VAINGLORY. - While desiring glory is willing the manifestation of one's own good or one's own excellence (a thing not in itself evil, as Jesus Christ himself affirmed in clear words, Mt. 5:16), there is vainglory: a) when glory is sought in things that are not worthy of glory or do not merit as much as is sought, for example, in evil things, or in goods that one does not possess; b) when glory is sought from persons of little esteem for their poor judgment or their scant personal qualities; c) when glory is sought solely for personal satisfaction, to the exclusion of the right end, which is the honor of God and the good of neighbor (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 132, a. 1).

Vainglory is a venial sin, when circumstances that are gravely sinful do not enter in. It would therefore be a mortal sin to seek glory in a gravely sinful matter (ibid., 2a-2ae, q. 132, a. 3). From vainglory, which according to St. Gregory the Great (Moralia, XXXI, ch. 45: PL 76, 621) and St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 132, a. 5 c.) is a capital vice, various vices derive; namely: a) boasting or bragging in words; b) the invention of novelties in true things, yet such as to arouse admiration; c) hypocrisy in false things; d) pertinacity or stubbornness in one's own ideas; e) discord; f) contention or quarreling; g) disobedience. To these vices, others add curiosity, which is the disordered craving to know.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: A. Tanquerey, Compendio di teol. ascet. e mist., 7th ed., Rome 1928, no. 820; A. Sertillanges, La philosophie morale de s. Thomas d'A., 2nd ed., Paris 1922, p. 427 ff.; St. Carton de Wiart, Tract. de peccatis et vitiis, Malines 1932, pp. 159-60; A. Meynard, Trattato della vita interiore, I, Turin 1936, nos. 45-46; E. Janvier, Esposito, della morale cattol., X, ibid. 1938, p. 177 ff.; XII, ibid. 1939, p. 189 ff.

Andrea Gennaro

@incollection{ec12_vana_gloria, author = {Gennaro, Andrea}, title = {Vana Gloria}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1011--1012}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/vana-gloria} }

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