Is coerced apostasy a sin?

[utunumsint]

I am reading Shusaku Endo’s Silence. The story is set in the 1630s after Catholicism had been suppressed. A group of catholic priests are given permission to secretly infiltrate Japan to support the large number of converts who no longer have access to any priests.

To summarize main plot line, the priest is not martyred, but the authorities want to force him to publicly apostatize by torturing and killing local Catholic Japanese peasants until he does. He is supposed to trample on an image of the Virgin holding Jesus. In the end, he does apostatize. In prayer, he has a vision of Jesus telling him “Trample, trample! It was for this I was born - to be trample by men!”

My question is this: Did the priest sin if his apostasy was coerced?

If I look through the church fathers, especially Cyprian of Carthage, I know that they would answer in the affirmative. But is that fair?

Thank you and God bless your ministry.
Ut

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

There is a bit of gray area here that would depend upon the individual and their motives. The Church traditionally has divided apostasy into the categories of material and formal. Material apostasy would be external actions that meet the basic definition, formal apostasy would mean the individual truly embraces the rejection of Christianity. Someone who commits an external act of apostasy in order to save the lives of others would be in material but not formal apostasy.

In current canon law the penalty of excommunication for apostasy does not apply to someone who is not truly culpable for their apostasy (canon 1321,1) or if they acted in defense of others against an unjust aggressor (canon 1323, 5). So clearly the Church does not view all acts of apostasy to be equal.

The early Church fathers would have had a dimmer view of apostasy since it was a legitimate imminent danger to the early Christian Church. The early Church was still growing and struggling, if the faith was to be taken seriously and spread it could not be perceived as something that could be picked up and put down when convenient. Usually persecution only meant danger to the individual Christian and therefore apostasy was seen as cowardice or selfishness.

In the example of your book canon law would clearly not apply any penalty to the priests since they are acting in defense of another. They also can’t be counted as cowards or selfish given the circumstances. While material apostasy is never ideal, I don’t think the priests in the example given would be considered guilty of sin.