Rather than hijacking someone else’s thread, I decided to make another one about this tiresome subject.
So me and a friend (of the opposite sex) want to go on a camping trip next month at a national park. We will probably be sleeping in a tent, but might spend a night in a hotel. Scandal here?
There’s absolutely no occasion of sin here. We’ve never dated, and we’ve been friends for so long now that I know nothing will happen.
So exactly how seriously am I supposed to take this scandal thing? Do I really have to concern myself with people’s mistaken beliefs? For all they know, this person could be my cousin.
People frequently misunderstand scandal. You would not give scandal to people in the park or at the hotel.
Scandal is something specific, and something quite serious, a violation of the Fifth Commandment.
Respect for the souls of others: scandal
2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. the person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.
2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep’s clothing.
2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion.
Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to “social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible.” This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger, or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values.
2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!”
I believe this is a matter of
prudence,
modesty, and *decorum *not
scandal. It really isn’t prudent or modest to sleep in the same quarters with a non-relative of the opposite sex.
