INCONVENIENCE. - I. (from the Latin incommodum, that is, discomfort, disturbance, harm) in morals and in law denotes that particular difficulty or specific danger accidentally joined to the observance of a law, by reason of which one may consider oneself exempted from its observance.
For this, it is required: 1) that the particular situation of difficulty or danger present a marked character of gravity: that is, that the motive for violating the law be sufficiently grave in relation to the quality of the person, to the circumstances of time or place, such as, for example, the necessity of an extraordinary effort, the imminence of a grave evil or the fear of incurring it, or the consequent loss of a good that particularly concerns the one who is subject to the law;
2) that no law be posited, if not human; no human law therefore can oblige of itself, when there is danger of life or an i. of a similar nature for those who must observe it. For Suarez affirms (Tract. de leg., ed. C. Berton, Opera omnia, V, Paris 1856, l. III, cap. 30, n. 6) that the human legislator would exceed his powers if he obliged at any cost despite any difficulty. Such binding force of the law is not necessary for the common good; and although sometimes the extraordinary obligation is not openly imposed or does not exceed the powers of the legislator, if it is excessively grave and harsh, it is considered beyond the will of the legislator and therefore not binding (v. EPIKEIA; EQUITY).
To all this the case is an exception in which the observance of the human law is required for the protection of the common good or to ward off a common evil; that law, even a human one, obliges even at the peril of life, whose violation is demanded out of hatred against the faith or out of contempt for religion; grave i., therefore, must not be joined of itself with the very nature of the precept of the law.
Then the gravity of the i. must be in relation also to the common good that the law intends to protect. Therefore one must examine with the greatest prudence whether, in each individual law, there is proportion between the gravity of the i. and the necessity or public utility that postulates the observance of the law.
For the most part a graver motive is required in order to be excused from the observance of a negative law than of a positive law: of a divine law than of a human law. One must therefore also keep in mind the nature of the law, besides what has been said above. Therefore no i. or difficulty, more or less grave, excuses from the observance of a negative natural law, not even in the presence of danger of death. The negative natural law, in fact, always obliges, since it prohibits an intrinsically evil action, e.g., blasphemy, false testimony, etc.
Grave i. excuses from the positive natural law and from the positive divine and human law, provided that the i. be proportionate to the gravity of the law, whence the saying "lex non obligat cum gravi incommodo," and provided that the violation does not redound to the offense of God or of religion, to the detriment of the Church, to the harm of the community, or to the harm of the spiritual good of others (can. 2205 §§ 2 and 3). Consequently, in these cases, taking into account the gravity of the matter and the end that must be protected by means of the law and the grave scandal that could derive from its non-observance, one is not excused even in the presence of a danger of death or of any other kind, just as the very numerous Christian martyrs from the first persecutions under the Roman emperors down to our own days have shown in exemplary fashion.
Furthermore, the i. is excluded when it is connected with an office that presupposes it and that is accepted with all the difficulties that it entails: for example, a parish priest who must celebrate Holy Mass very late is not excused, saving the granting of a dispensation, from the observance of the eucharistic fast.
The i., besides being involuntary, can also be voluntary, provided that it is not directly and deliberately posited in order to violate the law. These moral principles find their application also in canonical penal law, where grave i. is a cause excusing from imputability (can. 2205 § 3) and from every penalty latae sententiae, whenever it can be demonstrated in the external forum (can. 2218 § 2).
From grave i. or moral impotence, also called relative, that is, dependent on circumstances not of absolute value but inherent in the quality of the person, the place, the time, etc., and which has been considered up to now, moral-juridical doctrine distinguishes an absolute impotence that always excuses from the observance of the law by the well-known moral principle: "ad impossibilia nemo tenetur."