LASSISMO. — Laxism, rather than being a moral system distinct from others, is a tendency, a laxus opinandi modus, as Alexander VII called it, by virtue of which certain authors in the seventeenth century proposed in Catholic morality, as certain, opinions that were highly doubtful and only apparently probable, thus “relaxing” the norms of Christian life. Therefore, although none of them formally and explicitly professed laxism, they overstepped the bounds at certain points of Christian morality by denying or minimizing the extent of the law (in direct opposition to laxism stands tutiorism [v.] or rigorism in general), though laxist doctors, with regard to certain parts of genuine morality, could prove non-laxist in other parts. Laxism thus also forms part of the seventeenth-century movement toward the elaboration of moral systems and represents the most relaxed extreme of that movement. In the subjective sphere, a lax conscience is merely an aspect of an erroneous conscience, which judges lawful what is not, or sub levi what is sub gravi prohibited, and after the fact judges the morality of its own action in its own favor or diminishes its imputability. Insufficiently precise information and polemical concerns led people to identify laxism with Molinism and probabilism, although they are quite different things, especially the former. It is not accurate, however, to regard laxism as probabilism (v.), because in every nuance of probabilism (and also of probabilism and equiprobabilism) the issue is always one of deciding on a “true probability,” whereas for laxists generally any probability, even a minimal one, had value.
Of the lax propositions, some found no acceptance whatsoever, while others fell into disrepute as a result of the controversies they provoked; but in certain cases the Church’s magisterium had to intervene, condemning either the books that defended such doctrines or individual propositions that threatened to gain credibility by corrupting sound morality. The disputes over laxism took on particular importance, and at times also considerable harshness of tone, especially in France from the seventeenth century onward.
By decree of 26 September 1640, Pratique du droit canonique au gouvernement de l'Eglise, correction des moeurs et distribution des bénéfices and Somme des péches, qui se commettent en tous estats, de leurs conditions et qualites et en quelles occurrences ils sont mortels ou véniels by Fr. Etienne Bauny were placed on the Index; on 16 December of the same year, De sacramentis ac personis sacris was likewise placed on the Index. The first two works had also been referred, in November 1640, to the theological faculty of Paris (laxist propositions concerned chastity, usury, excommunications, reserved cases, etc.). In April 1641, the Assembly of the Clergy of France declared that Bauny, through his writings, was driving souls toward libertinism, and resolved to thank the Pope for the condemnation.
Among the first to attack casuists and laxists was Pascal (v.) in Les provinciales (1656–57); in combating them, he in turn was more meticulous than the casuists themselves in refining questions, exaggerating accusations, and employing texts. He particularly targeted the Jesuits, whom he accused of being teachers of laxism.
Censures against the laxists were also issued by the Faculty of Paris in 1658. In Rome, the Holy Office continued to condemn laxist writings: on 21 August 1659, Apologie pour les casistes contre les calomnies des jansénistes by Giorgio Pirot; Marco Vidal, Arca vitalis (23 September 1653); idem, Arca salutaris consultus utriusque iuris includens (8 March 1661); Angelo Maria Verricelli, Quaestiones morales et legales (21 April 1654); Giovanni Caramuel, Apologema pro antiquissima et universalissima doctrina de probabilitate (15 January 1664); Francesco Verde, Theologiae fundamentalis Caramuelis positiones selectae (28 June 1664); Onorato Fabri, Apologeticus doctrinae moralis Societatis Iesu (17 January 1672); Zaccaria Pasqualigo, Decisiones morales iuxta principia theologica, et sacras atque civiles leges, difficultatum, quae in utroque foro passim occurrunt (11 May 1683). The work of the Jesuit Mathieu de Moya, Adversus quorundam expositaciones contra nonnullas Iesuitarum opiniones morales (published under the pseudonym Amadaceus Guimenius and containing serious errors concerning the administration of the Sacraments), was condemned by the Sorbonne in February 1665 and by the Holy Office in April 1666.
Under Alexander VII, on two occasions (24 September 1665 and 18 March 1666), at least as scandalous, 45 propositions contrary to divine and ecclesiastical law were condemned (Denz-U, 1101–45); then, on 2 March 1679, the Holy Office, under Innocent XI, condemned another 65 propositions as laxist (ibid., 1151–1215). Clearly, no moralist had upheld all the condemned propositions as a whole; they had been defended by theologians of different schools in different works, concerned to
reconcile as far as possible the worldly prejudices of their age with the spirit of the Gospel.
The condemnation of laxism did not affect the very principle of casuistry, because the latter, despite its dangers of juridical formalism, corresponds to that sound need of the spirit by which, case by case, one may stand either with freedom or with the law. The demand for probability, moreover, remained an inheritance to be further developed in the century of S. Alfonso de' Liguori; but in the eighteenth century, in Catholic theology, laxism was in any event dead: it was taken up, rather, by the libertines; yet it is clear that they operated outside metaphysics, and therefore the problem was different. As for the question whether laxism stimulated the capitalist world in its speculations, this may well have been the case; but rather than directing it, laxism had made itself its slave, indulging in justifying its illicit race toward the headlong accumulation of wealth.