Can lack of courage / social anxiety reduce culpability of sin?

[JChapel]

I’ve noticed that I’ve been dealing with a lot of sins lately that wouldn’t have happened if I was only able to muster up the courage to do whatever it is that had to be done… and I’m really confused about whether any of these were mortal sins or sins at all, as while I had full knowledge of the act and gave mostly full consent of the will, the sin wouldn’t have happened in the first place if courage weren’t a problem. Can anyone shed light on this?

 

[George_Stegmeir]

Yes. You really need to discuss this with your confessor. If you do not have a priest that you regularly confess to, I suggest you go to any Catholic rectory and ask to speak with a priest. If necessary, make an appointment with a priest to talk about this. If it makes you more comfortable to have the seal of the confessional on this conversation, just ask. You will find the priest more than happy to accommodate you, and I am sure you will not only get better counseling for your problem than you will here, but you will feel immensely better about it.
Don’t wait, do it tomorrow as soon as possible.

 

[michaelmas]

If you have to ask whether or not they are a Mortal sin I would say they are not since you did not do them with the full intent of the mind and spirit.

As stated above, seek out a Priest immediately. I struggled and struggle with sin all the time and the one thing I always do is limit God. He loves us, He forgives us. All we need to do is ask.

Right now, make a general confession to God and make it as honest as you can then say and act of contrition. I still can’t believe at times how much God really loves us. It is the evil one that puts that doubt in our minds.

 

[Edmundus1581]

It is unclear from your post whether you are refering to sins of ommission, or sins of commission.

Let’s say a group of my friends is going to entertainment which is clearly immoral. If I excuse myself from going, but say nothing to admonish my friends then I may, or may not, be committing a sin of ommission, however if I choose to go with them, out of social anxiety, then I am committing a sin of commission. In the first case the social anxiety would certainly diminish the guilt, and possibly remove it altogether (depending on all the circumstances) but it would seem to me that in the second case it is much less a mitigating factor.

From the CCC

2480 Every word or attitude is forbidden which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct. Adulation is a grave fault if it makes one an accomplice in another’s vices or grave sins. Neither the desire to be of service nor friendship justifies duplicitous speech. Adulation is a venial sin when it only seeks to be agreeable, to avoid evil, to meet a need, or to obtain legitimate advantages.

 

[JChapel]

It is unclear from your post whether you are refering to sins of ommission, or sins of commission.

I was referring to sins of omission.

 

[Edmundus1581]

I was referring to sins of omission.

Obviously you have not given us enough information to know what the potential sins are, but please be aware that we are not always obliged to speak up, and that sometimes it is better not to. It can be a difficult decision, and one which confronts most of us from time to time.

 

[John21652]

I was referring to sins of omission.

It sounds to me as though the topic of this thread should be “Moral Courage”. The lack of moral courage is usually what leads to acts, or sins of omission. When we analyze why we, or others, fail to act rightly, it is usually because of a fear of the consequences. In the case of the OP, he seems to fear the reactions of other people and hence, endures social anxiety. I would imagine that the level of social anxiety being suffered is worse than the guilty conscience that results, if at all, from the act of omission and so the non-action is the least stressful course of action to take.

True moral courage means we do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, regardless of consequences. History is full of examples of people whose moral courage was so strong, they had the “courage of their convictions”, as we say, that they laid down their lives because they were doing the right thing, despite the severity of the social consequences, if there are any. Perhaps we should learn to stand up for our convictions with regard to small things that we may encounter in every day life and then through this practice, hope that when major moral challenges confont us, we have the moral courage to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. The trials we face are all ultimately a test of character and we should be developing our characters all the days of our lives. Strong moral courage is, after all, a character trait. Pushing out of our heads the fear of social consequences is a requisite for being in the habit of doing the right thing. Not acting out of fear of any sort does not lessen the wrongness of that which we either do, or fail to do.