PERICULUM ANIMAE ET SCANDALI. – According to the common theological meaning, it is (cann. 1131 § 1, 1935 § 2) the possibility that an external act may provide one’s neighbor with the occasion of a fault and spiritual ruin. This act is the first condition required for scandal to be present, and it may consist in words, gestures, or an omission, even a merely verbal one: «convenienter dicitur quod dictum vel factum minus rectum praebens occasionem ruinae sit scandalum» (Sum. Theol., q. 43, n. 1).
There is therefore scandal whenever it is foreseeable, with a certain degree of probability, that an omission or an action minus recta, occurring in public, may lead one’s neighbor, who has witnessed it, to a fault that he would not otherwise have committed. Scandal is active and passive: the former consists in the external act that occasions a fault, the latter in the person who witnesses II. If one then takes into account the intention that provoked it, it may be direct or indirect. The former occurs when the author of the action directly and expressly intends to provide the other with the occasion of sin through persuasion or counsel, or through a fully deliberate bad example; the latter, namely the indirect form, is possible in many circumstances, and practically whenever an act that is in itself indifferent or that has the appearance of evil publicly risks leading others to sin (e.g.: abandonment of the faith or of religious practices). Passive scandal is the sin of one’s neighbor: it is an occasioned sin and stands in relation to active scandal as effect to cause. It evidently varies according to the status of the persons involved and the circumstances of the scandal. If the scandal has been public, the reparation must likewise be public. Thus, one who has persuaded others to accept false doctrines concerning faith or morals is obliged to retract his errors publicly; one who has notoriously lived in concubinage must renounce the sinful relationship and publicly approach the Sacraments. It was precisely to avoid the possibility of scandal that the Church instituted special forms for the celebration of Marriage, such as the so-called «Matrimonio di coscienza» (v.) and certain laws for convalidation.