Page 49 - Vaccines

Key principles of Catholic moral theology

harmony with authentic Magisterial doctrine. The con-
demnation by the Magisterium both of rigorism or of
extreme tutiorism, namely the view, common among the
Jansenists, that in any doubt, the strictest interpretation
of the law was always to be followed and also of laxism,
namely the view, common among the Jesuits, that wher-
ever there could be the slightest doubt, there was liberty
to proceed at will (an abuse of the axiom in dubio libertas),
in effect gave further legitimacy to probabilism. How-
ever, probabilism always had limits; it could be invoked
neither in cases of doubts directly affecting either some-
one’s salvation or, a specific instance of this, the very
validity of the sacraments, nor in cases where the certain
rights of third-party innocents were directly involved,
especially so if it were the right to life itself. In such cases
prudence required that the safer course (tutior) be fol-
lowed, that of (moderate) tutiorism. Indeed, this has been
the effective basis of confirmations by the Magisterium
that, no matter what opinions there may be about the
time of animation, deliberate and directly procured
abortion is always gravely immoral and of the major
development of doctrine that the fruit of human procre-
ation, from the very time of the formation of the unicel-
lular zygote, is to be respected and treated as a person,
with all the rights of the person, including the fundamen-
tal right to life.2⁸ In other cases of doubts of conscience,
forms of probabilism are legitimate, according to the
constant doctrine of classical moral theology.
In the present case, it is not sufficient to refer merely
to the fact that some writers or even bishops judge it to

2⁸ Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae,
Introduction, I, n. 1; Id. Dignitas personae, n. 5, and as back-
ground to this important development of moral doctrine Id. De
abortu procurato, nn. 12–13 and footnote 19.

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