INCOMODO. — I. (from the Latin *incommodum*, i.e., discomfort, disturbance, harm) denotes in moral and legal contexts that particular difficulty or special danger accidentally connected with the observance of a law, by reason of which one may be considered exempt from its observance.
For this to apply, the following conditions are required:
1) that the particular situation of difficulty or danger presents a markedly serious character: that is, that the motive for violating the law be sufficiently grave in relation to the quality of the person, the circumstances of time or place, such as, for example, the necessity of extraordinary effort, the imminence of serious harm or the fear of incurring it, or the consequent loss of a good that particularly concerns the one subject to the law;
2) that the law in question be not divine but human; for if a human law can, of itself, oblige when there is danger to life or of a similar nature for those who must observe II. Suárez (Tract. de leg., ed. C. Berton, *Opera omnia*, V, Paris 1856, bk. III, chap. 30, no. 6) affirms that a human legislator would exceed his powers if he were to oblige under any circumstances whatsoever, despite any difficulty. Such a stringent obligation of the law is not necessary for the common good; and although sometimes the extraordinary obligation is not explicitly imposed or does not exceed the legislator’s powers, if it is excessively grave and onerous, it is considered beyond the legislator’s intent and therefore not binding (cf. EPIKEIA; EQUITY).
An exception is made in the case where the observance of a human law is required for the protection of the common good or to avert a common evil; such a law, even if human, obliges even at the risk of life when its violation is demanded out of hatred for the faith or contempt for religion. The gravity of the *incommodum* must not, of itself, be united with the very nature of the precept of the law.
Moreover, the gravity of the *incommodum* must be considered in relation to the common good that the law intends to protect. Therefore, one must examine with the utmost prudence whether, in each individual law, there is a proportion between the gravity of the *incommodum* and the necessity or public utility that the observance of the law postulates.
In most cases, a more serious motive is required to be excused from the observance of a negative law than of a positive law, and of a divine law than of a human law. One must therefore also consider the nature of the law, in addition to what has been said above. Hence, no difficulty, however grave, excuses from the observance of a negative natural law, not even in the presence of danger of death. A negative natural law, in fact, always obliges, since it forbids an action intrinsically evil, e.g., blasphemy, false witness, etc.
A grave *incommodum* excuses from a positive natural law, a positive divine law, and a positive human law, provided that the *incommodum* is proportionate to the gravity of the law, as the saying goes, «*lex non obligat cum gravi incommodo*,» and provided that the violation does not involve an offense against God or religion, to the detriment of the Church, to the harm of the community, or to the detriment of another’s spiritual good (can. 2205 §§ 2 and 3). Consequently, in these cases, taking into account the gravity of the matter and the end to be protected by the law, and the grave scandal that might arise from its non-observance, one is not excused even in the presence of danger of death or of any other kind, as has been exemplified by the countless Christian martyrs from the first persecutions under the Roman emperors down to our own day.
Furthermore, *incommodum* is excluded when it is connected with an office that presupposes it and which is accepted with all the difficulties it entails: e.g., a parish priest who must celebrate Holy Mass very late is not excused, save by dispensation, from the observance of the Eucharistic fast.
*Incommodum*, besides being involuntary, may also be voluntary, provided that it is not directly and deliberately posited for the purpose of violating the law. These moral principles also find application in canon law, where a grave *incommodum* is a mitigating cause of imputability (can. 2205 § 3) and of any latent *sententiae* penalty, provided it can be demonstrated in the external forum (can. 2218 § 2).
From grave *incommodum* or moral impossibility, also called relative, i.e., dependent on circumstances not of absolute value but inherent to the quality of the person, the place, the time, etc., and which has been considered up to now, there is distinguished in moral-legal doctrine an absolute impossibility which always excuses from the observance of the law, according to the well-known moral principle: «*ad impossibilia nemo tenetur*.»