IRA
From the Latin *ira*, also called anger, it is a deviation of the instinct that leads one to defend oneself when attacked, repelling force with force.
### I. CONCEPT
It can be considered as a passion and consists in the need for reaction, determined by a physical or moral contrariety or by any suffering that arouse a violent emotion of all the forces tending to overcome the difficulty. Like all passions, it has no moral quality of its own and can be directed toward good or evil.
One can also consider anger as a sentiment, in which case it is the desire for vengeance, or rather the craving to repel and punish the aggressor. The desire for vengeance, considered in itself, is not yet a reason for sin. The sin lies in disordered cupidity, that is, in not containing the desire for vengeance within its proper limits and in not directing it toward reasonable ends.
There is indeed a legitimate anger, which is the driving force behind virtuous acts, for example, the correction of others (as in the case of Jesus with the merchants in the Temple [Jn. 2:13-17]); and there is an illegitimate anger (which is one of the capital sins) that implies a violent and immoderate desire to punish one’s neighbor without regard for the necessary conditions and which opposes the virtue of meekness. Often, moreover, it is accompanied by hatred and turns into a more deliberate and lasting sentiment that does not stop at repelling the aggression but proceeds to exact vengeance with graver consequences.
### II. MALICE
To determine the malice of anger, one must first ascertain whether the disorder arises from the moral object itself or from excess in the manner of acting.
If the disorder derives from the object, whether one desires unjust vengeance, or vengeance not in accordance with the order of reason, or vengeance desired not for the proper end—which is the preservation of justice and the correction of fault—or if, apart from the other constitutive elements of sin, the matter itself is grave sin because it opposes charity and justice. However, most of the time the movements of anger are sinful movements because they are imperfectly deliberated.
If the disorder concerns the manner of being disturbed, there is a venial sin in itself, which, due to circumstances, can become mortal, as when someone, in the vehemence of anger, breaks out into blasphemies or inflicts serious harm upon his own health.
### III. EFFECTS
The effects are described in a vivid and effective manner by the pagan philosophers themselves (Seneca, *De ira*, I.1, no. 2), who attribute to anger the gravest crimes, from murder to civil strife, from family discord to wars. But even without reaching such extremes, anger is the source of a great number of faults.
