Can I receive communion?

[MartyrForJesus]

So I went on youtube today after getting home for two hours, watching mostly prank videos.

A) A lot of the videos seemed to have swearing, sometimes even vulgar gestures from reactions.

B) The ‘related videos’ section seemed to be completely drenched with pornographic video suggestions, which had no relevance to the videos I was looking at. Why are they even still being hosted on the website despite its breaches of the rules?

C) I involuntarily laughed at two different incredibly racist comments. I was surfing the web and it seems that that sometimes happens when you deal with negative situations. Never the less, my scruples still make me feel super guilty.

My scrupulosity-infected conscience is telling me I’m in mortal sin, because of putting myself constantly in the occasion of sin (Staying on youtube rather than turning it off, because of the above reasons) and laughing at the racist comments. I was also laughing at some funny parking videos called ‘Women drivers attempting to park’ (I’m not sexist the videos are just funny).

Any help? Am I good to go?

 

[MartyrForJesus]

Also, some of the videos had cross dressing men as pranks.

 

[bearer]

Sounds kind of iffy to me. I think a priest would be better suited to consider the nature of your sins and state of your soul.

Personally, it doesn’t sound like you’ve committed a mortal sin. But, I’m a layman, so take my opinion for what it’s worth.

Regarding you specific concerns, yeah, some teens and young adults get a kick out of doing mischief on video and cussing all the while. It gets old quickly, but as long as there’s no blasphemy, and you don’t imitate these people, you should be OK. If someone does say something offensive to God, I’d pray the Divine Praises and avoid that video (and those of that youtuber) going forward.

Also, from what I understand, those ‘pornographic’ video links are misleading. Some people post videos with outlandish titles just to get curious viewers to click on them. Avoid them anyway, if nothing else, just to keep the clicks down.

Yes, racism offends God, harms Christ’s Church, and wounds human relationships. Say a short prayer or two asking for forgiveness and that God’s mercy and grace be upon those suffering under racism and for the conversion of the racists themselves.

I think the bottom line is that although you viewed potentially offensive videos for entertainment, you did not fully consent to viewing what happened to be in them. Now that you’ve seen a particularly offensive video, you know better, so take care to avoid them in the future.

God bless you, and may the peace of Christ be upon your heart!

 

[bearer]

Argh, I can’t edit my post! By “iffy”, I meant that I’m not so sure that you committed a mortal sin.

 

[ivory]

I wouldn’t consider a prank (or videos depicting them) to be anything of a “grave” nature unless it seriously risked the lives of those involved or included some kind of major blasphemy. So therefore, it does not sound like you committed any sort of mortal sin.

And as for the “pornographic” suggested videos, Youtube does not host pornography. It doesn’t stop people who are looking for it from clicking on videos with pornographic sounding titles, however. Those clicks create views for the video’s owner and can generate income if they’re in a partnership with Youtube. They’re grabs for attention and money, nothing more.

 

[ready]

Lord, help MartyrforJesus to get to confession. May he keep away from all occasions of sin and work hard at keeping himself pure and charitable. May nothing separate him from you. Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayer.

 

[MartyrForJesus]

Lord, help MartyrforJesus to get to confession. May he keep away from all occasions of sin and work hard at keeping himself pure and charitable. May nothing separate him from you. Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayer.

Thanks