Having opposite-sex roommates is a sin?

  • Thread starter Thread starter genevieve4
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

genevieve4

Guest
I’m considering becoming Catholic, but it seems every day I run across something that I did in the past that I had never thought of as a sin (…but which will apparently send me straight to hell.) 😦 So, here’s my current confusion …

During college I usually lived in apartments with other people, often a co-ed mix. These guys and girls were solely friends of mine (and each other), and remain so to this day. The apartment layouts were such that we really only shared kitchen and living room space, each person had their own bedroom and bathroom. Did I really commit the sin of “cohabitation” just because I had opposite-sex roommates?? What if I had lived with my brother and sister? Would THAT have been a sin just because “it could cause scandal,” with people of the opposite sex being seen entering and leaving the same apartment? :ehh:

Wouldn’t it even be “scandal” if a young woman lived with her brother (or widowed father, or some other male relative), since there’s always some crazy person who could assume the worst and go around gossiping about it? :hmmm:

It seems really unfair that the false assumptions of others would be my fault (and thus my sin … and my going-to-hell)

I have a female roommate now … couldn’t it be said that “scandal” could be caused by someone assuming incorrectly that we’re lesbians??

It just seems ridiculous to me, and that people would say that, until/unless I get married, I’m basically required to live alone for the rest of my life lest I “cause scandal.” [Also it sounds expensive…]
 
You have got to love Catholicism…

The short answer to all these is no. In order for something to be mortal sin (the kind that gets you sent straight to hell), you have do it on purpose, know it is wrong and it has to be grave matter.

None of what you describes meets all of these conditions. But, that is all really besides the point.

The point of being Catholic is knowing that God loves you and He wants to pour out His love and mercy on you. Had a one night stand and are sorry for it? Here, have some love and mercy. Stole something, realized it was wrong and offensive to Jesus and are sorry for it? Here, have some more love and mercy. Committed the same sin for the one billionth time and are sorry for it and are really really trying to do better. Here, have some more love and mercy. Again.

Sometimes we Catholics get caught in in the rules and forget it is all about Christ. The rules are there simply to help give us direction to get closer to Christ. He is what it is all about in the end. If you look hard enough, you will find that just about everything, in the right light and in the right circumstance can be sinful. The idea is try to try your hardest, recognize when you have failed and ask for forgiveness. Christ gave us a sacrament just for that.

One a side note, what you are experience may be scrupulosity. That is when you find sin in every little action.

I hope this helps. I’ll be praying for your conversion!

fermat
 
genevieve4 said:
I’m considering becoming Catholic, but it seems every day I run across something that I did in the past that I had never thought of as a sin (…but which will apparently send me straight to hell.) 😦 So, here’s my current confusion …

During college I usually lived in apartments with other people, often a co-ed mix. These guys and girls were solely friends of mine (and each other), and remain so to this day. The apartment layouts were such that we really only shared kitchen and living room space, each person had their own bedroom and bathroom. Did I really commit the sin of “cohabitation” just because I had opposite-sex roommates?? What if I had lived with my brother and sister? Would THAT have been a sin just because “it could cause scandal,” with people of the opposite sex being seen entering and leaving the same apartment? :ehh:

Wouldn’t it even be “scandal” if a young woman lived with her brother (or widowed father, or some other male relative), since there’s always some crazy person who could assume the worst and go around gossiping about it? :hmmm:

It seems really unfair that the false assumptions of others would be my fault (and thus my sin … and my going-to-hell)

I have a female roommate now … couldn’t it be said that “scandal” could be caused by someone assuming incorrectly that we’re lesbians??

It just seems ridiculous to me, and that people would say that, until/unless I get married, I’m basically required to live alone for the rest of my life lest I “cause scandal.” [Also it sounds expensive…]
Click to expand...
my pastor would not approve. 🙂
why put yourself in this tempting environrment? I’m referring to male and female

As a parent, I wouldn’t want my daughter to live this way either.

bluelake
 
fermat said:
You have got to love Catholicism…

The short answer to all these is no. In order for something to be mortal sin (the kind that gets you sent straight to hell), you have do it on purpose, know it is wrong and it has to be grave matter.

None of what you describes meets all of these conditions. But, that is all really besides the point.

The point of being Catholic is knowing that God loves you and He wants to pour out His love and mercy on you. Had a one night stand and are sorry for it? Here, have some love and mercy. Stole something, realized it was wrong and offensive to Jesus and are sorry for it? Here, have some more love and mercy. Committed the same sin for the one billionth time and are sorry for it and are really really trying to do better. Here, have some more love and mercy. Again.

Sometimes we Catholics get caught in in the rules and forget it is all about Christ. The rules are there simply to help give us direction to get closer to Christ. He is what it is all about in the end. If you look hard enough, you will find that just about everything, in the right light and in the right circumstance can be sinful. The idea is try to try your hardest, recognize when you have failed and ask for forgiveness. Christ gave us a sacrament just for that.

One a side note, what you are experience may be scrupulosity. That is when you find sin in every little action.

I hope this helps. I’ll be praying for your conversion!

fermat
Click to expand...
:clapping:
 
Scandal is not an absolute sin, it depends on the culture of the time.

In the past, if a man and a woman were roommates people would have assumed they were having sex.

In modern society it is common, and people no longer assume that so there is no scandal.

For there to be scandal, people have to know you’re Catholic, and they have to be given the impression by you that something that is sinful is actually okay. It doesn’t matter if people think you’re sinning. It’s if they think you’re a faithful Catholic and represent Church teaching, and you give the impression that sins are okay.
 
flyingfish said:
Scandal is not an absolute sin, it depends on the culture of the time.

In the past, if a man and a woman were roommates people would have assumed they were having sex.

In modern society it is common, and people no longer assume that so there is no scandal.

For there to be scandal, people have to know you’re Catholic, and they have to be given the impression by you that something that is sinful is actually okay. It doesn’t matter if people think you’re sinning. It’s if they think you’re a faithful Catholic and represent Church teaching, and you give the impression that sins are okay.
Click to expand...
Depends on where and who. Context.

Mind you … once shared with a flatmate of the opposite gender who, even though he was a bit of a womaniser, I thought would NEVER be so stupid/desperate as to ever be interested in me … well, I was wrong on that one. Made things very awkward.

If you ran into no problems in your experience, well and good. Don’t assume it’ll work for everyone, or nearly everyone.

There are people who jaywalk across busy streets in peak hour and manage not to get hit by traffic as well - doesn’t mean they should go around assuming there’s nothing dangerous about it.
 
I suffer from scruples, but wouldnt even blink at what you did as a student - "...each had their own bedroom and bathroom...". A person would have to be pretty smutty-minded to make much out of that. Same with your present setup. If the two of you went around to- gether in public holding hands and kissing etc, it would be different. Our Lord was acc- used of being a drunkard and a heap of other things by evil-minded people. Your actions are innocent - if anybody finds offence, thats his problem, not yours.

The ones most likely to be scandalized are the folks who aren`t so pure themselves, and
they take for granted that everybody else is as fallen in that area as they are.

I live alone with a cat - somewhere in this world, there`d be some warped type who would
find scandal with that.
 
Another beautiful topic I had a long discussion on- the Church’s most major grief with this would be (based on what I read) that you may cause scandal. People may assume you’re sinning regardless of whether or not it’s true, making you a bad role influence.

Since you’re a potential convert, I won’t bias you with my take on that.
 
Well first of all it is not a sin. In order for you to sin you have to commit a sin. The situation you described if true is not in and of itself sinful. Now for my personal thoughts. If in a hundred years you think that you can ever convince me that college aged kids living under one roof, day in day out, with hormones raging is just a fine idea You can trust trust me when I say there is in no way on Earth that you can ever construct words that will convince me that this is anything but a BAD IDEA!!!
 
bluelake said:
my pastor would not approve. 🙂
why put yourself in this tempting environrment? I’m referring to male and female

As a parent, I wouldn’t want my daughter to live this way either.
Click to expand...
For the record, if you had told me in college (when said roommate situations occurred) that I was even going to be THINKING about becoming Catholic, I would have been rolling on the floor laughing…
And as far as parents, they didn’t really care…(they’re nowhere near Catholic either.)
… Though I’m sure it helped that the only men in the living situation over the years were either gay (“Will & Grace”??) or had long-term girlfriends since they were 14.
Mike_Dye said:
If in a hundred years you think that you can ever convince me that college aged kids living under one roof, day in day out, with hormones raging is just a fine idea You can trust trust me when I say there is in no way on Earth that you can ever construct words that will convince me that this is anything but a BAD IDEA!!!
Click to expand...
From my experience the “hormones raging” seemed to lead lots of college aged kids to “rage” with other kids who live under a different roof but would go play sleepover at another’s. AND, college aged kids who lived alone I’m sure had no qualms bringing over “friends” for the night. Same goes for same-gender housing setups… but that’s not really the point.

I’m not saying I think it’s a good idea … I agree that the potential issues are enough to say opposite-sex kids living together is generally probably a BAD idea. I think my issue is that I just don’t like the idea that one gossiper’s assumptions result in my having caused a sin (scandal).
 
It is evident that the people of this age in our culture are very confused about human sexuality. The original post makes that painfully obvious. We are spiritual creatures, and physical. Before we can understand the morality of the many obscure situations that we face we first have to understand the fundamentals, the basics. Our society clearly does not.

If we believe God made us and we are made by design, for some purpose, this is a good place to start, understanding purpose.

Every human being that comes into existance in the mother’s womb has an immortal soul. The man and woman come together in physical delight and a boby is conceived. The man and woman cooperate with God and the three create a being who will live forever. God created the man and woman, and He creates the new soul. In that light this is a sacred activity. The creation of this new being takes place in a place, in the woman, the mother. Her womb is a tabernacle of life, a chalice, a holy place.

The angels do not have this power. Humans have this power and privilege and they exercise it by their will.

In our time sex is trivialized. The transmission of life is not seen as holy and children are not valued. We kill them in the womb. We have operations to prevent conception and use chemicals also to frustrate the holy transmission of life.

From this perspective individuals, men and women, become objects of selfish pleasure to which they become addicted. They lose respect for one another and become incapable of true love, for which they are made. A holy act becomes dirty and perverted. This we call sin.

We are all products of our culture. If we look at the moral theology forum we see many people confused and struggling with sexual issues.

One of the things the contrite soul in need of mercy or its recipient does is promise God to avoid the occasion of sin. That means avoiding putting oneself in a place where temptation is likely to occur. This could easily mean avoidng sharing an apartment with someone of the opposite sex.

Human nature does not change from age to age. Attitudes change, but people are the same. In the past it would have been unthinkable that young men and women would live together as roommates. Maybe there is a good reason for that.
 
In response to the op on co habitation, as far as I have ever been taught, it is not a sin but can be classified as a near occasion to sin ie. it could result in sin occurring. This just means you are playing a risky game of Russian roulette.
 
no, i know of a Christian college that has co-ed dorms. if you live as roomates, then its no different than being with your sister, the problem only arises when there is lust for one another
 
Eh, I would not suggest a situation like that, especially since there is a possibility that that person would be tempted from time to time. I wouldn’t imagine ever living in a dorm with a guy. What is this world coming to with these colleges letting guys room with girls on college grounds?!..anyway…I’m probably around your age and I feel that way…

I just wouldn’t do it, because it’s not ladylike.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top