BY
JOHN A. MCHUGH, O.P.
AND
CHARLES J. CALLAN, O.P.
REVISED AND ENLARGED BYEDWARD P. FARRELL, O.P.
NEW YORK CITY
JOSEPH F. WAGNER, INC.
LONDON: B. HERDER
Nihil Obstat
ELWOOD FERRER SMITH, O.P., S.T.M.
BENJAMIN URBAN FAY, O.P., S.T.LR.
Imprimi Potest
VERY REV. WILLIAM D. MARRIN, O.P., P.G., S.T.M.
Provincial
Nihil Obstat
JOHN A. GOODWINE, J.C.D.
Censor Librorum
Imprimatur
+ FRANCIS CARDINAL SPELLMAN
Archbishop of New York
New York, May 24, 1958
The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a bookor pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication iscontained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat andimprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.
[Transcriber’s note: References to the Code of Canon Law in this workare to the 1917 version of the Code, later superseded by the 1983version.]
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The purpose of the present work is to give a complete and comprehensivetreatise on Catholic Moral Theology, that is, on that branch of sacredlearning which treats of the regulation of human conduct in the lightof reason and revealed truth. This new work strives to deal with thesubject as a systematic and orderly whole, and is based throughout onthe principles, teaching and method of St. Thomas Aquinas, whilesupplementing that great Doctor of the Church from the best modernauthorities. Needless to say, there are many questions and problemsconnected with modern life that did not exist when the great classicworks on Moral Theology were written, and to these naturally specialattention has been given in the treatment that follows.
Nowadays, since the appearance of the New Code and of many specialworks on Canon Law, it would be a mistake to encumber the pages of awork like the present one with canonical questions of interest only tothe specialist, and which are ably and abundantly treated in finecommentaries on the Code that are already available. Likewise, it wouldbe an error to treat here matter pertinent only to Dogmatic Theology orHistory. All digressions, therefore, into alien fields have beenavoided in this work, with the result that a greater number of usefulmoral questions have been herein considered.
But not only is it necessary to avoid irrelevant subjects, but it isalso needful not to sacrifice essentials for accidentals in any work ofthis kind. It is the fault of too many textbooks on Moral Theology tostress controversies, cite authors, and quote opinions, at the expenseof the principles and reasons that govern and explain the teachinggiven. This work eschews that method, and is at pains everywhere, firstof all, to lay the foundations on which the superstructure is to bebuilt, namely, the definitions and rules that are presupposed to moraljudgments and conclusions. Obviously, this is a more logical way ofproceeding, and it consequen