christian reflection on charity as friendship was taken up in a particular way by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) and St. Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167) before being formalized in the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. 

The acts of joy, peace, and mercy represent the interior acts of charity. Beneficence, almsgiving, and fraternal correction stand as the exterior acts of the same virtue. Love of God and love of neighbor are two acts of the same theological virtue of charity. St. Thomas explains that “the aspect under which our neighbor is to be loved, is God, since what we ought to love in our neighbor is that he may be in God. Hence it is clear that it is specifically the same act whereby we love God, and whereby we love our neighbor” (ST II-II, q. 25, a. 1). For this reason, acts of Christian charity toward a neighbor remain acts of the theological virtue of charity. The object of such an act of theological virtue is God Himself. 

Hatred opposes charity directly, while sloth and envy oppose the joy we should have in God and neighbor respectively. Acts of envy offer no pleasure but merely make the envious person sad. Many sins confer a fleeting pleasure but ultimately lead to unhappiness. The immediate sadness which accompanies envy reminds us that no sin is ultimately happiness-inducing. Sloth and envy are capital or deadly sins in that they lead to a series of other vices. The sins of discord, contention, schism, war, strife, and sedition oppose peace. Sins of scandal oppose the beneficence proper to Christian charity. Contemporary persons would do well to recall that scandal as a sin against charity represents, in principle, a more deeply defective act than sins against the moral virtues. That is to say, the avoidance of scandal—and the recognition of its sinful quality—remains an essential feature of Catholic moral teaching.’ 

The Catechism also lists the sins of indifference, ingratitude, lukewarmness, sloth or acedia, and hatred of God as sins against charity (CCC no. 2094). Much like the sins against faith, (voluntary doubt, incredulity, heresy, apostasy) these acts cause an ever further weakening of the theological virtue they oppose. One might begin with a certain indifference toward the Mass or other spiritual goods and move slowly toward ingratitude for this greatest of God’s gifts. In time, lukewarmness and eventually the deadly sin of sloth may set in. Recall that envy opposes the joy proper to the good of our neighbor, whereas sloth or acedia opposes the joy proper to the things of God. Acedia, the so-called “noonday devil,” is the capital vice whereby one fails to realize the joy proper to the worship of God. Monks found midday to offer an occasion for temptation toward this vice. In any event, acts of charity whereby a Christian does not merely tolerate another or submit to God, but instead truly loves Him and his neighbor, stand as the highpoint of the Christian moral life. 

XI. Moral Virtues 

Prudence

Francis II, Duke of Britany, died in 1488 and was laid to rest in the Cathedral of Nantes. His tomb offers salutary instruction about the moral life. Since the turn of the sixteenth century, the corners of the duke’s final resting place have been adorned with statues of the four cardinal virtues. The statue representing lady prudence holds a mirror. This depiction of what the Catechism calls “the charioteer of the virtues” portrays prudence as the power to examine honestly one’s own life (CCC no. 1806).{48}  Many persons confuse prudence with a certain caution or hesitation in moral matters. On the contrary, prudent persons pursue goods promptly, without vacillation or indecision. Theologians distinguish between prudence in its acquired and infused forms. Traditionally, this distinction refers to prudence in natural matters judged according to right reason (acquired prudence) as distinct from infused prudence, which takes account of Christian revelation or the “new things” Christ introduces into the world. The gift of counsel perfects prudence so that those living in Christ and moved by His grace can make judgments on a supra-human mode when necessary. 

Theologians identify eight integral or quasi-integral parts of prudence. As an integral part of the virtue, each of these parts are necessary for the full exercise of the virtue: memory, understanding, docility, shrewdness, reason, foresight, circumspection, and caution (ST II-II, q. 49). In order to behave in a prudent fashion, one needs a certain memory of past activities. For this reason, those without any experience in a given area often struggle to choose the right means toward given ends. The phrase “there is no substitute for experience” expresses well the need for this first of the integral parts of prudence. It is no small wonder that on the Nantes tomb lady prudence holds a mirror. Foresight is also an essential part of every prudent act. Those who act prudently have some awareness of what is likely to result from their action. Those without any sense of what consequences may follow their actions are unlikely to behave prudently. In addition to being able to examine accurately their past activity, those possessed of prudence are able to look ahead.  

The subjective parts of prudence refer to the various areas in which the virtue of prudence will prove necessary. While the cardinal virtue of prudence is fully present in each of these subject matters, they are really distinct enough subjects to require a distinct, subjective part of prudence. For example, prudence on the battlefield is distinct from political prudence or the domestic prudence needed in the home. Likewise, the prudence of a pastor is related to but distinct from the unique form of episcopal prudence needed for governing a local church at the diocesan level. 

Tradition asserts that acts of prudence unfold in three stages. First, one takes counsel. This deliberative element is said to be guided by the potential part of prudence, which makes effective deliberating possible. It is usually referred to by the Greek term euboulia. Those possessed of this potential part of prudence recognize that, before taking action, they must take and heed the appropriate counsel. This includes hearing from those possessed of some wisdom in the matter. For Catholics, the Magisterium of the Church represents the most sound counsel. Those in possession of infused prudence will recognize the wisdom of the Church’s guidance in moral matters. Others fail to take sufficient counsel or, alternatively, take too much counsel from too many persons or from the wrong parties altogether. Second, prudence requires a sound judgment. Ethicists distinguish between making judgments in ordinary matters and the distinct potential part of prudence in making judgments in extraordinary affairs. This distinction is seen in ordinary experience. Some persons make reasonable judgments in ordinary affairs but cannot seem to do the same when rare or extraordinary challenges confront them. Here again, ethicists utilize the Greek words synesis and gnome to designate good judgment in ordinary and extraordinary affairs respectively. Finally, prudence requires the capacity to be able to command. This third and principal part of prudence does not include potential parts, as it is the chief act of any exercise of the virtue of prudence. Both inquiry and judgment fall short of the principal act of prudence and thus are reckoned as potential parts. 

Justice

Of all the virtues that form a good human life, justice stands as the most apparent. Even children immediately recognize when an injustice has been committed. For his part, St. Thomas Aquinas declared that all the commandments of the Decalogue in one way or another speak of justice (ST II-II, q. 122, a. 1). Issues of justice always involve some relation ad alterum (toward another).{49} Most basically, justice deals with operations toward God and other persons. The virtues of fortitude and temperance, on the other hand, deal with passions and need not involve another person. Sins against justice induce some injury toward another party and therefore demand restitution. Sins against the virtues of personal discipline (e.g., fortitude and temperance) do not. For example, one who overindulges in food at lunch should repent of the intemperance and may consider fasting as a good spiritual practice. However, the intemperate eater at one meal is not obliged to eat less at another. The intemperate eating induced no injury to another which would require a restorative act. On the other hand, a thief must not only repent of his wrongdoing but also should make restitution for the goods he has pilfered. It is possible, of course, that one may commit an intemperate act or a cowardly one which also involves an injustice to another party. A quarrelling drunk or reckless soldier may put others in harm’s way and may owe them restitution for the injustice committed against them. For his part, Aquinas recalls Aristotle’s teaching that “pleasure above all corrupts the estimate of prudence” (ST II-II, q. 53, a. 6, quoting Ethics, vi, 5.). In particular, Aquinas identifies lust as corrosive of the exercise of prudence. Small wonder, then, that it is the pure of heart who are promised to see God (Mt 5:8). 

The virtue of epikeia takes its place as a potential part of justice.{50} Epikeia ensures that a person knows when following a positive civil or ecclesiastical law to the letter would be contrary to justice. A husband driving to the hospital with his pregnant wife who is about to give birth acts justly by exceeding the posted speed limit while still driving at a prudent speed. In such a case, following the civil law to the letter would be contrary to justice. Civil, and at times merely ecclesiastical, law cannot capture every particularity of life. The natural law does not admit of such exceptions. Therefore, those who disregard natural law truths prohibiting acts of unchastity, for example, act viciously when they claim epikeia permits acts of unchastity in difficult cases. It does not. 

Several important virtues allied to justice include affability, liberality, religion, and truthfulness. The virtue of affability ensures friendly relations between persons. This virtue excludes both the boorish person constantly fighting with others as well as the obsequious person who is overly intimate or friendly in a false way. Both vices render friendships difficult to sustain. The one who recognizes affability as a virtue is afforded several benefits. Affability is not easy to place in an obligation-based system of moral reasoning. The question to be asked is what, in justice, another deserves. For example, in relations with another person, we can say that the other deserves a friendly greeting and not an unjustified physical fight. At the same time, the virtue of affability recalls that every social relation should be governed by right reason. Those possessed of this moral virtue of affability instinctively know how to get along with others without being either antagonistic or excessive in praise or desire for friendship. 

The virtue of liberality is opposed by greed and prodigality. This virtue governs how one parts with material goods in a just way. Interestingly, St. Thomas identifies magnificence or munificence as a virtue related not to justice but to fortitude (ST II-II, q. 134). Generally speaking, it falls to the virtue of liberality to part with money easily. Those possessed of liberality are neither imprudent in the distribution of their goods nor apt to keep everything for themselves. When dealing with large expenditures, Aquinas recognizes that the virtue necessary to behave well is more akin to courage. In this case, the magnificent or munificent person will know how to spend well, again neither spending too much nor too little. Those given to the alternative vice of meanness (parvificentia) will not be up to the challenge of a large project. This holds true for the Church’s pastors as much as for persons engaged in secular projects. 

The virtue of truth or truthfulness (ST II-II, q. 109) stands between the sins of lying and the indiscreet revelation of truth. Many contemporary persons conceive of truthfulness as merely the avoidance of lying. However, in recognizing truth as a moral virtue, we see that it must observe a reasonable mean. Both lies and indiscretions are sins against truthfulness. The truthful person habitually avoids both lies and indiscretions. Instead, the truthful person shares truths in the right moment. Not every revelation of truth conforms to the truth about the good of persons and communities. Detractions, for example, are not lies per se, but they do oppose the virtue of truth. Not every sin needs to be shared widely. Indeed, in principle, sins are a matter for the confessional and not for public discourse. Under the eighth commandment of the Decalogue, the Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns the sins of “flattery, adulation, [and] complaisance” (CCC no. 2480). According to St. Thomas, the complaisant person is one who praises others exceedingly with the intention of pleasing them. If one renders praise with the intention of receiving some personal gain, the person is said to be an adulator or flatterer.{51}  

Justice in its infused form deals with the building up the Church. By acts of infused justice, specifically the infused virtue of religion, Christians worship the true God and contribute to the building up of the Church. The gift of piety, whereby one is moved to devotional and other pious activity beyond any measure required by natural law or ecclesiastical precept, perfects justice. The one who attends daily Mass devoutly or participates in many devotional exercises appears to be possessed of the gift of piety. One can distinguish the gift of piety from the virtue of piety, itself a part of justice, which renders one able to give to parents and country—the principles of our existence—what is their just due. 

Fortitude

While the virtue of prudence shapes the practical intellect and the virtue of justice is seated in the will or rational appetite, the virtues of personal discipline, fortitude and temperance, take their place as virtues of the sense appetites. Reflection on the place of these virtues leads one to recognize immediately that the moral life includes more than the mere modification of external behavior. Through the transforming power of grace, the concupiscible and irascible appetites possess the capacity for transformation and elevation. Some voluntarist thinkers emphasize what sorts of activities someone may engage in or refrain from to avoid moral fault but then fail to consider the importance of how such a person can become connaturalized to good acts. Those schooled in a virtue-based account of the moral life, on the other hand, recognize that even if acts of the will can overcome temptations against temperance, the irascible appetite is more difficult to control voluntaristicly, that is, by dry acts of the will. Persons given over to impatience, for example, require the power of fortitude to overcome such sinful inclinations. 

Fortitude refers to the moral virtue “that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good” (CCC no. 1808). As a moral virtue which observes a rational mean, the virtue of fortitude excludes either cowardice or recklessness. While foolhardy persons may appear more akin to courageous ones than cowards, in truth neither the coward nor the reckless person truly lives the virtue of fortitude. As Josef Pieper explains, “The virtue of fortitude has nothing to do with a purely vital, blind, exuberant, daredevil spirit.” Indeed, Pieper continues: “The man who recklessly and indiscriminately courts any kind of danger is not for that reason brave; all he proves is that, without preliminary examination or distinction, he considers all manner of things more valuable than the personal intactness of which he risks for their sake” (Pieper, Four Cardinal Virtues, 124). 

Because fortitude refers to firmness in difficulties in any subject matter, it does not admit of different subjective parts. One can speak of quasi-integral or potential parts in that there exist lesser difficulties to be faced than death itself. Thus, magnificence, confidence, patience, and perseverance are all counted as parts of fortitude (ST II-II, q. 128). Magnanimity occupies an important place in the Christian, and, in a particular way, the priestly life. This important virtue is opposed on the one hand to pusillanimity, or a certain smallness of soul. This vice resists unreasonably the movement toward great or honorable things. Magnanimity is required to pursue great tasks. At the other extreme, this virtue of magnanimity is opposed by the vices of ambition, presumption, and vainglory. Ambitious persons seek the rewards of honorable things without desiring the great thing for its own sake. Presumptuous persons, in this context, harbor desires beyond any reasonable assessment of their capabilities. Those who sin by vainglory believe erroneously that they are wholly responsible for their achievements. Such persons fail to recognize that every good they accomplish has God at its origin. 

The training of priests requires a tutelage in magnanimity. Since the virtues are connected and cannot be lived separately (ST I-II, q. 65, a. 1), truly magnanimous persons also excel in humility. In order to fulfil their sacred charge, priests need to desire to do great things for God. They cannot settle for the easy or the small. True humility, a potential part of temperance, does not require one to eschew great or important tasks. On the contrary, the humble person fulfils those tasks to which he is assigned, especially those assigned by a legitimate ecclesiastical authority. Thus, a magnanimous priest accepts with joy difficult assignments or ones which require some deeper sacrifice on his part. 

The sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick holds a special connection to the virtue of fortitude. The doubt and despair that often accompany grave illness and approaching death require a divine solution. The sacrament of holy Anointing supplies this divine remedy. By attaching itself to the irascible appetite, holy Anointing unites a sick and dying Christian to the Cross of Christ. In so doing, the fear that can accompany such suffering is united to Christ. A baptized person receives this healing remedy in the irascible sense appetite.{52} Just as the sacrament of Matrimony gives Christians the grace to bear with tranquility the burdens of married life, likewise holy Anointing provides an increase of fortitude to bear the particular burden of sickness and approaching death.{53} 

Temperance

Artistic portrayals of the virtue of temperance often depict lady temperance restraining violent movement by means of a rope or chain bridle in one hand and a ruler in the other. It is true that temperance involves a restraining movement of the concupiscible appetite by means of a measure. The virtue of temperance ensures one consumes the right amount of food or drink or enjoys the reasonable measure of sexual pleasure given the varieties of human experiences and situations. For some persons the right measure of sexual pleasure is zero (e.g., celibate priests). At the same time, one could misconstrue temperance as only exercising this restraining effect on the human appetite. In point of fact, temperance for some persons could mean the virtue by which they consume more food or drink or abandon a false view of the evil of sense pleasure. All in all, temperance ensures the right measure by moderating the sense appetite, maintaining a balance between extremes. 

Theologians and ethicists identify the integral parts of temperance as honesty (honestas) or decency and shame (verecundia). By means of these necessary virtues, temperate persons are inclined to move toward the honest good and away from shameful pleasures. For example, a person possessed of temperance by means of the integral part of shame will flee instinctively from displays of unchastity. One possessed of mere continence might refrain from unchaste acts. However, a well-developed sense of chastity also includes a sense of shame, an appetitive movement away from unchaste expressions. Even temperate persons may still recognize a good as desirable without actually desiring it. One could cognitively recognize that a certain pleasure could follow the consumption of food or drink or the commission of sexual acts without actually engaging in a movement toward the embrace of such intemperate acts. Temperance in these integral parts means that, without the need for a lot of discursive reasoning, one moves toward goods and away from evils. There is a connaturality toward the right measure of sense pleasure among those persons possessed of the virtue of temperance. 

The subjective parts of temperance are usually identified as abstinence, sobriety, and chastity, depending upon the object of the virtuous act. In each case, these subjective parts deal with a unique subject matter and sufficiently distinct object. Those abstemious with food may not always be likewise sober in terms of drink. While they are related in that the cardinal virtue of temperance governs the moderation of both pleasures, food and drink are sufficiently distinct to require a distinct subjective part of temperance to govern activities related to these distinct objects. The virtue of sobriety deals with intoxicating drink and the virtue of abstinence with ordinary food stuffs. In both cases, it should be noted that despite common English usage, abstinence and sobriety do not indicate the avoidance of food or drink altogether but the temperate consumption of both. For some persons and certainly in some circumstances, the right measure of drink is zero. However, in ordinary affairs the virtue of sobriety refers to the capacity to ensure the right measure of drink in a given circumstance. 

Various potential parts fall under temperance for a variety of reasons. Continence (ST II-II, q. 155) refers to the capacity to refrain habitually from unchaste or otherwise intemperate behavior but without the ease, promptness, and joy that would characterize the abstinent, sober, or chaste person. Continent persons do not yet have a sufficiently ordered sense appetite to choose connaturally the right measure of a good that leads to a sense pleasure. Those with deeply disordered sexual appetites, even if they refrain habitually from incontinent acts, are not for that reason necessarily chaste. The full virtue of chastity, as opposed to continence, requires rightly ordered appetite and a certain ease in the exercise of the virtue.{54}

Other potential parts of temperance include meekness, humility, and studiousness (ST II-II, q. 157, 161, 166). These virtues fall short of the definition of the cardinal virtue of temperance in that they deal with moderating goods other than the sense pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Yet, each virtue plays the important role of moderating the passion of anger, the desire for praise, and the desire for knowledge respectively. In each case, we are dealing with a desire that, when tempered, is for the good. Each of these virtues under consideration are moral virtues, which means they observe a mean. Insensitivity or stoicism, self-deprecation, and negligence in study all fall short of the right measure of right reason relative to the virtue. Alternatively, intemperate anger, pride, and curiosity each pass beyond the measure. A false humility which excludes magnanimity, for example, would pass into exaggerated self-deprecation and actually fall short of the virtue of humility. This is because true humility tempers the desire for praise while still allowing a person to desire the excellent. 

XII. Gifts of the Holy Spirit 

As we have said, the transformation in Christ made possible by sanctifying grace involves more than behavioral modification or the fulfillment of certain duties or religious practices. Christians do not seek simply to avoid certain activities or commit themselves to engage in other ones. Rather, a full transformation in Christ by means of His Spirit allows one to live “in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). The gifts of the Holy Spirit constitute an essential element of the transformed human person who “lives in Christ.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the gifts of the Holy Spirit as “permanent dispositions which make man docile in following the promptings of the Holy Spirit” (CCC no. 1830). Isaiah the prophet declares that from Jesse’s line the anointed one will possess “a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord” (Is 11:1–2), proving that these gifts are of Biblical origin. 

Each of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit perfects the exercise of one or another of the theological or moral virtues. Even in the exercise of the infused moral virtues, the measure remains some human good, whereas with the gifts, the believer is taken up into Christ acting in and through him (Gal 2:20).{55}  One cannot, by a mere act of the will, simply decide to live by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As the name suggests, the gifts are habits by which one can respond to the instinctus of the Holy Spirit. They make man docile to God’s promptings. For example, the gifts of the Holy Spirit supply the answer to how it is that God gives the words to speak in difficult situations (Mt 10:19).{56} The Toulouse Dominican Michel Labourdette (1908–1990) penned the classic article on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité (“Dons du Saint-Esprit,” 1610–35). In this entry, he credits the Portuguese Dominican John of St. Thomas (1589–1644) with working out the intricacies of the dynamics of the gifts.{57}

The gifts of the Holy Spirit belong to the just. That is to say, they are received in Baptism, strengthened in Confirmation, lost in grave sin, and restored in the sacrament of Penance. As Pope Leo XIII explains, “[H]e who lives the life of divine grace, and acts by the fitting virtues as by means of faculties, has need of those seven gifts which are properly attributed to the Holy Ghost. By means of them the soul is furnished and strengthened so as to obey more easily and promptly His voice and impulse” (Divinum Illus Munus, no. 9). By means of the gifts, the individual believer is able to respond to the prompting of God toward the embrace of a particular good, in either the practical or speculative order. Put simply, the gifts shape how Christians love. 

The Catholic theological tradition pairs each gift to a particular virtue. Thus, faith is perfected by both the gifts of understanding and knowledge. By means of understanding, the faithful can penetrate deeply the mysteries of faith. For this reason, an uninstructed but devout believer intuitively understands the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Even without a lot of discursive reasoning or theological jargon, by means of this gift, the believer understands Our Lady’s virginity. In a related way, by means of the gift of knowledge, believers come to know the goods of the created world in light of faith and realize intuitively how to utilize them for the good. 

The gift of fear of the Lord perfects both the theological virtue of hope and the moral virtue of temperance. The reason is clear: fear of the Lord moves one away from those things which could compromise the promise of Heaven. Excesses of sense pleasure—that is, sins of intemperance—stand as an obvious example of such acts which one moved by fear of the Lord would avoid. For example, fear of the Lord enables one to instinctively flee displays of unchastity. This fear includes both the fear of punishment (servile fear) and the fear of offending the good God, our Heavenly Father. This latter expression is, properly speaking, filial fear. Fear of the Lord aids the virtue of hope, enabling those moved by this gift to cling to the promise of heavenly reward. 

The gift of fortitude perfects the moral virtue of the same name. Theologians distinguish between acts of acquired fortitude, infused fortitude, and the gift of fortitude. In each case, a person begins or continues to pursue some good—natural or supernatural—despite a present difficulty. The person does not pursue the challenge for its own sake but neither does its presence deter the pursuer toward the embrace of the good. In the case of infused fortitude, the good pursued has been revealed by God (e.g., the good of the Church). In a related way, the Christian pursues a natural good (e.g. the good of the nation-state) but through the power of God’s grace bestowed in the infused virtue. Acts under the influence of the gift of fortitude, on the other hand, take on a more divine rather than human character. These acts come under the influence of grace in a superabundant way. They are characterized by lightness or supra-human strength. One thinks of the courage of the martyrs who mocked their persecutors or joked with bystanders. Such persons have come under the influence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and demonstrate in such cases the presence of the gift of fortitude. 

As explained above, justice is perfected by piety. Those given over to devotional practices that exceed any required measure (extended periods of Eucharistic adoration, for example) manifest the presence of this gift of piety. Prudence is aided by the gift of counsel. Counsel does not so much bestow new information as it produces a connaturality with the good. One possessed of counsel knows intuitively how to navigate challenging situations without the need for discursive reasoning or excessive rational consideration. Counsel makes evident that the gifts are largely a supra-rational reality. Father Romanus Cessario explains that “the gift of counsel does not bestow new information” like a data download.{58} Instead, the gift of counsel allows the Christian to come to know how to behave in a variety of circumstances according to the mode of “connaturality.” Pope John Paul II spoke about this mode of knowledge in Veritatis splendor when he wrote that “knowledge of God’s law in general is certainly necessary, but it is not sufficient: what is essential is a sort of ‘connaturality’ between man and the true good” (no. 64). The passage contains a footnote to St. Thomas’s teaching on connaturality as it relates to the gift of wisdom (ST II-II, q. 45, a. 2). Finally, the gift of wisdom perfects charity itself, shaping how the saints love. St. Thomas explains that for believers “the result of wisdom is to make the bitter sweet, and labor a rest” (ST II-II, q. 45, a. 3).{59} 

Conclusion 

In June of 2022, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops promulgated the sixth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation in the United States of America. Upon reception of the recognitio of the Holy See, this document enjoyed the force of law in the dioceses of the United States. The text requires that seminarians in formation for American dioceses study moral theology in light of the 1993 moral encyclical of John Paul II. The Program of Priestly Formation reads: “Moral theology should be taught in a way that draws deeply from Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, in particular Veritatis Splendor” (no. 331). This same instruction indicates that education in moral theology should draw from the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas and “illustrate that the ultimate end of graced human acts is the beatitude to which God calls us: a participation in the life of the Blessed Trinity.”{60} In other words, the Church desires that future priests receive moral instruction that avoids both a reductive casuistry and a relativist laxism. Future priests deserve the full breadth of the Church’s wisdom on moral matters. 

Catholics, as well as others, will seek specific guidance on particular moral topics. Many such manuals, especially from the pre-conciliar period, exist to serve this purpose.{61} At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the overall vision of the moral life as put forward in Veritatis splendor remains in view. Human action, under the influence of grace, the virtues, and the gifts, shapes man toward God, his ultimate end. The truths asserted by the Church’s Magisterium through the ages rightly present the moral life as happiness-inducing and not freedom-restricting. Confessors and those who exercise care of souls do well to instruct those entrusted to them about the moral life according to this fulsome vision of the splendor of Christ’s truth.