Habitually Smoking

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Sing04

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What is your opinion on priests and seminarians habitually smoking?
 
It’s troubling to see anyone habitually smoking, for health reasons, for exemplar reasons, and because of the expense. It is an addiction which to many of us seems wasteful and self-defeating. Otherwise, I’m not prepared to expand from general to the particular regarding the group of people whom you mention. I would wish anyone to find a more productive and more altruistic way of coping with stress, or of socializing. it is a difficult addiction to overcom,e so one hopes that guidance and means would be offered to anyone in need of recovery, and of dealing with stress, or simply of responding to social occasions.

God bless all of us, including our Religious, in aspects of their lives, tempral and spiritual

However, I was saddened when a local priest developped cancer, yet even then, was unable to give up smoking. I was saddened also, that a family member died of smoking related illness not because she ever smoked, she didn’t, but because her husband worked from home, and smoked one cigarette after another.
Habitual smoking isn’t simply about harm to self, it is also about potential harm to others, and in general is an unpleasant intrusion as it wafts around near passers by!
 
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Probably my same view on anyone who smokes… there’s extremely strong evidence connecting smoking to cancer to lung and coronary diseases among other negative health impacts. So, it’s a bad idea.

Also, it’s a vice at the very least. Our parish has a confession/examination of conscience sheet - not sure how universal those are - but abusive use of alcohol or other drugs (including nicotine) is a violation of the fifth commandment. So, I would again have to say it’s a bad idea all around.

I smoked for more than 20 years. I’m glad I quit.
 
I understand that the priesthood can be stressful. I agree that smoking is harmful to ANYONE no matter what their state in life is. I’ve experienced that some people don’t see smoking as something bad. I don’t know if it is a cultural thing. We should pray that people find healthier ways to cope with stress.
 
I actually haven’t seen a priest smoking for many years now. It used to be more common, before the negative health effects were widely publicized. The founding pastor of our parish, who died back in the 1970s, was a heavy smoker, but he had been a chaplain with the army in WWII and possibly picked up the habit then.
 
I can’t remember the last time I saw a priest habitually smoking in USA. Even in the 1970s when a large percentage of adults still smoked, I don’t remember seeing any priests smoking, not even the older “Greatest Generation” age priests who grew up in the era when smoking was a normal adult habit and not thought to be unhealthy. I saw priests who had an alcoholic drink or two, but never a smoking priest. I have no idea whether they may have smoked a cigarette or a pipe occasionally in the privacy of the Rectory but they were not smoking out in the open, nor having to dash out for a smoke break.

I would think a priest or seminarian with a smoking habit would be strongly urged to quit because of the potential bad effect on his health, the issues with a priest who reeks of smoke ministering to parishioners who may be allergic or just hate the smell, and the negative connotations of a priest going around with an addiction to nicotine.
 
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I’ll simply reply with the Catechism:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2290.htm

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess : the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.
 
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