Does anyone else think that many Catholics are too preoccupied with thinking what could be a sin or not?

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SacredHeartBassist

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I mean I get it. I used to be at that point in my faith where it seemed like if I thought too much about eating on thanksgiving I committed the sin of gluttony. Why are so many Catholics so scrupulous and what can be done to stop this scrupulousity? It’s unhealthy spiritually and it stifles growth.
 
Catholics in general? Probably not. People who post on this forum? Abso-fricking-lutely.
 
Sorry, I should’ve clarified.

Most Catholics probably have the opposite problem lol
 
In my opinion CAF is overrepresented by scrupulous and OCD people compared to real life. So that over preoccupation is not what I see in real life. Maybe others have a different experience.
 
@SacredHeartBassist , what concerns me most about the subject you have broached is the images of God which are present within those who make these posts .
 
This is true but I think the OP means posters who start threads of the type… is this a sin? where the answer is obvious and then you learn they are scrupulous and such… it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out what is a sin and what is not, right?
 
From what I’ve noticed, it’s often the people who just started taking their Faith seriously who suffer from religious OCD. But, once they become more educated and settled into their new life as a Catholic, it dissipates.

EDIT: I’ve also noticed a lot of the OCD type questions on this forum come from minores. They probably come on here because they can’t ask their parents these things and don’t have a means of going to someone else in real life for guidance.
 
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SacredHeartBassist said:
Why are so many Catholics so scrupulous and what can be done to stop this scrupulousity?
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I think compared to “total Catholics in the world”, the number who are scrupulous is quite small. The number who post in places like CAF and other online forums is quite high. That is because their illness drives them to places like this, just as those with other mental illnesses are attracted to various online forums.
SacredHeartBassist said:
It’s unhealthy spiritually and it stifles growth
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It’s a mental illness in the OCD family. It needs professional help.
 
1ke said:
I think compared to “total Catholics in the world”, the number who are scrupulous is quite small. The number who post in places like CAF and other online forums is quite high. That is because their illness drives them to places like this, just as those with other mental illnesses are attracted to various online forums.
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I agree with this. It makes a lot of sense.
 
You said exactly what I was going to say. This board is full of people that worry too much about sinning
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
Why are so many Catholics so scrupulous and what can be done to stop this scrupulousity? It’s unhealthy spiritually and it stifles growth.
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I don’t think this is the case in general (at least, I hope not!) but we do get a lot of it on here CAF.

I think it reflects poor catechesis. Most people don’t seem to know what constitutes mortal sin, some have never even SEEN anexamination of conscience.
SacredHeartBassist said:
Most Catholics probably have the opposite problem lol
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I am sorry to say this is true, and they even ignore clear teachings of the Church and persist in sin.
Dan_Defender said:
In my opinion CAF is overrepresented by scrupulous and OCD people compared to real life.
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It certainly seems that way to me. It never seemed to be like this in the old forum, but maybe I just did not notice those threads?
Rob2 said:
what concerns me most about the subject you have broached is the images of God which are present within those who make these posts .
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This is a very good point, and one reason I say it is related to poor catechesis. The life in Christ is about a relationship, not a lot of rules for right and wrong. But unfortunately many Catholics have never developed this relationship.
 
I think it is very important to recognize what sin is and how to combat it. We must make sure not to fall into the protestant notion of ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’ where Jesus is separate from the Church He founded, the Catholic Church. Our personal relationship with Jesus includes the Sacraments He instituted for us (I will be with you always) and His teachings (Doctrine…if you love me you will obey my commandments).
 
If I was to say anything - concerning this subject -
It’s this “ fear God “ -

Someone came up to me, at church, this was before mass,
saying, “ God loves you. “
( I think they wanted to comfort me with assuring me that )
I smiled and said “ I know “
They kind of gave me a double look -

I think ‘ the fear of God ‘ brings a reverence - a humility -
I’m always surprised at how people waltz into church -
and start talking about what they ate at a cookout on July 4th -
even talking on their cell phone, loudly, for five minutes…
“ oh, I’m in church right now, waiting for it to begin “

I say - let them be scrupulous - and work out their fear -
Don’t judge them - or down them - but admire their efforts 🙂
 
It’s a balance. It would be wrong to say the rules don’t matter, of course. But it’s also wrong to think of God as some kind of tyrannical bureaucrat looking to nail us on a technicality.
 
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Seagull said:
I say - let them be scrupulous - and work out their fear -
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How are you okay with someone being tormented by their thoughts?
Seagull said:
but admire their efforts
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What efforts are you referring to? The efforts to be less scrupulous or do you think being scrupulous takes effort? You seem very flip about something that is rooted in OCD and very little, if anything, to do with holiness.
 
I think a lot of people just happen to have obsessive personalities, and religion is a convenient enabling force because it is already very systematic and rule-oriented. My suggestion would be to treat scrupulosity the way we’d treat any other form of OCD.
 
I’m sure many are, and that places like CAF attract them disproportionately. On the other hand, I fear that even more Catholics aren’t half preoccupied enough with the question. “Meanes blest,” as Dean Donne put it.
 
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