Moral theology and the historian’s conscience: is there a license to besmirch?

ABSTRACT

This article examines how Catholic moral theologians analysed the constraints imposed by the rights of the dead to their good name on historical writing and research. The concern of Catholic moral theologians for persons’ rights to their good name coupled with their concern for the rights of dead persons placed serious moral constraints on the work of historians. At the same time, from very early on, these moral theologians showed appreciation of the benefits of historical writing, including writing on the less public aspects of historical figures. The general tendency was to allow historians some moral elbow room. There was, however, a clear red line: what was and had always been secret could not be revealed, regardless of the benefits. By the end of the nineteenth century, the authors of the casuist manualists revised the traditional doctrine and removed the moral red line that had been accepted until then. Historians could now reveal what had always been secret. This doctrinal development was the result of two historical events: the opening of the Vatican Archives and allowing propagandists and journalists within politically organized Catholic conservatism to fight as equals in the printed media.

KEYWORDS:

• Historical writing
• moral theology
• casuistry
• Catholic Church
• reputation

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andreas Blank for organizing the workshop Esteem and Self-Esteem in Ancient, Early Modern and Contemporary Ethics and Political Philosophy in Klagenfurt and the participants for their comments. I would also like to thank the audience at the presentation of this paper at Universidad Panamericana, Mexico DF, and to Maurcio Lecón Rosales, Virginia Aspe Armella, and Silvina Vidal for their comments and help.

Notes

1 Szaszdi, “The Historiography of the Republic of Ecuador,” 508; Suárez, Historia General de la República del Ecuador. In vol. 4, published in 1894 (at 48–57), Suárez recounts a scandal in Quito’s the Convent of Santa Catalina de Sienna involving sexual relations between the nuns and two ecclesiastical figures. In vol. 5, published in 1894, González Suárez describes and decries (at 500–10) the relaxation of morals of the religious orders and their houses in colonial Quito. Abbreviations: cap. = chapter, concl. = conclusion, contr. = controversy, d. = disputation, dub. = doubt, lib. = book, membr. = part, n. = paragraph number, q. = question, sect. = section, tract. = treatise.

2 Suárez, Defensa de mi criterio histórico.

3 See Gallois, “Ethics and Historical Research”; Karamanski, Ethics and Public History: An Anthology; Carr, Flynn, and Makkreel, The Ethics of History.

4 De Baets, “A Code of Ethics,” 188–96 (emphasis added).

5 On late Scholastic views concerning the nature of reputation, see Schwartz, The Political Morality of the Late Scholastics, chap. 4.

6 Lugo, Disputationum de iustitia et iure, vol. 2 d. 14 sect. 4 n. 44 (at 344). Hereafter II.

7 Lugo, II, d. 14 sect. 6 n. 44 (at 341). Some of the available definitions of “defaming” imply that the action of defaming necessarily involves the intention to defame. In this article I am using “defaming” in a more general way, captured by the following definition in the Oxford English Dictionary: “To bring infamy, dishonour, or shame upon; to cause to be dishonoured or disgraced.”

8 Lugo, II, d. 14 sect. 4 n. 44 (at 341).

9 Lugo, II, d. 14 sect. 6 n. 44 (at 341).

10 See Fowler, Descartes on the Human Soul, 204. See also Suárez, De anima, lib. 1 c. 10 n. 24; Peruano, Cursus integri philosophici, q. 12 d. 4 sect. 4 n. 31, vol. 3.

11 Molina, De iustitia et iure, tomus quintus, tract. 4 d. 28 n. 1 (at 436).

12 Ibid.; Malderus (van Malderen), De virtutibus theologicis et iustitia et religione commentaria, in II-II, tract. 7 c. 1 dub. 8 (at 542); Rebello, Opus de obligationibus, lib. 4 q. 11 n. 4 (at 185).

13 Lugo, II, d. 14 sect. 4 n. 44 (at 341).

14 Ibid., d. 14 sect. 4 n. 44 (at 341).

15 Haunold, Iustitia et iure privatorum universo, tract. 2 contr. 5, n. 546 (at 73).

16 Francesco Arezzo asks and discusses this in his Summa theologiae, d. 28 q. 1 a. 3 (at 309). “Proximi” is defined as creatura intellectualli capacitate participat divinorum bonorum. On the damned, see concl. 6 (at 311).

17 Haunold, Iustitia et iure privatorum, tract. 2 contr. 5, n. 546 (at 73).

18 Domingo Báñez, Scholastica commentaria in secundam secundae angelici doctoris s. thomae, vol. 4 q. 73 a. 2 concl. 3 (at 262); Trullench, Operis Moralis, vol. 1 lib. 7 c. 10 dub. 15 n. 1.

19 Soto, De ratione tegendi et detegendi secretum, membr. 1 q. 2 (at 199).

20 Ibid., membr. 5 q. 4 (at 215).

21 Soto, De la justicia y el derecho, lib. 5 q. 10 a. 2 (at 488).

22 Soto, II, lib. 5 q. 10 a. 2 (at 488).

23 Molina, II, tract. 4 d. 28 n. 2 (at 436).

24 Ibid., tract. 4 d. 28, quoting Soto, De ratione tegendi et detegendi, and Soto, de Iustitia et iure, lib. 5 q. 10 a. 2, as well as Adrianus of Florisz (Pope Adrianus VI), Quodlibetales, 11 a. 1.

25 Malderus (Van Malderen), De virtutibus theologicis et Iustitia et religione commentaria, tract. 7 c. 1 dub. 8 (at 542). The reasons for historical license are “integritatem historiae, commune utilitatem, publicam eruditionem & terrorem.”

26 Lugo, II, d. 14 sect. 6 n. 87–9 (at 346), on Laymann, Theologia moralis, vol. 1 tract. 3 libr. 3 parte 2 cap. 3 n. 13.

27 Filliucci, Quaestionum moralium, vol. 2 tract 40 cap. 6 n. 109 (at 757); Bonacina, Opera Omnia, vol. 2 d. 2 q. 4 punct. 6 n. 3 (at 434); Tamburini, Explicationes in Decalogum, lib. IX, c. 3 sect 2 n 11 (at 292).

28 Filliucci, Quaestionum moralium, vol. 2 tract. 40 cap. 6 n. 109 (at 757).

29 Ibid., vol. 2 tract. 40 cap. 6 n. 109 (at 757).

30 Ibid.

31 Lugo makes no mention of Soto’s seeming allowance of revealing the secrets of the dead in On Hiding and Revealing Secrets.

32 Mascardi, De’ll arte historica D’Agostino Mascardi, trattati cinque.

33 Ibid., 180.

34 Ibid., 181.

35 See Kapust, “Cicero on Decorum and the Morality of Rhetoric,” 101, citing Cicero, On Duties, I, 14–15.

36 Cicero, De oratore, II, 36.

37 See Tutino, Shadows of Doubt, 204.

38 On Strada’s anti-Tacitism, see Nelles’ excellent “Historia magistra antiquitatis: Cicero and Jesuit History Teaching.” On Jesuit Ciceronian anti-Tacitism, see Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 136–40; Lucie Claire, “De ratione scribendae historiae: modèles et contre-modèles antiques selon Famiano Strada,” 126.

39 Strada, Prolusiones academicae, lib. 2 prolusion 2 (at 225). Also Tutino, Shadows of Doubt, 54.

40 Robortello, De historica facultate disputatio, 11. Spanish translation, edition, and analysis in Vidal, “Francesco Robortello y su Disertación acerca de la Facultad Histórica,” 37–66.

41 See Delmas and Nougaret, Archives et nations dans l’Europe du XIXe. Indeed, González Suárez’s revelations about the Ecuatorian Church we sourced in documents Archivo General de Indias, Spain.

42 Haine, Theologiae moralis elementa, vol. 1, 463.

43 Génicot, Institutiones Theologiae Morales, 348, n. 422: “Verum hodie, ob ingentem scribentium et archiva scrutantium numerum, plerumque talis manifestatione impediri nequit, ac proinde saepe praestat ut cum debitis cautelis a viro catholico fiat quam Ecclesiae adversario relinquatur.”

44 Lehmkuhl, Theologia moralis, 825–6, n. 1426.

45 Lehmkuhl, Casus conscientiae, casus 296, 488.

46 Clement, Institutiones morales alphonsianae, n. 1200, 755. Clement exempts from sin the disclosure of a crime that was once public but now is not among “those which belong to history.”

47 Lehmkuhl, Casus conscientiae, casus 296, 488.

48 Noldin, Summa theologiae moralis, vol. 2, 667, n. 653.

49 See Chadwick, Catholicism and History, 98; Tussing, “The Politics of Leo XIII’s Opening of the Vatican Archives.” For an earlier defence of the opening of the Vatican Archives that also displays awareness of the moral theologian’s view on the right to reputation, see Portillo, “Lo divino y lo humano en la historia.”

50 “Leonis Papae XIII Epistola ad s.r.e. cardinales Antoninum de Luca, Ioannem Baptistam Pitra, Josephum Hergenroether,” Civiltà Cattolica, series 12 vol. 3 num. 798, 641–50 (at 642).

51 “Epistola ad s.r.e. cardinales,” 646.

52 Haine, Elementa theologiae moralis, vol. 1, 463.

53 Ibid.

54 Ferreres, Compendium theologiae moralis, n. 536, 348. He refers to the manuals by Noldin and Schmitt, Summa theologiae moralis; Aertnys and Damen, Theologia moralis; Prummer, Manuale theologiae moralis; Ballerini and Palmieri, Opus theologicum morale; Vermeersch, Theologiae moralis; Genicot and Salsmans, Institutiones theologiae moralis.

55 https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanta.htm

56 Salvany, El liberalismo es pecado. See Schumacher, “Integrism: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Spanish Politico-Religious Thought.”

57 On Villada’s role, see “Integrismo,” in O’ Neill, Diccionario histórico.

58 Villada, Casus conscientiæ, vol. 2. sect. 1 casus 7 (at 110–21).

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Daniel Schwartz

Daniel Schwartz is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Aquinas on Friendship (OUP: 2007) and The Political Morality of the Late Scholastics: Civil Life, War and Conscience (CUP: 2019) and the editor of Interpreting Suárez: Critical Essays (CUP: 2011). His research focuses on medieval and early modern ethics and political philosophy as well as contemporary discussions within just war theory. Recently published articles include ‘Necessity Historically Considered' (Journal of Moral Philosophy), ‘Discovery Rights and the Arctic' (International Theory), ‘Just Persuasion in Baroque Electoral Ethics' (Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses) and ‘An Early Power-Sharing Regime: The Alternativa System in Spanish Colonial America’ (Journal of Interdisciplinary History).