I wouldnt even count that as a venial sin. There was no intent to become aroused. She wasnt giving you a lap dance either. No sin.i was at a college party last week and me and my friend were giving some girls a ride and there wasnt enough room in the back for them and i let one sit on my lap. i wasnt aroused and i wasnt even attracted to the girl- the car ride was 5 min. the next day i received communion…i know what i did was at least a venial sin and i plan on confessing it in my next confession but my question is was it a mortal sin? and did i committ a sacreligious communion?
I agree with the poster above - there was a sin, but nothing of a sexual nature. You were putting your own and other people’s lives at risk by putting more people in the car than the number of seat belts available.i was at a college party last week and me and my friend were giving some girls a ride and there wasnt enough room in the back for them and i let one sit on my lap. i wasnt aroused and i wasnt even attracted to the girl- the car ride was 5 min. the next day i received communion…i know what i did was at least a venial sin and i plan on confessing it in my next confession but my question is was it a mortal sin? and did i committ a sacreligious communion?
According to the catechism, it really can’t be a moral sin if it didn’t occur to him it might be a sin. Without further details (such as how they might have gotten home otherwise) I wouldn’t say it was definitely any type of sin. If he is bothered he could confess, but I see no reason to refrain from Eucharist .I don’t think you committed a venial sin by the fact of a girl perching on your lap due to lack of space, particularly if you were not doing so out of any lustful reason and weren’t subjected to any lustful temptations.
However…
I assume you were in a car?
Did you give any thought at all to the safety of the situation? It would have been impossible for you all to wear safety belts.
That, in my book, is negligence of the first order. You presumably agreed to this arrangement, and therefore, had a crash happened, your companion would have been completely unrestrained and could have been seriously injured or worse. You would have been to blame, along with the owner/driver of the car.
You did not sin in any lustful sense, but you did sin by reckless disregard for the safety of
others. I’ll leave you to decide whether you think
that was a mortal sin or not.
was it reckless? yes. was it stupid? absolutely. was it a grave matter? NO. I can say that with confidence because of the speed we were going and the fact that we were driving on the campus trail and then 1 block across the street.I think most people of college age know what safety belts are there for and what they’re supposed to prevent.
Anyone deliberately encouraging and participating in a situation where a car is overloaded and dangerous, no matter how short the journey (and 5 minutes is plenty of time to get up speed enough to kill), is guilty of wilful negligence.
Not only should the original person have known better, I think it’s safe to presume that he DID know better and chose to ignore that knowledge for the sake of expediency.
We are called to love one another as we would ourselves be loved.
I think it’s very very far from loving to place someone in a dangerous situation (or be complicit in that placement). Whether it constitutes mortal sin is probably a matter for a priest to decide, but I’m none too sure that it isn’t.
They could have walked and got there in the same amount of time. It would have made more sense for the boys to escort the girls on foot - they would have actually arrived faster, because it probably took a few moments for them to wedge themselves into the car.5-10 mph
In a campus environment where people don’t drive fast, it honestly would never occur to me to confess this, and from conversations with my past confessors, I’m almost certain they would be confused as to why I thought I should and look for deeper meaning. Maybe I’ve never had a good confessor, although they’ve all seemed devout, loving, thoughtful Priests.I think most people of college age know what safety belts are there for and what they’re supposed to prevent.
Anyone deliberately encouraging and participating in a situation where a car is overloaded and dangerous, no matter how short the journey (and 5 minutes is plenty of time to get up speed enough to kill), is guilty of wilful negligence.
Not only should the original person have known better, I think it’s safe to presume that he DID know better and chose to ignore that knowledge for the sake of expediency.
We are called to love one another as we would ourselves be loved.
I think it’s very very far from loving to place someone in a dangerous situation (or be complicit in that placement). Whether it constitutes mortal sin is probably a matter for a priest to decide, but I’m none too sure that it isn’t.
In high school I was in a serious accident where the car was smashed and flipped in a river. The only thing that saved our lives is we didn’t have seatbelts on. I’m not advocating not wearing seatbelts, however it’s not always absolute.In high school ('78) we crammed 7 people or more into a Pinto (seats 4 people comfortably) for a seven mile drive to my house.
In the dark of night - around midnight - half way to my folk’s house we hit a deer. Luckily, the deer died instantly before it landed on the hood.
The very next car to pass by our wreck was a State Patrol officer on his nightly rounds.
We were so fortuneate, no one was injured, but it could have been very bad.
That doesn’t matter. If the OP’s intention was to have the girl in an awkward position so that if the car crashed the girl would be ejected or hurt (thus the act was done out of malice) then it would be a mortally sinful act.What speed were you going?
It’s not whether you should go to Confession for it, but whether you should endanger other people like that in the future.In a campus environment where people don’t drive fast, it honestly would never occur to me to confess this, and from conversations with my past confessors, I’m almost certain they would be confused as to why I thought I should and look for deeper meaning. Maybe I’ve never had a good confessor, although they’ve all seemed devout, loving, thoughtful Priests.
I’m content to say I don’t have the authority to say it isn’t, but only the op knows if he considered the matter serious and gave full willing consent. By all means, go to confession if you feel you sinned.
He asked if it was a mortal sin he should confess. I agree it likely wasn’t the best decision, but that wasn’t his question. My response is my opinion it isn’t a mortal sin in my mind (which accounts for nothing).It’s not whether you should go to Confession for it, but whether you should endanger other people like that in the future.
Coming to a sudden stop at 10 miles an hour is equivalent to falling on to concrete from a first floor balcony - there are likely to be some broken bones, and probably a concussion or two, if the person isn’t wearing a seat-belt.
An experiment you can do is to run a board ramp from a first floor balcony to the parking lot below. Make a toy car that fits on the ramp, and drill some egg-sized holes in the seat area of the toy car. Place some eggs in the holes, and then run the car
down the ramp with the eggs in it.
The eggs will hit the parking lot at the same speed
as what passengers would be ejected at, at a speed
of 10 mph.
Also, it’s not unheard-of to see people driving at street speeds (25-30 mph) in 5 mph zones - just because you are not speeding, doesn’t mean someone else might not be, for whatever reason -
and the speed at which they hit you is the speed at
which your passenger will be ejected from the car, if
she isn’t wearing a seat belt. (Think second floor
balcony for 20 mph, and 3rd floor balcony, for 30
mph, etc.)
At the risk of going wildly off topic, this raises a very interesting point about the way people perceive risk.In high school I was in a serious accident where the car was smashed and flipped in a river. The only thing that saved our lives is we didn’t have seatbelts on. I’m not advocating not wearing seatbelts, however it’s not always absolute.
For example, I’d rather have my child take a ride without a seatbelt than walk across campus alone at night.
It certainly isn’t a grave matter since the OP didn’t show any indication about concerns regarding safety, to him it was a non-issue. People get in the back of pick-up trucks with no restraint all the time, and in many countries it is not at all common to have restraints for everyone. Statistically speaking car rides are very safe and most accidents that do happen cause very little harm to anything besides the vehicle. The only reason car accidents are so common in people lives is because we all spend such a large portion of our lives behind the wheel. In most states adult passengers in the rear of a vehicle are not required to wear restraints either.At the risk of going wildly off topic, this raises a very interesting point about the way people perceive risk.
Just grabbing statistics off the net here: in 2005 there were 6.4million auto accidents in the US. In 2004 there were 1.3million assaults (murder, rape, violent assault, robberies, etc, source DOJ, roughly equal to the preceding year). It strikes me that the objective risk of crime against the person is less than the risk of accident involving an automobile. How you quantify risk is, of course, difficult because the risk is highly variable depending on circumstances. However, overloaded cars would naturally be at a higher risk than suitably loaded ones.
Anyway… regarding the incident itself, if it was such a short ride at such a low speed, why couldn’t the driver make two trips? It would hardly have been any hardship.
I think recklessness is sinful because it displays inappropriate lack of care for oneself and one’s companions. I would say it’s a grave matter because of the serious consequences had anything gone wrong and because, in this case, nobody of college age can honestly claim to be ignorant of the potential for injury in such cases. To not consider such a thing is to wilfully disregard what should by understood as wrong by simple human reason alone - that is to say it is clearly and objectively sinful.
I think it certainly merits mentioning in Confession.