Help determining a possible mortal sin

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somethingtodo

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I have been very scrupulous in the past and have been working on developing my conscience and working on trusting in the Lord.

I have a particular problem that has been bothering me lately, and I would like some help determining if I am correct in his situation. So, recently I made a racist joke with a friend. This friend and I regularly use crude/racist humor together, and we both understand that neither of us are offended by, or actually believe in any of the statements being made; they are just for laughs between the two of us. When I recently made a racist joke, I immediately felt bad about it and started to worry about committing a mortal sin just after I had attended confession earlier that day. Here is my train of thought in trying to determine the gravity of the situation that I would like some help confirming:
  1. Grave matter: genuine racism intended to hurt another = grave. Light hearted racist joke not intended to harm another and just for a laugh = I understand to be probably venial.
  2. Full knowledge: I know racism is wrong and grave matter, but leading up to the situation I did not think jokes were truly grave.
  3. Full consent of the will: At the time I was only thinking of making a joke and it did not even come to my mind that I should not say it, if that makes sense? I guess I wasn’t fully consenting to making a truly racist remark?
I am sorry for the long post, but this has been bothering me and I am trying to learn on my own how to determine mortal from venial sins. God bless.
 
What a relief, thank you so much! Do you have any recommendations as how to deal with scrupulousity and how to stop convincing myself that everything I do is a mortal sin?
 
One thing that I’ve heard is to find a regular confessor or spiritual director. Tell him all you challenges concerning scrupulosity. That way he will understand you and your history. Then in humility and obedience follow his direction . If he says that such and such is not a sin, then you should forget about. This might take time so be patient with yourself.

I will keep you in my prayers.

Blessings
 
The term “racism”, as generally used, includes things that are mortally sinful (e.g. wishing grave evil on members of other races), venially sinful (e.g. unreasonable suspicion of a person on account of their race), and not sinful at all (e.g. honoring one’s own heritage). So you’ll need to be more specific if you want a detailed response.

As a general matter, saying or doing something in jest removes or diminishes the moral evil of it if the moral evil is due solely to the intention being bad, and not to any malice in the act itself. Besides this, inappropriate joking is only a venial sin, although if no one was offended then it was probably not a sin at all.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3168.htm#article3 (see Reply to Objection 1)
 
Yes, get a regular spiritual director.
Also avoid asking these sorts of questions online, they should always be referred to your SD.
The scrupulous are always asking others, often even when advised by their SD not to do so- it will not help your condition.
 
This^^^^^^

Ask your confessor.
here are some knowledgable people here, but there are also very inexperienced people as well.
 
If you have a tendency towards scrupulousness you might find a good priest to go to confession and he will be able to guide you and help you overcome this problem. What you describe could be a venial sin, but that does not need confessing, although the Church recommends that we confess the also. You could read the Letter of St. James which deals with controlling the tongue and thus avoid this problem.
 
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