Page 39 - Vaccines

Key principles of Catholic moral theology

being posed.12 He recognises the presence of passive
scandal in an analogous way also where people are
(mis)led into sin through the good acts of another, which
they misinterpret as immoral, as in the case of the
Pharisees taking scandal over the preaching and the
miracles of Jesus.13 He was at pains to stress that, since
the bad example of what was said or done, which might
be scandalous, does not determine another person’s fall
into sin because they could and should know the differ-
ence between good and bad, right and wrong, and
should avoid the sin in any case, it was better to consider
(active) scandal as saying or doing something which
might afford or provide an “occasion” for someone else
committing a sin,1⁴ active scandal being a special sin
where there were an intention of inducing another to
sin,1⁵ and the gravity of the sin depending upon the
gravity of the matter at stake.1⁶

ii. Possible links between scandal and (what later
was called) cooperation

It was Sánchez who analysed cases in which someone
might be faced with a real dilemma because people were
doing something in itself morally licit and even required,
for example by their job which they needed to maintain or
support their family, but which was or could be an occa-
sion for someone else’s fall into sin. He was unequivocal
in condemning as sinful any act by which one person
ordered, commanded, advised another person to commit
a sin, intended that they do so or otherwise induced them

12 Cf. Ibid, q. 43, a. 1 ad 2.
13 Cf. Ibid, q. 43, a. 1 ad 4; a. 2.
1⁴ Cf. Ibid, q. 43, a. 1 ad 3.
1⁵ Cf. Ibid, q. 43, a. 3.
1⁶ Cf. Ibid, q. 43, a. 3 ad 3.

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