Innocent XI, 1676-1689

sad about the moral life of someone and rejoice about his natural death, seek it with ineffectual desire and long for it, not indeed from dissatisfaction with the person but because of some temporal emolument.

1164. 14. It is licit with an absolute desire to wish for the death of a father, not indeed as an evil to the father, but as a good to him who desires it, for a rich inheritance will surely come his way.

1165. 15. It is licit for a son to rejoice over the parricide of his parent perpetrated by himself in drunkenness, because of the great riches that came from it by inheritance.

1166. 16. Faith is not considered to fall under a special precept and by itself.

1167. 17. It is enough to utter an act of faith once during life.

1168. 18. If anyone is questioned by a public power, I advise him to confess his faith to a noble person as to God and (to be) proud of his faith; I do not condemn silence as sinful of itself.

1169. 19. The will cannot effect that assent to faith in itself be stronger than the weight of reasons impelling toward assent.

1170. 20. Hence, anyone can prudently repudiate the supernatural assent which he had.

1171. 21. Assent to faith is supernatural and useful to salvation with only the probable knowledge of revelation, even with the fear by which one fears lest God has not spoken.

1172. 22. Only faith in one God seems necessary by a necessity of means, not, however, the explicit (faith) in a Rewarder.

1173. 23. Faith widely so called according to the testimony of creature or by a similar reason suffices for justification.

1174. 24. To call upon God as a witness to a slight lie is not a great irreverence, because of which God wishes or can condemn man.

1175. 25. With cause it is licit to swear without the intention of swearing, whether the matter be light or serious.

1176. 26. If anyone swears, either alone or in the presence of others, whether questioned or of his own will, whether for sake of recreation or for some other purpose, that he did not do something, which in fact he did, understanding within himself something else which he did not do, or another way than that by which he did it, or some other added truth, in fact does not lie and is no perjurer.

1177. 27. A just reason for using these ambiguous words exists, as often as it is necessary or useful to guard the well-being of the body, honor, property, or for any other act of virtue, so that the concealing of the truth is then regarded as expedient and zealous.

1178. 28. He who has been promoted to a magistracy or a public office by means of a recommendation or a gift can utter with mental reservation the oath which is customarily exacted of similar persons by order of the