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Dear Father,

a doubt: but if in order to sin, as the Church teaches, full knowledge and deliberate consent are required, what fault had those who, during the first persecutions, threatened with death, bent on giving divine worship to the emperor of Rome?

They were threatened, they were not free in their will, nor can any guilt be attributed to them; yet the heroism of the Holy Martyrs cannot be forgotten and indeed is always before us.

Can you explain this point to me?

Priest’s answer 

Dear Giuseppe,

1. St. Thomas says that actions performed out of fear are a mixture of voluntary and involuntary.

Indeed, he says that “they are more voluntary than involuntary”.

2. The merchant who throws the goods into the sea to escape pirates performs a voluntary and involuntary action at the same time.

It is involuntary because he would never want to throw the goods into the sea. He worked hard and endured long journeys to acquire it.

3. But in the imminence of being captured, the only solution is to lighten the ship, deciding to throw the goods into the sea.

4. St. Thomas gives another example: “Throwing goods into the sea becomes a voluntary act during a storm, for fear of danger. But considering that the action is performed out of fear, it is involuntary in a relative sense” (Summa theologica, I-II, 6, 6 T-N)

5. To come to your example, whoever burned incense to idols to escape death was certainly carrying out an action under fear.

But this fear did not take away his freedom.

For this reason the martyrs preferred to bear witness to the point of bloodshed rather than deny the Lord.

The loss of life was involuntary. Instead, the act of love for the Lord was voluntary.

6. On the contrary, those who gave in to the persecutors had the freedom to resist their threats.

Therefore sacrificing to idols remained a voluntary act, although performed under fear.

7. So fear, however serious, never excuses one from an intrinsically bad action.

Therefore it is never permissible to blaspheme, cause abortion, deny the faith, etc… for fear of losing life.

It is necessary to be willing to sacrifice life for such great goods.

8. However, it should be added that the greater the fear, the more what is voluntary decreases.

And, if it takes away the ability to deliberate by paralyzing the use of reason, it also takes away the voluntary.

So to the extent that it removes the voluntariness of the act, it also diminishes or completely eliminates the responsibility for what is done.

I bless you and wish you a peaceful and holy Christmas.

I willingly remember you and your loved ones in prayer.

Father Angelo