A brave man behaves well in face of danger

 

Image: Thomas Aquinas

I answer that, As stated above (Article 4), fortitude strengthens a man's mind against the greatest danger, which is that of death. Now fortitude is a virtue; and it is essential to virtue ever to tend to good; wherefore it is in order to pursue some good that man does not fly from the danger of death…

Moreover, a brave man behaves well in face of danger of any other kind of death; especially since man may be in danger of any kind of death on account of virtue: thus may a man not fail to attend on a sick friend through fear of deadly infection, or not refuse to undertake a journey with some godly object in view through fear of shipwreck or robbers.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (II-II, Question 123, Article 5)

Pledge of the Legion of Decency (1934)

 

PLEDGE OF THE LEGION OF DECENCY (1934)

I wish to Join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country and to religion. I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land. I shall do all that I can to arouse public opinion against the portrayal of vice as a normal condition of affairs, and against depicting criminals of any class as heroes and heroines, presenting their filthy philosophy of life as something acceptable to decent men and women. I unite with all who condemn the display of suggestive advertisements on billboards, at theater entrances and in newspapers and the favorable reviews often given to immoral motion pictures in the daily press. Considering these evils. I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality. I promise further to secure as many members as possible for the Legion of Decency. I make this protest in a spirit of self-respect, and with the conviction that the American public does not demand filthy pictures, but clean entertainment and educational features. 

Name:__________________________

No dues whatever for the Legion of Decency. 

No meetings. 

Millions of Americans, pledging themselves individually, can rid the country of its greatest menace—the salacious motion picture. 

Source: here

The image of Toxic Waters is taken from the book: Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen & The Production Code Administration, by Thomas Doherty (page 59).

Whether we ought to pray for sinners?

We ought to pray even for sinners, that they may be converted, and for the just that they may persevere and advance in holiness. Yet those who pray are heard not for all sinners but for some: since they are heard for the predestined, but not for those who are foreknown to death; even as the correction whereby we correct the brethren, has an effect in the predestined but not in the reprobate, according to Ecclesiastes 7:14, “No man can correct whom God hath despised.” Hence it is written (1 John 5:16): “He that knoweth his brother to sin a sin which is not to death, let him ask, and life shall be given to him, who sinneth not to death.” Now just as the benefit of correction must not be refused to any man so long as he lives here below, because we cannot distinguish the predestined from the reprobate, as Augustine says (De Correp. et Grat. xv), so too no man should be denied the help of prayer.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (II-II Question 83, Article 7, Reply to Objection 3)