SÁNCHEZ, TOMÁS. – Jesuit and moral theologian, born in Cordova around 1550, died in Granada on 19 May 1610.
He spent his entire life, marked by great austerity, as a novice master, confessor, and for several years professor of moral theology and canon law. The work that made him famous and is still consulted by theologians and jurists (cf. Wernz-Vidal, IV, no. 20) is: De sancto Matrimonii sacramento (3 vols., Madrid 1605, with numerous scattered reprints). With regard to it, Clement VIII declared that no other author had yet treated controversies and doubts concerning matrimonial matters with greater breadth and accuracy. This does not alter the fact that S. had to retract what he had conceded as probable: namely, that, in the case of direct lust, the matter could be light. Moreover, vol. III was placed on the Index on 4 February 1627; but the condemnation concerned not the doctrine expounded, but rather the omission of the paragraph in which S. upheld the Pope’s right to legitimize illegitimate children, independently of any intervention by the civil authority. This displeased the government of the Venetian Republic, and the paragraph was therefore removed from the Venice edition of 1614; this is the edition that was condemned. When the Index was revised in 1900, S.’s name was removed. The work also suffered violent attacks as scandalous because of the indecent details into which it descends. It may be conceded that certain minute analyses lack tact and delicacy; but it must be observed that the work is intended for confessors, who necessarily must distinguish among the various kinds of sins, just as physicians and jurists do with regard to forensic medicine.
Two other works by S. were published posthumously: Opus morale in praecepta decalogi (originally Explicatio mandatorum decalogi, 2 vols., Madrid 1613); Consilia seu opuscula moralia (2 vols., Lyon 1625), concerning justice and its various applications. They are less important than the first, also because it is uncertain whether they represent solely the author’s thought, rather than that of the editors. Against all of them, however, Pascal did not spare his recriminations in the Lettres provinciales 5ª, 7ª, 8ª, 9ª, accusing S. of laxism and exaggeration in mental reservation; whereas, all things considered, he adheres to a moderate probabilism, though not always understood within clearly defined limits (cf. A. Schmitt, Zur Geschichte des Probabilismus, Innsbruck 1904, pp. 107-50).