Does some incorrect information invalidate all of a priest's advice?

[jackdack]

I suffer from scrupulosity, which often causes me to have all kinds of complicated or in-depth questions about what is and isn’t sinful. However, I read in a book dealing with scrupulosity that all a scrupulous person needs to do to form his conscience is ask a priest a question he has, and stick to what that priest says, unless he has obvious and overwhelming reason to believe that the priest is wrong.

I’ve recently been plagued by a bunch of questions that are very vague and that I couldn’t find any clear, direct advice on, so I decided to follow that advice and merely pose the questions to the priest I was confessing to. He answered them, but we went on to have a long conversation, during which he made an obvious mistake – he said that Catholics can be excused from the abstinence from meat on Friday to be polite. I tried to correct him politely, but he replied that he had been taught that and read it from a bunch of theologians, so I think it’s reasonable to assume that he’s not undereducated or obstinately denying Catholic teaching, only that he’s mistaken. However, does that mean that the rest of the advice he gave me might also be mistaken? Do I have to go to another priest and ask these questions again, or can I still assume that everything else the priest told me about areas that are vaguer are correct?

If you could help me with this, I would really appreciate it, because this is really starting to bother me. Thanks!

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

It is important to carefully read the information you’re given and figure out what it precisely says. You said your book told you that what “a scrupulous person needs to do to form his conscience is ask a priest a question he has, and stick to what that priest says, unless he has obvious and overwhelming reason to believe that the priest is wrong” (emphasis added).

You did not have “obvious and overwhelming reason” to disbelieve your priest. You had a gut reaction based on prior knowledge you believed to be true, and you chose to elevate that gut reaction to a higher status than the advice given you by your priest. That is precisely the type of action your book on scrupulosity seems to have been attempting to warn you against. What the book likely was trying to say is that a scrupulous person should not trust his gut. He ordinarily should trust the priest, unless the priest advises him to do something obviously immoral. If there is any possibility that the priest could be right, in a situation like this the benefit of the doubt goes to the priest. If the priest happens to be wrong, the culpability is his and does not belong to the scrupulous person who innocently followed faulty advice.

As to the particular question you had about Friday abstinence, here is the answer:

• The Church ordinarily only requires Catholics to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and the Fridays of Lent. On the other Fridays of the year, abstinence from meat generally is recommended but not required. (England and Wales recently became rare exceptions to that rule when the bishops in those countries reinstated abstinence from meat on all Fridays for their people.)
• When abstinence from meat is required, it can be dispensed in individual cases for just reason. Pastors usually have the faculty for such a dispensation.
• It is a matter of prudence whether or not a person can be dispensed from the requirement to abstain to avoid causing embarrassment or discomfort to others. Personally, I believe that the “embarrassment excuse” is imprudent for any number of reasons, first and foremost of which is that it weakens Catholic identity and can cause scandal. I must affirm though that there is a strain of thought in the Church that sees such exceptions as necessary for sound pastoral guidance.
• In any event, because this was a matter of prudence and not a matter of morality, you did not have just cause to challenge your priest on this. Requesting clarification is fine; making clear to him your belief that he was wrong or did not know what he was talking about was not.

There is also the question of whether or not a Catholic should take seriously a priest’s advice when he is occasionally incorrect or imprudent. The answer is, “Yes, he should.”

Look at it this way: Natural parents are occasionally incorrect or imprudent in their instruction and admonition of their children. That does not excuse children from appropriate obedience to them in all things but sin. In the same way, a spiritual father has the right to appropriate obedience from a member of Christ’s faithful, especially when he has accepted the task of helping an individual member deal with scruples. Trust and obey your priest, trusting by so doing that God will value more highly your obedience to your spiritual father than your knowledge of the faith.