Fuga

FUGA (FLIGHT). - F., and also horror, is called by St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ª, q. 23 a. 1) the passion by which our concupiscible appetite recedes from a future evil. If this aversion so takes hold of the individual as to make him loathe any effort in the exercise of religion and in the fulfillment of the obligations of his own state, f. becomes a disordered passion, which easily leads to the capital sin of sloth (v.).

In a more general sense, as it is taken here, f. is the act of fleeing (Latin fugere), that is, the act of one who rapidly withdraws from some person or thing, out of fear, in order to save himself.

Morally and juridically, f. on certain occasions can be an obligation, on others it can be an act of cowardice, or the shirking of one's own duty. Everything depends on the end for which f. is resorted to, on the object from which one flees, and on the obligations of law.

The lawfulness of f. in the face of persecutions was a subject that stirred the first Christians. Against the rigorous thesis of Tertullian (v.), by then a Montanist, according to whom f. in such circumstances is inadmissible and is a denial of the will of God (De fuga in persecutione, written ca. 212: PL 2, 103-20), and against the practical attitude of some of the faithful, who deemed it a duty to present and denounce themselves spontaneously as Christians, the more moderate thesis prevailed, which discouraged self-denunciation, always dangerous, and admitted that one could elude searches by f. In favor of this thesis stood the words of Christ himself, which, whether precept or counsel, have an unequivocal meaning (Mt. 10, 17-23). Not to mention then the very example of Jesus, who several times withdrew by f., and that of the apostle Paul, who at Damascus was let down from the walls to escape his persecutors (Mt. 14, 13; Io. 8, 58-59; 11, 53-54; Act. 8, 4; 9, 23-26). The greatest admirer of Tertullian himself, St. Cyprian, during the persecution of Decius (250) kept himself hidden in the vicinity of the city of Carthage; the great martyr of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, had likewise behaved earlier (Martyr. Pol., chaps. 5-7). And it was the f. of Christians from the cities where persecution raged that fed the first cenobies and monasteries in Egypt and elsewhere. This theme would be brilliantly developed by St. Athanasius in polemic against his detractors, already his persecutors, from whose hands he had escaped by an f. that has something of the swashbuckling (Apologia della sua fuga: PG 25, 643-80).

This problem today is no longer a subject of dispute, because it is peacefully admitted that it is lawful to escape persecution even by f.: f. could become sinful only in those cases in which undertaking it would amount, given the circumstances, to an implicit denial of the faith, or an explicit command of God to the contrary were made manifest, or finally pastoral duties obliged one to assist the faithful in the storm of persecution, when this was naturally possible. Whoever in these circumstances resorted to f. could not but be called an apostate, and the pastor of souls would place himself on the same level as the hireling (mercenarius autem fugit: Io. 10, 13).

If these problems are always current in the Church, continually persecuted, other questions about the obligatoriness of f. in the face of dangers of perversion and occasions of sin are of even greater practicality. The custody of virtue has at its disposal the fleeing of all external occasions that can put it in danger.

It would indeed be temerity to expose oneself to temptation, and worse to provoke it, without a just and proportionate cause. A grave danger is to be fled under pain of grave sin; a slight danger under pain of venial sin (for a more extensive treatment, also with regard to the attitude of the confessor toward those who habitually fall into occasions of sin, v. OCCASIONE DI PECCATO).

Christian ascetics has particularly insisted on the f. of occasions contrary to chastity (v.), which are among the most dangerous.

When f. has been spoken of thus far, the term has been taken not only in the literal and, as it were, physical sense, but also in the transferred sense. And it is f. of occasions also not to linger at times in solitude, the change of environment and occupation, the turning away of the gaze, of attention itself, from those mental representations and those objects which experience shows to be favorable to arousing temptation.

Returning to the literal sense of the term, a series of problems in the contrary sense presents itself regarding the illicitness of f., when it is a shirking of duty. Certain persons bound to an office or a commitment, or even to a condition of life, cannot abandon their post, even in the face of a possible danger, and even if confronting the danger demands a heroic act. A parish priest, for example, cannot leave his parish in the case of an infectious epidemic that endangers his own life; the district physician cannot do so either, etc., except in determined cases and under determined conditions; doing so constitutes not only a sin, but often in the various juridical systems is also considered a crime (v. ABANDONO; ATTO EROICO DI CARITÀ). Thus the soldier cannot desert the army (for the various hypotheses, v. MILIZIA).

It is not, however, forbidden to the accused to flee in order to escape punishment. Indeed, just as he is not bound to confess himself guilty, he is likewise not bound to cooperate actively in his punishment. And therefore: a) even if justly condemned, he can flee from prison; b) indeed he probably can also force the exits from the prison, to gain his freedom; or deceive the jailers; and, if innocent (but not if guilty), he can even bribe them and threaten them with weapons, though never wound or kill them. To one who thus flees in tears, it is lawful to give peaceful (not violent) assistance by others who are not assigned to his custody, unless this cooperation is very harmful to a third party or to the public good.

In the CIC, the religious who withdraws for two or three days from the religious house, without the permission of his superiors, with the intention of returning to it, is called a fugitive (can. 644 § 3). Unless it is a matter of shirking an unjust persecution in order to have recourse to the superior, the act is considered a crime and the fugitive incurs immediately the penalty of privation of the office he holds, if he holds one, and of suspension reserved to his own major superior (can. 2386), who in accordance with the constitutions can also add other penalties. F., like apostasy from the Order, does not dissolve religious profession.

Pietro Palazzini