Dist. 9, Art. 2, Q. 4
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/9/q/bon-sent-IV-d9-a2-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether one who gives the body of Christ to someone he knows to be a sinner sins damnably.*

Fourthly it is asked whether one sins damnably who gives the body of the Lord to someone he knows to be a sinner. And that he does so seems the case.

1. Matthew the seventh: *Do not give what is holy to dogs*; and the fifteenth: *It is not good to take the children's bread and give it to dogs.*

2. Likewise, Cyprian: «That the sacred communion ought to be given to actors I judge to befit neither the divine Majesty nor evangelical discipline».

3. Likewise, it seems so by reason: for a physician who would give a sick man a medicine by which he knew he would die would sin mortally: therefore likewise the priest sins who gives the body of Christ to a sinner, for whom he knows it turns to death.

4. Likewise, whoever would give the body of the Lord to someone so that he might throw it into a latrine — not only the one throwing it, but also the one giving it, would sin mortally: therefore likewise in the case proposed. — If you say that he does not give but renders [it], on the contrary: if a madman were to ask for his own sword in order to kill himself, the one who rendered it to him would sin mortally: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, if a sinner were to ask in secret, the one who gave to him would sin: therefore likewise in the manifest case. If you say that he does not, on account of scandal, on the contrary: this is against the truth of life; but nothing against the truth of life is to be done on account of scandal: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, he can avoid scandal otherwise, as if instead of the host he gave blessed bread: therefore on account of scandal he is not bound.

**On the contrary:**

1. The Lord gave his body to Judas, lest he betray Judas' sin: therefore likewise the priest too ought to give to one he knows to be in sin.

2. Likewise, Augustine, On the Consecration, distinction two: «Let the dispenser not forbid the sinner to eat at the table of the Lord, but let him warn the exactor to be afraid».

3. Likewise, it seems so by reason: for he himself is the dispenser; therefore what he gives is not his own, but he renders what belongs to another: therefore in the face of the Church he is bound to give. But he does not sin in doing what he is bound to do: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, he ought not to save the soul of one person in such a way that he destroy the souls of many; but many could be scandalized if he did not give: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, if he does not give, he betrays the crime and reveals the confession, which he is bound not to do.

6. Likewise, if he does not give, that man nonetheless still sins, since he does all that is in him.

7. Likewise, if he gives a plain host, that man nonetheless sins, and there is in it a dissimulation in the Sacrament of truth: therefore if this is in no way to be done, it is plain etc.

### Conclusion.

> The priest ought to give the eucharist to a hidden sinner asking publicly, but not to a public sinner.

**I respond:** It must be said that the priest ought to give to one he knows to be a sinner, if he asks openly, provided he be a hidden sinner and he alone knows it; if [he is] manifest, he ought in no way to give, whether he asks or not, as the Lord says, and Cyprian concerning actors. — Now the reason why he ought to give is manifold. The first is that he does not know whether God is secretly at work. The second is, lest he betray his crime. The third is, lest he scandalize others. The fourth, because that man has a right in the face of the Church, and then [the priest] is bound to render to him, asking, his own right.

*To 1.* To that, then, which is first objected, it must be said that the Lord forbids that they not give, that is, not offer — not but that they render.

*To 3, 4.* To that which is objected concerning the medicine, and concerning the one who throws it away: the answer is plain, because he himself does not give, but renders what belongs to another. — To that which is objected, that the sword is not to be rendered to a madman, it must be said that in a court of judgment he would be bound to render it, if it were not established that he was mad; and because this sinner asks in the judgment and the face of the Church, and his sin does not appear: therefore he ought to give to him.

*To 5, 6.* To that which is objected concerning the secret [sinner], it must be said that the unworthy sinner: in truth has no right; he has, however, a right according to the judgment of the Church, because the sin is not established nor can be established; and therefore, when [the priest] acts according to the truth and his own judgment, he is not bound to give; when according to the judgment of the Church, he is bound. And from this it is plain that he does not act against the truth, but according to the truth. For the judge in the forum of the Church judges according to the things that are apparent, not according to the things that are hidden; hence scandal is not the whole cause. — The last point is plain: because he ought not to give the host; nonetheless that man would sin, and [the priest] himself by dissimulating; unless perhaps the sinner himself were to ask for the host to avoid infamy and out of reverence for the body of the Lord.

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