DISCORD. - I. DEFINITION. - D. is not merely a divergence of opinions, nor merely a scattering of efforts in pursuing common goals; properly speaking, it is a formal divergence of two or more wills concerning the same good. This good can be free or obligatory.

The divergence of wills concerning the same free good is not yet the fault of d., which requires the divergence of two or more wills obliged to love the same good. Such obligatoriness consists in the necessity of the same means for the same ends, common to many, and it can present itself either in the form of charity toward God or toward one's neighbor, or in the form of justice or of another virtue. Note, however, that the malice of d. is not in the simple fact that of two wills one turns away from the other; but it is in this, that one of the wills refuses to love that necessary good which the other, instead, accepts.

If the divergence of opinions does not constitute d., it can be its source; but the most frequent source is the will to assert one's own will in the face of others, whether or not personal advantages are in view. Almost always d. produces great scattering and conflict in action; then private and public harms can be grave, according to the word of Jesus Christ: « Omne regnum contra se divisum desolabitur » (Mt. 12, 25).

II. MORALITY

Discord offends that virtue by which the same good is obligatory for all wills; generally charity. But it can also be justice, when the discord is between persons having common interests, or another virtue, such as piety, if the discord operates among the members of the same family. In practice the responsibility for discord easily escapes the conscience of the guilty party, whether because of the illusion that he is on the side of good and not the others, or because the evil consequences of discord become apparent only late, when by then they are confused with the influences of many extraneous factors. Therefore, to promote the union of the good, it is more helpful to insist on the advantages of peace and concord than on the responsibilities and harms of discord. This does not hold for the sowers of discord, in whom the fault is always present and is hardly ever not grave and without injustice.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: Sum Theol., 2°-2°, q. 37; D. M. Prümmer, Manuale theologico moralis, I, 6th-7th ed., Freiburg im Br. 1931, nos. 414, 604, pp. 287, 436; St. Carton de Wiart, Tractatus de peccatis et vitiis in genere, 5th ed., Malines 1932, p. 160, no. 108; B. H. Merkelbach, Summa theologiae moralis, I, 5th ed., Paris 1947, no. 954, pp. 727-28.

Leonardo Azzolini

@incollection{ec4_discordia, author = {Azzolini, Leonardo}, title = {Discordia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1745}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/discordia} }

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II. MORALITY

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