"For this reason," he said, "our illustrious Molina (I hope you will be satisfied after this) solves the following question: 'If money has been received in the form of payment for a bad deed, are you obliged to return it? "It is necessary to distinguish," says this great man, "if the deed for which the payment has been paid has not been done, the money must be returned, but if it has been performed, it is not obligatory to return: Si non fecit hoc malumt tenetur restituere; secus, si fecit. Escobar cites this in tr. 3, pr. 2, No 138.

Here are some of our refund policies. You have learned quite a lot of them today, and I want to see now how you would use them. Answer me. "Is a judge who has received money from one of the parties in order to pronounce a sentence in his favor be obliged to return it?"

"You just told me you didn't, my father.

"I thought so," he said, "did I even say?" I told you that he is not obliged to return if he has allowed one who has no legal right to win in a lawsuit. But if there is such a right, do you really want to buy a favorable outcome of your case, when it follows the law? You are wrong. Do you not understand that the judge is obliged to give justice, and therefore cannot sell it, but he is not bound to injustice, and thus he can receive money for it. That is why all our main authors, such as Molina (pp. 94 and 99), Reginald (Book 10, NoNo 184, 185 and 187), Filiucius (Tr. 31, NoNo 220 and 228), Escobar (Tr. 3, Pr. 1, NoNo 21 and 23). Lessius (Book 2, Chapter 14, Rec. 8, No 55) teaches unanimously, "that the judge is certainly obliged to return what he has received for the justice he has done, unless it was given to him out of generosity, but that he is never obliged to return what he has received from the person in whose favor he has pronounced an unjust sentence."

I was utterly stunned by this strange decision, and while I was pondering its disastrous consequences, the priest prepared another question for me, and said:

"Answer with more caution this time. I ask you now: "Is a man who practises divination obliged to return the money earned by this trade?"

"It is as you please, your reverence," I said to him.

-A what? As I please! You are an amazing man, really! One might think from the way you say that the truth depends on our will. I see clearly that it is difficult for you to find the truth yourself. Listen, then, to how Sánchez handles this question; true, but it's Sanchez. First, he makes the following distinction in his Summa (Book 2, Ch. 38, MeMg 94, 95, and 96): "Did he resort to astrology and other natural remedies alone, or did he resort to blackmail," since, according to him, "in the one case the money must be returned, and in the other it is not." Can you now say in which one?

"It's not difficult," I said.

"I can see," he said, "what you mean." Do you think that he is obliged to return if he had recourse to the mediation of devils? Well, you don't understand anything; quite the opposite. Here is the decision of Sánchez himself in the same place: "If this diviner has not taken the trouble to find out with the help of the devil what cannot be known otherwise, si nullam operant apposuit ut arte diaboli id sciret, he is obliged to return, but if he has taken care of the said assistance, he is not obliged."

"Why is this so, my father?"

"Don't you understand that?" he said. "Because with the help of the devil you can probably tell fortunes, while astrology is a deceptive method.

"But, my father, if the devil does not tell the truth (he is not more truthful than astrology), then the fortune-teller will have to return the money on the same basis?"

"No, not always," he said. "Distinguo," says Sánchez, "if the diviner is ignorant of the black-book, si sit artis diabolicae ignarus, he is bound to give the money back: but if he is a skilful sorcerer, and has done all he can to find out the truth, he is not obliged to do so, for then the diligence of such a sorcerer may be valued at the money: 'diligentia a mage apposita est pretio aestimabilis.'