48 SIN 



b) VOLUNTARY AND NECESSARY OCCASIONS. — 



An occasion is voluntary (occasio voluntaria) if 

 sought or wilfully persisted in after one has got- 

 ten into it involuntarily. A necessary occasion 

 {occasio nccessaria) is one that can be avoided 

 only by the use of extraordinary diligence or not 

 at all. In the latter case it is called physically 

 necessary (occasio physice necessavia). Such 

 temptations may grow out of the mutual inter- 

 course of parents and children, married persons, 

 soldiers, prisoners, etc. If it is more difficult to 

 avoid an occasion than to keep from sinning by 

 the use of proper precautions, an occasion is called 

 morally necessary (occasio moralitcr nccessaria) . 

 Occasions of this kind cannot, as a rule, be avoided 

 without great inconvenience or injury. They in- 

 variably involve a grave conflict of duties. 52 On 

 the one side there is the duty of avoiding the 

 proximate occasion of sin; on the other are such 

 unavoidable professional obligations as, e. g., 

 hearing confession, practicing medicine, etc. 



Hence the further distinction between occasio 

 quae est in esse and occasio quae non est in esse. 

 Occasions of the former class entail immediate 

 danger of sin, whereas those of the latter leave 

 an opportunity of escaping the danger. As an 

 example of the former kind we may mention vis- 

 iting a house of prostitution. 53 



52 See Vol. I, pp. 211 sqq. 63 Cfr. St. Augustine, Enarr. in 



