About ten or twelve years ago, you were accused of holding that
maxim of Father Bauny, "that it is permissible to seek directly (primo
et per se) a proximate occasion of sin, for the spiritual or
temporal good of ourselves or our neighbour" (tr.4, q.14); as an
example of which, he observes: "It is allowable to visit infamous
places, for the purpose of converting abandoned females, even although
the practice should be very likely to lead into sin, as in the case of
one who has found from experience that he has frequently yielded to
their temptations." What answer did your Father Caussin give to this
charge in the year 1644? "Just let any one look at the passage in
Father Bauny," said he, "let him peruse the page, the margins, the
preface, the appendix, in short, the whole book from beginning to end,
and he will not discover the slightest vestige of such a sentence,
which could only enter into the mind of a man totally devoid of
conscience, and could hardly have been forged by any other but an
instrument of Satan." Father Pintereau talks in the same style:
"That man must be lost to all conscience who would teach so detestable
a doctrine; but he must be worse than a devil who attributes it to
Father Bauny. Reader, there is not a single trace or vestige of it
in the whole of his book." Who would not believe that persons
talking in this tone have good reason to complain, and that Father
Bauny has, in very deed, been misrepresented? Have you ever asserted
anything against me in stronger terms? And, after such a solemn
asseveration, that "there was not a single trace or vestige of it in
the whole book, " who would imagine that the passage is to be found,
word for word, in the place referred to?
Truly, fathers, if this be the means of securing your
reputation, so long as you remain unanswered, it is also,
unfortunately, the means of destroying it forever, so soon as an
answer makes its appearance.
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