The Duty to Avoid Scandal

In checking references on another article, I found this passage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Charity and respect for the truth should dictate the response to every request for information or communication. The good and safety of others, respect for privacy, and the common good are sufficient reasons for being silent about what ought not be known or for making use of a discreet language. The duty to avoid scandal often commands strict discretion. No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it. (CCC 2489; italics mine)

I’ve already written elsewhere on the recent kerfuffle over the CCC 2267 rescript. In light of the recent scandals—in fact, in light of the last 16 years—I submit that CCC 2489 also needs some clarifying revision.

In traditional moral theology, scandal is “an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil” (CCC 2284). Following St. Jerome, St. Thomas Aquinas called scandal “something less rightly said or done that occasions another’s spiritual downfall” (Summa Theologiae II-II, Q. 43, A. 1 s.c.). Breaking it down further:

• Active scandal is an act or omission which causes someone else to sin.
  • An indirect scandal is an act performed without the intent of causing others to sin.
  • A direct scandal is an act committed with the deliberate intention of inducing another to sin.
  • A diabolical scandal is committed with the conscious intent of offending God or ruining the scandalized person’s soul.
• Passive scandal is a sin committed as a consequence of an active scandal.
  • Scandal given is a passive scandal in response to an act which is objectively an occasion of sin.
  • Scandal received is a sin committed in response to an act which cannot be objectively considered a temptation to sin. This breaks down further into:
    • The scandal of the weak, which is sin arising from the scandalized person’s own ignorance or lack of self-restraint; and
    • The pharisaical scandal, which is sin arising from malice or evil inclinations. (Source: Achille Vander Heeren, “Scandal,” The Catholic Encyclopedia)

As you can see, the Church’s definition of scandal is somewhat divorced from its use in English common parlance. The difference is, while the theological root is in the ancient Greek skándalon, “trap, cause of (moral) stumbling,” Old English, Old High German, and Gothic had similar words—scand/skanda, “ignominy, shame, disgrace”—which influenced its English sense evolution. As we use it, scandal isn’t about causing others to sin but about bringing discredit on oneself or one’s organization or institution; it can also mean an offense or stumbling block which prevents acceptance of a religion.

The duty to avoid scandal, properly understood, concerns the prudence the Christian must exercise to avoid words and deeds that might be perceived as invitations to sin by those who are weaker in faith, even when the acts aren’t intrinsically evil in se or performed with evil intent (cf. 1 Corinthians 8). Paragraph 2489 occurs in the context of respect for the conditions and the manner in which truth is revealed and its potential for harm (paras. 2488-92); there is no obligation to reveal a fact to one who has no right or need to know it. From the standpoint of traditional moral philosophy, then, it could be argued that the duty to avoid scandal implies a positive duty to avoid provoking apostasy, blasphemy, or hatred of the faith by an imprudent revelation of clerical misdeeds.

However, such an argument doesn’t hold water. Here the two senses of scandal dovetail: The duty to avoid provoking sin necessarily means the duty to avoid even the appearance of shameful behavior. Our obligation to the truth implies an obligation not only to integrity but to transparency; transparency requires in turn that we not hide our wrongdoing but rather confess it and strive to mend it. Silence, evasiveness, and claims of ignorance in the face of accusations are not acts we associate with transparent leaders. The old Latin maxim tells us that those who remain silent when they are able and ought to speak must be seen to consent; by logical extension, to refuse to testify to an evil is seen to be complicit in it. The imputation of shame cannot be avoided by silence; it can only be magnified.

Remember, we’re discussing a theoretical argument. The silence and mismanagement didn’t come from bishops’ concern for provoking apostasy or hatred of the faith so much as they resulted from bishops’ moral cowardice. The problem is not that we have too many “imperial” bishops but that we don’t have enough courageous bishops—bishops willing to do the right thing even when it humiliates them or makes them look autocratic. The elaborate, antiquated trappings and honorifics are quite beside the point; the priesthood is missing an effective system of identifying and developing the future leaders the Church so desperately needs.

If you read the Gospels in Greek, you’ll see a few places where the authors used the verb form skandalizo to describe people’s reactions to Jesus. (John 6:62 DRA: “But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?”) He was a sign to be opposed (Luke 2:34), a cause of division who came to bring fire to the earth (Luke 12:49), a Master who taught such hard things that even some of his disciples abandoned him (John 6:60, 66). We can’t proclaim the gospel message in the fullness of truth without risk of hatred or apostasy.

Pope St. Gregory the Great, in his Homilies on Ezekiel, wrote, “It is better that scandals should arise than that truth should be suppressed.” Confession of sins is part of the fabric of Catholic theology and worship. The duty to avoid scandal cannot command a “discretion” so strict that it leads to even the appearance, let alone the substance, of suppressing the truth. If we can’t avoid provoking hatred of the faith, let’s do so by exposing, of our own free will, our corporate sins to the light rather than be caught hiding them in the dark.