1007. Concealment of one’s faith is lawful, if the requisite conditions are present.
(a) Thus, it is not lawful to conceal one’s faith at times when a profession of it is called for by divine or ecclesiastical law (see 991, 1003); at other times it is lawful. Example: Titus is travelling in a country where there are no Catholic churches, and where no one ever asks him about his religion. He never tells anyone what he is.
(b) It is not lawful to conceal one’s faith from a dishonest motive. Example: If Titus conceals his religion in order not to be unjustly discriminated against, his motive is good; but if he wishes to be taken for a non-Catholic, his motive is evil.
(c) It is not lawful to conceal one’s faith in a sinful way. Example: If the means of concealment employed by Titus imply deception or denial of the faith (such as lying about his origin and active participation in non-Catholic worship), he is guilty of sinful concealment. But, if the means employed are permissible (such as silence about himself, omission of grace before and after meals, eating meat on Fridays in virtue of dispensation, etc.), his method of concealment is not sinful.
1008. Generally speaking, concealment of one’s religion is not advisable. (a) The reasons for concealment are often imaginary, rather than real. We see that Catholics who are not ashamed of their religion, or afraid to have it known that they practise it, are respected for their sincerity and conscientiousness even in bigoted regions, while on the contrary those who are apologetic or who do not live up to their religion are looked down on as cowards or hypocrites. (b) The means employed for concealment will cause endless doubts and scruples, for it is often difficult to decide what means are lawful and what unlawful.
Art. 4: THE VIRTUE OF HOPE
(_Summa Theologica_, II-II, qq. 17-22.)
1009. Definition.—The word “hope” is variously used. (a) In a wide and improper sense, it signifies the expectation of some wished-for evil, or desire without expectation. Hence, colloquially one hopes for misfortune to another (hope of a future evil), or that another has succeeded or is in good health (hope of past or present good), or that some unlooked-for fortune will turn up (hope without expectation). (b) In its strict and proper sense, hope signifies the expectation of some desired good in the future. Thus, one hopes to pass an examination, or to recover from illness.
1010. Hope, strictly understood, is of various kinds. (a) It is an emotion or an affection, according as it proceeds from the sensitive or the rational appetite. The emotion of hope is an inclination of the irascible appetite to possess some object known through the senses and apprehended as good and attainable, and is found both in man and in the brutes. The affection of hope is a spiritual inclination, tending to good as known through the reason.
(b) Hope is either natural or supernatural, according as it tends either to goods that are temporal and within the power of man to acquire, or to goods that are eternal and above the unaided powers of creatures. It is in this latter sense that hope is now taken.