Explanation of Catholic Morals | Page 7

more solid than imaginations, they are in
nowise standards of morality, and should not be considered as such.
The first is sometimes known as a "rubber" conscience, on account of
its capacity for stretching itself to meet the exigencies of a like or a
dislike.
Laxity may be the effect of a simple illusion. Men often do wrong
unawares. They excuse themselves with the plea: "I did not know any
better." But we are not here examining the acts that can be traced back
to self-illusion; rather the state of persons who labor under the
disability of seeing wrong anywhere, and who walk through the
commandments of God and the Church with apparent unconcern. What

must we think of such people in face of the fact that they not only could,
but should know better! They are supposed to know their catechism.
Are there not Catholic books and publications of various sorts? What
about the Sunday instructions and sermons? These are the means and
opportunities, and they facilitate the fulfilment of what is in us a
bounden duty to nourish our souls before they die of spiritual hunger.
A delicate, effeminate life, spiritual sloth, and criminal neglect are
responsible for this kind of laxity.
This state of soul is also the inevitable consequence of long years
passed in sin and neglect of prayer. Habit blunts the keen edge of
perception. Evil is disquieting to a novice; but it does not look so bad
after you have done it a while and get used to it. Crimes thus become
ordinary sins, and ordinary sins peccadillos.
Then again there are people who, like the Pharisees of old, strain out a
gnat and swallow a camel. They educate themselves up to a strict
observance of all things insignificant. They would not forget to say
grace before and after meals, but would knife the neighbor's character
or soil their minds with all filthiness, without a scruple or a shadow of
remorse.
These are they who walk in the broad way that leadeth to destruction.
In the first place, their conscience or the thing that does duty for a
conscience, is false and they are responsible for it. Then, this sort of a
conscience is not habitually certain, and laxity consists precisely in
contemning doubts and passing over lurking, lingering suspicions as
not worthy of notice. Lastly, it has not the quality of common prudence
since the judgment it pronounces is not supported by plausible reasons.
Its character is dishonesty.
A scruple is a little sharp stone formerly used as a measure of weight.
Pharmacists always have scruples. There is nothing so torturing as to
walk with one or several of these pebbles in the shoe. Spiritual scruples
serve the same purpose for the conscience. They torture and torment;
they make devotion and prayer impossible, and blind the conscience;
they weaken the mind, exhaust the bodily forces, and cause a disease

that not infrequently comes to a climax in despair or insanity.
A scrupulous conscience is not to be followed as a standard of right and
wrong, because it is unreasonable. In its final analysis it is not certain,
but doubtful and improbable, and is influenced by the most futile
reasons. It is lawful, it is even necessary, to refuse assent to the dictates
of such a conscience. To persons thus afflicted the authoritative need of
a prudent adviser must serve as a rule until the conscience is cured of
its morbid and erratic tendencies.
It is not scruples to walk in the fear of God, and avoid sin and the
occasions thereof: that is wisdom; nor to frequent the sacraments and
be assiduous in prayer through a deep concern for the welfare of one's
soul: that is piety.
It is not scruples to be at a loss to decide whether a thing is wrong or
right; that is doubt; nor to suffer keenly after the commission of a
grievous sin; that is remorse.
It is not scruples to be greatly anxious and disturbed over past
confessions when there is a reasonable cause for it: that is natural.
A scrupulous person is one who, outside these several contingencies, is
continually racked with fears, and persists, against all evidence, in
seeing sin where there is none, or magnifies it beyond all proportion
where it really is.
The first feature--empty and perpetual fears--concerns confessions
which are sufficient, according to all the rules of prudence; prayers,
which are said with overwrought anxiety, lest a single distraction creep
in and mar them; and temptations, which are resisted with inordinate
contention of mind, and perplexity lest consent be given.
The other and more desperate feature is pertinacity of judgment. The
scrupulous person will ask advice and not believe a word he is told.
The more information he gets, the worse he becomes,