Posted on 03/10/2008 10:21:49 AM PDT by Froufrou
The list came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularized world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.
The Catholic Church divides sins into venial, or less serious, sins and mortal sins, which threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession and penitence.
It holds mortal sins to be “grave violations of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes,” including murder, contraception, abortion, perjury, adultery and lust.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell.”
Although there is no definitive list of mortal sins, many believers accept the broad seven deadly sins or capital vices laid down in the 6th century by Pope Gregory the Great and popularized in the Middle Ages by Dante in "The Inferno": lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride.
Christians are exhorted instead to adhere to the seven holy virtues: chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.
Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body which oversees confessions and plenary indulgences, said after a week-long Lenten seminar for priests that surveys showed 60 percent of Catholics in Italy no longer went to confession.
He said that priests must take account of “new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalization.” Whereas sin in the past was thought of as being an individual matter, it now has “social resonance.”
“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Two things I suggest:
1. Lighten up.
2. Drop the “cordially” from your tagline. You are acting anything but.
I'm including a link here to one of the best 21st Century methods of effective and ethical fertility control. One of many. It's worth a look, if you're interested.
Makes me think of George Carlin’s question about the souls in purgatory on the “meat Rap”. Once it was ‘ok’ to eat meat on Friday’s what happened to those poor folks? :)
Just for short, think of self-described Christian Anne Lamott or the pastor at Obama's "Black Values System" United Church of Christ. (They're not the only ones, the first ones, or the worst ones: I'm just referring to them for illustrative purposes.)
You could find the same types in the Catholic Church, but at least they would know they were wrong. They would know, at least, that they were acting against the firm teachings of the Church.
For both Catholics and other Christians (Protestants/Evangelicals and the rest), it's a worrisome thing. See tagline.
Thanks for posting this, Froufrou. A very valuable Bibblical perspective here.
You are a better FReeper than I when it comes to solid reading, and I admit ‘reading comprehension’ was my poorest of the English scores.
And, I did not have the benefit of a religious upbringing. My faith has been a lonely search. But come to think of it, that’s apropro, isn’t it?
In the same way, directly sterilizing someone (deliberate destruction of source of life) is objectively worse than other kinds of maiming (say, deliberately breaking somebody's nose).
Notice the word "objectively." As in any sin, subjective guilt can be either aggravated (by defiance or malice, say) or mitigated (by faulty knowledge or lack on full willfulness.)
Perhaps somebody else could recommend a good work on morality which would deal with this more systematically and comprehensively. All I can think of is Right and Reason by Austin Fagothey, which I am delighted to find is available in its 2000 Edition.
Enjoy.
Chapter and verse, Camel!
I don’t doubt that such is the RCC’s point of view. I don’t share it if it means that using a condom is in the same category of moral transgression as procuring or performing an abortion.
Civil divorce is not a sin per se and does not bar one from the sacraments. Remarriage while one's spouse from a valid marriage is still alive (for instance, subsequent to a civil divorce) is a sin, namely bigamy --- not in civil law, but in the light of the first marriage bond, which still exists if the marriage was valid.
Contraception (not all birth control, but specifically contraception) is wrong; and inasmuch as natural, honest marital sex is holy and is a constitutive element of a sacrament (the Sacrament of Matrimony), contraception is a sacrilege.
So yes. Any Catholic who in a repeated, public, unrepentant way, even after a pastoral warning, advocates or is an accessory to these OR ANY serious sins, is guilty of public scandal, and--- as I said --- his Bishop would have to consider Canon 15.
Please don't think that this is only, or even principally, about sex-related sins. For example, excommunication is different from Canon 915, but serves as a good analogy: the only two public figures in the history of the U.S. Catholic Church who were publicly excommunicated, as far as I know, were
As I said, excommunication is technically different from Canon 915, but these cases illustrate the fact that it's not always about sex.
That is just a fine post. Pure and simple. But, what about the fact that ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse?’
In my opinion and that of many others, this article is a glaring example of distortion and malicious mischief on the part of the Enemedia.
Not that I'm faulting you for posting it....8^/
Mortal sin always depends on adequate knowledge and the full consent of the will. If you’re interested. It’s not possible to “accidentally” commit a mortal sin.
How ‘bout that Mary!
God bless you, FRiend.
No, it’s just me. I was up late at the Spurs game last night. I hardly recognize myself today. Hoarse, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.