SÁNCHEZ, TOMÁS. - Jesuit, moralist, b. at Cordova ca. 1550, d. at Granada on 19 May 1610.
He spent his whole life, marked by great austerity, as master of novices, confessor and for several years professor of moral theology and canon law. The work that made him famous and is still consulted today by theologians and jurists (cf. Wernz-Vidal, IV, n. 20) is: De sancto Matrimonii sacramento (3 vols., Madrid 1605, with many scattered reprints). Concerning it, Clement VIII proclaimed that there had not yet been another author who treated the controversies and doubts in matrimonial matters with greater fullness and accuracy. This does not prevent the S. from having had to retract what he had granted as probable: namely that, in the matter of direct lust, light matter could occur. Moreover the 3rd vol. was placed on the Index on 4 Feb. 1627; but the condemnation does not concern the doctrine set forth but rather the omission of the paragraph, where the S. upheld the right of the Pope to legitimize illegitimate persons, independently of any intervention by the civil authority. This displeased the government of the Venetian Republic, for which reason the paragraph was removed in the Venice ed. of 1614; and this is the edition condemned. With the revision of the Index in 1900 the name of the S. was removed. The work also had to endure violent attacks as scandalous because of the scabrous particulars into which it descends. It may be granted that certain minute analyses lack all delicacy; but it must be observed that the work is reserved to confessors, who necessarily must distinguish the various kinds of sins, as happens for physicians and jurists with regard to forensic medicine.
Two other works of the 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 not certain whether they represent only the author's thought, and not instead that of the editors. Against all of them, however, Pascal did not spare his recriminations in the Lettres provinciales 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, accusing the S. of laxism and of exaggeration in mental restriction; whereas, all things considered, he adheres to a moderate probabilism, not always however kept within clear boundaries (cf. A. Schmitt, Zur Geschichte des Probabilismus, Innsbruck 1904, pp. 107-50).
Bibliography5 works
Celestino Testore