This accounts for Diana, who has introduced a great many of these opinions, saying: 'I advance this opinion; but as it is new, I give it time to come to maturity- relinquo tempori maturandum.' Thus in a few years it becomes insensibly consolidated; and, after a considerable time, it is sanctioned by the tacit approbation of the Church, according to the grand maxim of Father Bauny, 'that if an opinion has been advanced by some casuist, and has not been impugned by the Church, it is a sign that she approves of it.' And, in fact, on this principle he authenticates one of his own principles in his sixth treatise, p.312." "Indeed, father! " cried I, "why, on this principle the Church would approve of all the abuses which she tolerates, and all the errors in all the books which she does not censure!" "Dispute the point with Father Bauny," he replied."I am merely quoting his words, and you begin to quarrel with me.There is no disputing with facts, sir.
Well, as I was saying, when time has thus matured an opinion, it thenceforth becomes completely probable and safe.Hence the learned Caramuel, in dedicating his Fundamental Theology to Diana, declares that this great Diana has rendered many opinions probable which were not so before- quae antea non erant, and that, therefore, in following them, persons do not sin now, though they would have sinned formerly- jam non peccant, licet ante peccaverint.""Truly, father," I observed, "it must be worth one's while living in the neighbourhood of your doctors.Why, of two individuals who do the same actions, he that knows nothing about their doctrine sins, while he that knows it does no sin.It seems, then, that their doctrine possesses at once an edifying and a justifying virtue! The law of God, according to St.Paul, made transgressors; but this law of yours makes nearly all of us innocent.I beseech you, my dear sir, let me know all about it.I will not leave you till you have told me all the maxims which your casuists have established." "Alas!" the monk exclaimed, "our main object, no doubt, should have been to establish no other maxims than those of the Gospel in all their strictness: and it is easy to see, from the Rules for the regulation of our manners, that, if we tolerate some degree of relaxation in others, it is rather out of complaisance than through design.The truth is, sir, we are forced to it.Men have arrived at such a pitch of corruption nowadays that, unable to make them come to us, we must e'en go to them, otherwise they would cast us off altogether; and, what is worse, they would become perfect castaways.It is to retain such characters as these that our casuists have taken under consideration the vices to which people of various conditions are most addicted, with the view of laying down maxims which, while they cannot be said to violate the truth, are so gentle that he must be a very impracticable subject indeed who is not pleased with them.The grand project of our Society, for the good of religion, is never to repulse any one, let him be what he may, and so avoid driving people to despair."They have got maxims, therefore, for all sorts of persons;for beneficiaries, for priests, for monks; for gentlemen, for servants;for rich men, for commercial men; for people in embarrassed or indigent circumstances; for devout women, and women that are not devout; for married people, and irregular people.In short, nothing has escaped their foresight.""In other words," said I, "they have got maxims for the clergy, the nobility, and the commons.Well, I am quite impatient to hear them." "Let us commence,"resumed the father, 'with the beneficiaries.You are aware of the traffic with benefices that is now carried on, and that, were the matter referred to St.Thomas and the ancients who had written on it, there might chance to be some simoniacs in the Church.This rendered it highly necessary for our fathers to exercise their prudence in finding out a palliative.With what success they have done so will appear from the following words of Valencia, who is one of Escobar's 'four living creatures.' At the end of a long discourse, in which he suggests various expedients, he propounds the following at page 2039, vol.iii, which, to my mind, is the best: 'If a person gives a temporal in exchange for a spiritual good'- that is, if he gives money for a benefice- 'and gives the money as the price of the benefice, it is manifest simony.But if he gives it merely as the motive which inclines the will of the patron to confer on him the living, it is not simony, even though the person who confers it considers and expects the money as the principal object.' Tanner, who is also a member of our Society, affirms the same thing, vol.iii, p.1519, although he 'grants that St.Thomas is opposed to it; for he expressly teaches that it is always simony to give a spiritual for a temporal good, if the temporal is the end in view.' By this means we prevent an immense number of simoniacal transactions; for who would be so desperately wicked as to refuse, when giving money for a benefice, to take the simple precaution of so directing his intentions as to give it as a motive to induce the beneficiary to part with it, instead of giving it as the price of the benefice? No man, surely, can be so far left to himself as that would come to." "I agree with you there," I replied; "all men, I should think, have sufficient grace to make a bargain of that sort." "There can be no doubt of it," returned the monk.
"Such, then, is the way in which we soften matters in regard to the beneficiaries.
And now for the priests- we have maxims pretty favourable to them also.
