Editing Casuistry (section)

===Early modernity===
The casuistic method was popular among [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] thinkers in the early modern period. Casuistic authors include [[Antonio Escobar y Mendoza]], whose ''Summula casuum conscientiae'' (1627) enjoyed great success, [[Thomas Sanchez]], [[Vincenzo Filliucci]] (Jesuit and [[Apostolic Penitentiary|penitentiary]] at [[St Peter]]'s), [[Antonino Diana]], [[Paul Laymann]] (''Theologia Moralis'', 1625), [[John Azor]] (''Institutiones Morales'', 1600), [[Etienne Bauny]], [[Louis Cellot]], [[Valerius Reginaldus]], and [[Hermann Busembaum]] (d. 1668).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Decock|first=Wim|date=2011|title=From Law to Paradise: Confessional Catholicism and Legal Scholarship|journal=Rechtsgeschichte|volume=2011|issue=18|pages=012–034|doi=10.12946/rg18/012-034|issn=1619-4993|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the [[Catholic probabilism|doctrine of probabilism]], which effectively stated that one could choose to follow a "probable opinion"{{mdash}}that is, an opinion supported by a theologian or another{{mdash}}even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the [[Fathers of the Church]].<ref>Franklin, ''Science of Conjecture'', p. 74–6, 83.</ref>

<section begin=Alleged corruption in the Catholic Church transclusion/>Certain kinds of casuistry were criticised by early [[Protestant Reformation|Protestant theologians]], because it was used to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and [[Jansenist]] philosopher [[Blaise Pascal]] during the [[formulary controversy]] against the Jesuits, in his [[Lettres provinciales|Provincial Letters]], as the use of [[rhetorics]] to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with '''Jesuitism'''; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and [[sophist]]ic reasoning to justify moral laxity.<ref>170 "Casuistry..destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong." Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, ''Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism 1736'' (pub. 1749), quoted in Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed.</ref> By the mid-18th century, "casuistry" had become a synonym for attractive-sounding, but ultimately false, moral reasoning.<ref>Jonsen, Albert R., The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning, University of California Press, 1988. {{ISBN|0-52-006063-6}} (p. 2).</ref><section end=Alleged corruption in the Catholic Church transclusion/>

In 1679 [[Pope Innocent&nbsp;XI]] publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (''stricti mentalis''), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, [[Francisco Suarez|Suarez]] and other casuists as ''propositiones laxorum moralistarum'' and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of [[excommunication]].<ref>Kelly, J.N.D., The Oxford History of the Popes, Oxford University Press, 1986. {{ISBN|0-19-282085-0}} (p. 287).</ref> Despite this condemnation by a pope, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous statements in specific circumstances.<ref>J.-P. Cavaillé, ''[http://dossiersgrihl.revues.org/document281.html Ruser sans mentir, de la casuistique aux sciences sociales: le recours à l’équivocité, entre efficacité pragmatique et souci éthique]'', in [[Serge Latouche]], P.-J. Laurent, O. Servais & M. Singleton, ''Les Raisons de la ruse. Une perspective anthropologique et psychanalytique'', Actes du colloque international «La raison rusée», Louvain la Neuve, mars 2001, Paris, La Découverte, 2004, pp. 93–118 {{in lang|fr}}.</ref>