FEDELTÀ. – It derives from fides and has the meaning of serving fidem. It is a virtue closely akin to truthfulness, of which it may indeed be said to form a part, and moralists unanimously define it as the virtue that induces a person to carry out, with due sincerity and exactness, whatever he or she has said and promised. Although related, f. is distinct from truthfulness. By the latter is meant only the perfect correspondence between what one thinks and what one manifests externally through words, signs, or deeds, leaving aside the factor of a promise, which may also be absent, whereas it is indispensable in f. It nevertheless agrees with truthfulness in that perfect correspondence between the promise made and the execution of what is promised is proper to f. Thus truthfulness separated from f. is conceivable, but f. separated from truthfulness is not. From what has been said it follows that f. promise (v.) from which it then derives its character as regards the obligations it produces. Given this particular intimate relationship between f. and the promise, and the dependence of the former on the latter, various kinds of f. must be distinguished; although all agree in the factor of equality between what is promised and what is done, they differ substantially according as the various promises differ among themselves.
Now there is a promise proper to every contract, indeed one that is connatural to and inseparable from it; from this promise there results an obligation of commutative justice; and it is obvious that in this case the obligation of f. is perfectly identical with the obligation of justice, and therefore the two constitute one and the same thing. This occurs not only in cases of explicit and formal contracts, such as a sale, an exchange, or marriage (the term conjugal f. is very well known, signifying the extremely serious obligation of justice of one spouse toward the other); but also in implicit contracts constituted by quasi-contracts (v. quasi contratto) understood in the strict sense, as occurs in the various professions that have direct and indirect relations with one’s neighbor: the professional obligations of physicians, notaries, magistrates, parish priests, etc., when carried out with due care, create a true virtue of professional f. In all these cases we are in the field of justice.
A certain obligation of f. also arises in other cases analogous to quasi-contracts, although they do not possess the same characteristics. In these cases, however, the obligation of f. does not, at least ordinarily, constitute a burden of commutative justice, nor, when violated, does it impose particular obligations of reparation for damages resulting from infidelity. Thus any assignment or task, understood in the broadest sense, if carried out with suitable exactness and care, is said to have been performed with f. It is nevertheless not difficult for an obligation of f. owed in strict commutative justice to arise in these cases.
Both in the case of a genuine contract or quasi-contract and in these latter cases, f. is not understood in its proper specific sense. Moralists indeed admit that the term f. precisely indicates an obligation different from that of commutative justice. It is in this latter sense, which has subsequently become common in the usage of all peoples, that the notion of f. is perfectly realized, understood precisely as the execution of what has been spontaneously promised out of pure liberality and not as the performance of a service received. This is the case of a simple promise, from which the obligation of justice is absent either by the express will of the person or by the very nature of things. It must therefore be held that f., rather than an obligation of justice, indicates an exclusively moral obligation of conscience to make what is subsequently put into practice coincide with the promises made.
With regard also to the obligation of conscience in carrying out what one has promised, the preceding observations must be kept in mind. Thus, whereas in the first case (contracts and quasi-contracts) there is always an obligation of justice to abide by what has been promised or is due, and in the second (cases analogous to those of the first) such an obligation may very easily arise, in the last case (a simple, pure promise), with some very rare exceptions attributable more to the intervention of extrinsic circumstances than to the nature of the promise itself, the obligation to abide by promises made is always one of f. alone (excluding any obligation of justice). A serious consequence that places the one kind of f. at an enormous distance from the other is that whereas in f. coinciding with the virtue of commutative justice the resulting obligation is grave or light according as the matter is grave or light, in simple f., that is, f. in its most technical sense, it is always light; and therefore, whereas in the first two cases there is an obligation to repair any damages that may have occurred because of infidelity, such a burden does not exist in the last case, even if the infidelity to the promise is inexcusable and wholly unmotivated.
The reason for this assertion, so serious in appearance, lies in the fact that the person to whom the promise is made has no strict right to the promised thing, since it belongs to the one who promises it, nor does the transmission of the right take place merely through the promise having been made. This is proved, first, by the fact that generally the person who promises intends only to incur a light obligation: and it is he alone who can give rise to one obligation or the other according to his intention; and, secondly, by the fact that a grave obligation is not necessarily required by the common or social good, which is in fact promoted to a vastly greater extent by the mere light obligation. It is obvious, indeed, that if every purely liberal promise were to give rise to a grave obligation of conscience, many would refrain from making such promises, especially those who, because they are more delicate in conscience, in practice observe them even when they carry only a light obligation.
BEL: A. Tanqueray, Theol. mor., III, Parisi 1929, n. 646; D. M. Prümmer, Manuale theol. mor., II, Priburgo in Br. 1930, n. 65; O. Schilling, Theol. mor., II, Rottenburg 1940, n. 375-77; A. Plesetz-A. Gennaro, Elemente theol. mor., III, Torino 1945, n. 41; H. Noldin-A. Schmitt, Theol. mor., II, Barcellona 1943, n. 655; A. Vermeersch, Theol. mor., II, Roma 1945, nn. 405-406; Th. 1070, Theol. mor., II, Napoli 1947, n. 764. Lorenzo Simeone