Hitchhiking?

[Caesar517]

Thank you everyone for your responses so far, but I don’t feel as though my question has been definitively answered. Perhaps there isn’t a clear answer, or I’m looking in the wrong place.

 

[aggiecatholic05]

Perhaps there isn’t a clear answer,

perhaps not. it seems in a situation like this there are so many variables:
-the law
-the traffic
-the persons need
-their intent
-your ability
-your saftey
-your ability to help etc…

it seems almost impossible to know for certain the morality of every hitchiking scenario, in this specific one i’d stick with your gut. you made the decesion you did for a resaon, even if you don’t fully understand it.

i say do a little soul searching. if you think you generally try to help those in need when you safely(that can have a lot of meanings) can then maybe there was something that made you not. we may never see or hear fom them, but we do have guardian angels. who is to say those times we don’t know why we make an instinctive reaction that they arent nudging us away from danger.

-side note i feel bad for my gaurdian angel, i must have nearly worn him ragged as a teenager, talk about due for a promotion.

 

[BobCatholic]

The poster is confused about what constitutes mortal sin. If hitchhiking were illegal in a particular area, then to hitchhike would be breaking the law hence a sin. For it to be mortal it would have to meet the normal three criteria test.

Picking up a hitchhiker would then make one an accomplice to sin.

Breaking a civil law which has no moral component to it, does not make a mortal sin.

For example, someone could coast through a stop sign in the middle of the night with nobody around. A violation of a traffic ordinance, yes, but this can’t be a mortal sin as there’s nothing mortally sinful about costing through a stop sign outside of the civil law.

Breaking the civil law against murder, is a mortal sin, for it has a moral component - prohibition against murder.

 

[BobCatholic]

well maybe at a busy intersection where stopping(to pickup/get picked up) could be a traffic risk of and maybe deadly and illegal(like it is at most higyway offramps in the city) maybe. but yeah it is highly unlikely, but not really impossible.

If a hitchhiker is putting themselves in danger, the sin is not the hitchhiking, but the putting oneself in danger.

Suppose a hitchhiker is walking safely no the side of the road, and been hitchhing for 2 hours without getting a ride. He gets frustrated and sees a car coming. Determined to get noticed, he steps out in the middle of the street to force the car to stop.

The sinful act is not the hitchhiking, but the losing of patience and stepping out in the middle of the street.

 

[mystified]

Situations vary greatly. I have hitchhiked only once. It was an emergency. Fortunately all turned out well.

I don’t pick up hitchhikers in the US because there seems to be evidence that all too often the person or persons seeking a ride are often up to no good. I did make an exception for a couple of teenage girls whose belongings were stolen while they were at the beach, leaving them with only swimwear and a towel each.

In other parts of the world, I have taken on riders, and have never had a bad result, in fact, was provided a bed and meal at the home of one of them at the end ot the ride; those Austrians and I continued to correspond for several years. A ride for a stranded Mexican soldier resulted in future courtesies from the military in the area for quite some time. A good turn is usually its own reward, but sometimes…
In the case of the pregnant woman, I agree that a call to 911 would probably have served her better.