In a women’s field hockey test match between Argentina and Germany, the Europeans had scored a goal, but the referee did not call it. The Argentine coach asked one of his players if it was a goal and she said yes. Then the coach, known as “Cachito Vigil”, called the assistant referee and told her that it had been a goal, that she should call the goal and the referee confirmed it. At that moment the Argentinean reporter said: “he has given a goal to Germany; I have never seen it in international field hockey. This is a good guy”.
Years later in an interview he was asked about that episode: – “That’s a gesture that for many was stupid, to give a goal against your team… eh… isn’t that self-destructive?”
To this, the coach answered: “- If I ask you if it was a goal or not and you tell me it was and then I don’t say anything… how will I look at you afterwards? […]that does not mean that I am an honest person, but it was an attitude that was appropriate and if you want to call it honest, it was an honest attitude. What I cannot understand is why people say that I am an honest person. One action does not make you honest for the rest of your life… yes, that was an honest action, but tomorrow I should start again.”
The attitude of this coach that surprised so many people at the time he did that and for years later as the journalist of the interview was still surprised by what he had done, actually should not have surprised anyone because it should have been what everyone would have done.
However, this is not the case because, as Servais Pinckaers, O.P. rightly points out: in the ancient and medieval world, virtue was not only something noble but also the ideal that was desired, that one wanted to achieve. Today, unfortunately, the opposite is true, no one seeks to be virtuous and it is considered stupid to perform a virtuous deed, such as being honest in a field hockey game.
This coach was correct in what he did and in what he said later in the interview. One action does not necessarily make us honest because one action does not necessarily mean that we possess the virtue that reflects the good action we perform.
Virtue, as St. Thomas says following Aristotle, is a good operative habit because it makes the one who possesses it good and his action good. He points out that for there to be moral virtue in the subject there must be three elements in the act: that one acts knowing what one is doing; that one chooses to perform the virtuous act; and that one performs it in a firm way, meaning in a constant way.
Habits are necessary so that the powers can produce their acts in a connatural way: “no act is perfectly produced by any active power, if it is not connatural to it by some form, which is the principle of its action” (S.Th. II-II,23,2). Hence it is so important to work to attain virtues in order to perform perfect actions according to our nature. Every man must acquire the virtues that perfect his faculties and this is the way to mature as a person.
