Clear Answers on a Touchy Subject: Is It Ever Morally Permissible to Wish for Someone’s Death?

What does traditional Catholic moral theology say?

Clear Answers on a Touchy Subject: Is It Ever Morally Permissible to Wish for Someone’s Death?

The ongoing hospitalization of the Argentinian apostate Jorge Bergoglio (‘Pope Francis’), has brought a delicate moral question to the forefront that a lot of people may be wondering about but don’t quite know how to resolve and are perhaps reluctant to ask:

Is it ever morally permissible (that is, not sinful) to desire (wish, hope for, pray for) that a particular individual will die? Or is it always and necessarily sinful to do so?

The purpose of the present post is simply to help form consciences correctly regarding this matter by providing reliable, authentic Catholic information. As always, we will only concern ourselves with what is ‘on the books’, so to speak, from before Vatican II; that is, we will seek our answers only in the approved Roman Catholic moral theology as it was known, accepted, and taught in the Catholic Church until the death of the last true Pope, Pius XII (d. 1958).

We can do no better, therefore, than to quote directly from moral theology texts that were published with the approval of the Catholic hierarchy long before anyone had any inkling of a ‘Pope John XXIII’ or a second Vatican Council.

One such work is the moral and pastoral theology manual of the British priest and professor Fr. Henry Davis (1866-1952).

To get the proper understanding of things, we turn first to his treatment of internal sins in general:

Internal sins are consummated by an act of the will without any external expression. Sin is not in the mind but in the will. When, therefore, we speak in this context of sinful thoughts in general, we mean thoughts about some forbidden object which the will approves, accepts and takes pleasure in, eliciting in its regard approval, desire or delight. Internal sins are commonly enumerated as three; desire, joy and complacency, the last being also called deliberate complacency or morose pleasure. The word morose, however, has a meaning in English quite other than morosa in Latin, and therefore we shall here speak of deliberate pleasure rather than of morose pleasure. Joy and deliberate pleasure in the will do not differ; the only difference is accidental, namely, that joy concerns a past object, but pleasure concerns a present one. Pleasure and desire do differ however, and that essentially, for to take pleasure in the present thought of another’s misfortune is very different from desiring that misfortune; we can distinguish the two both morally and psychically.

(Rev. Henry Davis, S.J., Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. 1, fourth ed. [New York, NY: Sheed and Ward, 1943], pp. 229-230; underlining added. An earlier edition is available for purchase from Amazon here [#CommissionLink].)

Fr. Davis first considers the morality of desire, then of joy, then of pleasure. For our purposes, it will suffice to examine only the question of desire, since what is licit to desire will also be licit to be joyful about and take pleasure in.

To prevent unnecessary misunderstanding, it will be important first to grasp the difference between an efficacious desire and one that is inefficacious:

1. An evil desire is an act of the will, a wish to do something forbidden. It is efficacious and absolute, if it includes the intention of taking the necessary means to fulfil it; it is inefficacious, if it is conditional, as: ‘I would do this if I had the power.’ An efficacious desire to do wrong is a sin of the same species and gravity as the desired external act with all its circumstances, because desire is directed to an object just as it exists, and the interior act derives its moral character or moral species from its object, namely, the external one. Thus, the desire to steal a sacred thing is a sacrilegious desire; the desire to injure a parent is a sin against dutifulness; the desire to tell a lie is a sin against veracity; all are internal indeed, but of the same species morally as would be the corresponding external acts if carried into execution. An inefficacious evil desire is equally wrong, because it is no less an act of the will directed towards a wrong object, and therefore there is no moral difference between the efficacious and the inefficacious desire.

2. Evil desire, then, is of the same moral species and gravity as the external evil object with all its circumstances to which desire is directed. If the desired object is grievously wrong, so is the desire, such as the desire to do grave injustice, and if the object has a double malice, such as adultery, the desire also has a twofold malice, namely, that against chastity and justice, and therefore in the Sacrament of Penance the distinct nature of evil desire — if grievous — must be explained. This doctrine, however, is not realized by many penitents, and the confessor must instruct them, but with great prudence.

3. But inefficacious and conditional desires are sometimes not sinful and it is necessary to explain the principles to guide one in determining when they are sinful and when they are not:

(a) A conditional desire is not sinful, if the condition take away all the evil of the external object. Such would be the case in matters of some positive law. Thus, eating meat on a day of abstinence is sinful, only by reason of Ecclesiastical law; taking what belongs to another is not always sinful, and therefore conditional desires of doing such things if they were allowed would not be sinful, but desires of this nature are foolish and might be dangerous.

(b) A conditional desire to do what could never be lawful is sinful. Thus, blasphemy is never lawful, and to desire such a sin conditionally, would be a great dishonour to God. Similarly, it would be sinful to elicit a conditional desire when the condition could not, as a fact, make the act lawful; thus: “I would steal if I could do so secretly,” would be a sinful desire.

(c) The mere statement of fact, such as: “If I were permitted by God’s law, I would exact vengeance,” may merely state temperamental disposition and need not be sinful, certainly would not be gravely sinful; but such statements may be scandalous.

Is it permitted to desire harm to come to others? To answer this question we must first exclude really efficacious desires, such as would include the wish to take some means in order to inflict harm, for this is against charity. Secondly, we must exclude all desire of harm, as such, to others; that is to say, we may not lawfully desire what is harmful just because it is harmful to others; we may not desire the death of an enemy just because death is a physical evil to him. Speaking then of inefficacious desires alone, the principle is that we do not sin when we wish harm to others in order that greater harm may be avoided, and this is in accordance with true charity. That this is permissible is obvious, because if the order of charity [ordo amoris] be observed, to wish such harm is to wish it as a real good. Thus, it is wrong to wish anyone to suffer eternal loss. It is also wrong to desire the death of another on account of an inheritance or legacy, because it is against the law of charity to prefer temporal advantage of small moment to the life of another [Pope Innocent XI condemned the contrary assertion; see Denz. 1163-1165].

On the other hand, it is lawful to desire some misfortune to befall another not as his misfortune but that he may be corrected or converted to God; or to desire the death of another in innocence rather than that he should live a bad life or die in sin; or to wish for the death of one who is doing great public harm — but not for his death as an evil to him but that harm may cease. Similarly, it is lawful to desire the death, but not as another’s evil, of one who is likely to compass [=bring about] my death or that of another innocent person or what is equivalent to death, such as dishonour and persistent grave injury; or to desire the retribution of death to be inflicted as a just punishment on a criminal. In all these examples the order of charity is maintained, for the higher good may always be preferred to what is lower, and to wish the higher good is not necessarily to wish evil; but it is best to refrain from such, even licit desires, since human nature is easily diverted by passion from the guidance of right reason.

(Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. 1, pp. 230-232; underlining added.)

This may seem a little overwhelming, but Catholic moral theology is complicated and it is important to draw the necessary distinctions and understand all the nuances.

In short, yes, it is permissible to entertain the inefficacious desire that someone who does great public harm may die, not because we want that person to suffer the loss of his life but because it will put an end to his ability to harm the public any further. In this manner, it is really the good to the public we seek and not the end of the individual’s life per se.

Similarly, the Dominican moral theologians Fathers John McHugh and Charles Callan write that “the desire of what is physically evil is good, if the evil is wished, not for its own sake, but for the sake of some greater good. Example: To desire out of hatred that a neighbor lose his arm is a bad desire and sinful; but if one wished this as a means to save the neighbor’s life, while he still desires something evil, it is not the evil but the benefit that is intended, and hence the desire itself is not bad” (Moral Theology [1958], n. 245).

Not surprisingly, the great St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), who is the Church’s Doctor of Moral Theology, teaches the same thing, although he is not as easy to understand as the others:

…[I]t is licit to take joy from the evil of a neighbor, on account of his greater good, or innocence, namely if the one taking delight in the infirmity and even death of a neighbor did so that he would stop sinning or causing scandal, etc., as the authors say. … St. Thomas (3. Sent. dist. 30, q. 1, art. 1, ad 4) expressly teaches that: “For this reason, because charity has an order, and everyone ought more to love himself than others, and his neighbors rather than foreigners. … Someone can, save for charity, desire a temporal evil for someone and take joy in it if it happens, not insofar as it is evil for them, but insofar as it is an impediment to the evils of the other, whom he is held more to love, whether of the community or of the Church.” St. Gregory writes likewise: “A great many things can come about, that, when charity has not been lost and the ruin of our enemies brings us joy, and again his glory without the sin of envy saddens us, in that ruin, we believe certain things have been raised up, in his advancement, we fear a great many are unjustly oppressed.” (Mor. l. 22, c. 22). Nevertheless, this must always be understood with the order of charity being preserved, namely when an evil which is avoided, outweighs or is equal with the evil desired for the neighbor.

(St. Alphonsus Liguori, Moral Theology, Vol. I, Book II, Dubium II, Article II, Question 21; underlining added. Ryan Grant translation [Post Falls, ID: Mediatrix Press, 2016].)

As always in true Catholicism, man’s temporal good is subordinated to his eternal, spiritual good. Temporal human life is a great good but it is not the greatest; all of us will die at some point, and our Blessed Lord Himself made clear that supernatural life is to be preferred over natural life: “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mk 8:36); “And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell” (Mt 5:30).

It should go without saying — and Fr. Davis confirms this in what is quoted above — that it is never permitted to desire somebody’s eternal damnation. The reason is that it is contrary to God’s command to “love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mt 22:39) for His sake, and He has told us that He “will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4) and that “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live” (Ezechiel 33:11).

Our most recent podcast, TRADCAST EXPRESS 204, also tackles this whole subject to an extent:

As of the publication of this post, the latest news from the Vatican is that ‘Pope’ Francis has suffered “an isolated episode of bronchospasm. This caused an episode of vomiting, which led to him inhaling some and a sudden worsening of his respiratory condition.”

In the spirit of genuine supernatural charity, let us pray for him to repent of all the great evil he has done and receive a valid absolution in the sacrament of penance so as to die in the state of sanctifying grace. And may this happen soon, so that less harm will come to souls.

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