If the church says something is a mortal

[migurl]

A previous poster made a comment about acepting church teaching even if we don’t understand it. It shows a lot of love and respect to do something or not do something even if you don’t understand why. It means that you have faith and trust in the person or entity that tells you to do or not to do something. We are just people, but the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Who are we to say " I don’t think it’s wrong, so I’ll do it." There is such a thing as absolute truth, and it doesn’t matter if we believe in it or not, it is there. How many laws exist in the world today that don’t make sense? How many of us could read a bill or a law and completely understand what it means and why it exists? Not everyone cad read and understand legal jargon, but we are still expected to obey those laws. The Church is no different.

 

[mumto5]

I think that the problem here is that the Catechism talks of ‘feigned ignorance’ which suggests pretending you don’t understand because it doesn’t suit you. Let me give you a concrete example:

I have tried to understand the Church’s teaching on birth control. I’ve spent many years trying to understand it. I can understand why abortifacient birth control is a sin because it ends a life. I fail to understand why barrier methods are sinful. It’s got nothing to do with lack of effort to understand or lack of desire to understand - I really do WANT to understand and believe. I just can’t. Yes, a properly formed conscience might help but I never learned my faith as a child. I did my first communion thinking it was symbolic, my parents told me that I only had to do the mandatory first communion confession and never had to go again after that, my parents always taught me birth control was the right thing to do, I didn’t even know the church had a teaching on birth control until I was 17 and didn’t realise that the church took it seriously until much later because in Catholic schools everyone had the 2 children and used birth control.

However, in obedience, and because I happen to enjoy children anyway, I had 5 children. I almost died having the last one and where were the Catholics? Where was the church? No-where. My Catholic friends weren’t the ones that visited or called to see how I was. I was very sick for a long time. Even when they knew I was having trouble dealing with the trauma, they didn’t get in touch for ages. I came to the realisation that if I had died, the church wouldn’t be there when my husband alone and stacking the dishwasher at 10pm, the church isn’t going to help him pay the bills or give him time out. This has just compounded my feelings that there’s something wrong with the whole picture.

I still want to ‘get it’, I just can’t. I don’t think I am hard-hearted or I wouldn’t want to believe it.

So, if I chose to use birth control, I’m not sure that the conditions for mortal sin would be met - maybe the sin would be disobedience, which may be a mortal sin, but it’s a different sin to the other.

 

[mumto5]

migurl:

A previous poster made a comment about acepting church teaching even if we don’t understand it. It shows a lot of love and respect to do something or not do something even if you don’t understand why.

OTOH, if we just blindly obey because we are supposed to, we can believe anything. God gave me a brain and I’m sure wants me to use it to think and reason on things. Blind faith has never been something I’ve thought is good and is a requirement of cults. If we believe because we are supposed to, there is no limit to what we can be told to believe.

 

[YinYangMom]

mumto5:

But all that pre-supposes that one believes it is a mortal sin. If one, by reason of not understanding, can’t agree with a teaching, then I’m not sure it can be a mortal sin.

It may not be that the person is unwilling to believe but that they are unable to believe no matter how hard they have tried to see things the churches way. That is the circumstance to what I am refering, not a rejection.

I was not under the impression one has to believe something is mortal or not but rather they have to know that it is, and then choose to do it anyway.

If you don’t believe, or don’t understand - then you must trust and obey until such time that you do. But you certainly aren’t free to disregard what you know just because you don’t agree or understand.

 

[YinYangMom]

mumto5:

Say, for example, in the case of birth control. If someone just can’t understand/accept the churches teaching. If, in spite of studying it and trying to get to grips with it, they just can’t and they use birth control, could the conditions for mortal sin possibly be met? Or is the sin one of disobedience instead? It seems if someone doesn’t accept that something is a mortal sin the conditions for it can’t be met.

It’s not that they can’t accept - they choose not to accept, to trust in the magesterium to know better than they do themselves on matters of faith and morals.

If one is Catholic, they already know they are to follow the magesterium of the Catholic Church because Jesus left us that institution to keep us on the right path especially when everything around us seems to be falling apart.

If one is Catholic who reads up on the teaching of the church and only follows those they understand and accept, but disregard those they do not understand and accept doesn’t that put the person in the position of walking beside Jesus only when he talks about things they understand but when he starts talking about the hard stuff they let themselves fall back in the crowd until he changes the subject back to something they agree with - and then they quickly move themselves closer to him???

 

[YinYangMom]

mumto5:

It may not be that the person is unwilling to believe but that they are unable to believe no matter how hard they have tried to see things the churches way. That is the circumstance to what I am refering, not a rejection.

It is quite possible this person is not able to see/understand/comprehend/believe because the Holy Spirit has not revealed it to them yet…

but until that happens the person is called to obey, trusting in the Truth and not relying on their own inability to comprehend.

You asked also if the sin would really be of disobedience not necessarily mortal, but keep in mind mortal sin is such because it is of grave matter, with full knowledge, and consent.

CCC1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

CCC1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

Note how grave matter pertains to the commandments. ABC, pornography, premarital sex - those are all under the commandment of adultery. If a Catholic takes the time to read up on the Church’s teachings about how they fit under that commandment then that person knows Church teaching on the matter. They may not accept or understand it completely, but they know the Church’s position. And the church is very, very clear about stating we Catholics are **not **to engage in these practices…so to know that much is enough to hold the Catholic who chooses to disobey the teachings accountable.

What good is obedience if we only had to do so with things that we agree on? Work is work and not play because it’s hard and most of us don’t want to do it. Obedience is obedience, not doing whatever, whenever we life because it’s hard to knuckle down on things we don’t like to do.

 

[lifeisbeautiful]

mumto5:

OTOH, if we just blindly obey because we are supposed to, we can believe anything. God gave me a brain and I’m sure wants me to use it to think and reason on things. Blind faith has never been something I’ve thought is good and is a requirement of cults. If we believe because we are supposed to, there is no limit to what we can be told to believe.

Do you truly understand the Holy Trinity, the Inmaculate Conception - the Incarnation of Christ, and the Eucharist…?

 

[YinYangMom]

gardenswithkids:

I think this Catechism reference points to what is in a person’s heart. That may be hardness and feigned ignorance, but it also might be true ignorance. I guess this comes down to knowing what’s in a person’s heart. I will gladly let God be the One to read hearts.

I know a loyal Catholic priest who seems afraid to preach about contraception being a mortal sin. I understand he fears that the others will contracept anyway, except now with full knowledge that it is a mortal sin. Not wanting people to commit mortal sin with full knowledge, some are left uninformed. I don’t like his approach. Just because people hear once, twice or even ten times what the Church teaches, they may still be truly ignorant. When someone hears information that conflicts with everything else in our culture, (and that may conflict with what some Church “authorities” who don’t teach in accordance with the Magesterium have already told them), the real Church teachings can be very difficult for some people to understand–thus they remain ignorant.

You’re stating here that the person has heard Catholic teaching on a matter, secular teaching on a matter, and sometimes even Catholic sources teaching the secular view of the matter and therefore because there is confusion the person is somehow in a state of ignorance and could not commit a mortal sin in such a state.

But as Catholics we are obliged to form our consciences in accordance with Church teaching. That means **whenever **we come across information which appears to be contrary to what we already know about our faith we have an obligation to investigate that matter from the Church’s perspective. We can’t just do what society says while we are studying the matter. We err on the side of safety by obeying the Church’s directive while we do our homework. The fact that the person already knows what the Catholic position is (whether hearing it once, twice, or ten times) places that person under the obligation to obey what they know already…whether or not they understand, whether or not there is confusion around them on the matter…they obey while they investigate further.

There is no way we can remain in true ignorance in this day and age if we are going to mass regularly and reading church bulletins. I just don’t see how that’s possible. Denial, perhaps. Ignorance, nope.

 

[fix]

mumto5:

OTOH, if we just blindly obey because we are supposed to, we can believe anything. God gave me a brain and I’m sure wants me to use it to think and reason on things. Blind faith has never been something I’ve thought is good and is a requirement of cults. If we believe because we are supposed to, there is no limit to what we can be told to believe.

It is not blind faith, but faith and reason. We can reason the teaching in question in several ways, but the central issue is authority. Either we accept Christ left us a living authority or we decide we are the final authority.

If we make ourselves the authority, by rejecting the Church, then we have become relativists. Once we accept relativism as licit we have rejected the authority of Christ.

 

[fix]

Here is what HV says:

Moreover, if one were to apply here the so called principle of totality, could it not be accepted that the intention to have a less prolific but more rationally planned family might transform an action which renders natural processes infertile into a licit and provident control of birth? Could it not be admitted, in other words, that procreative finality applies to the totality of married life rather than to each single act? A further question is whether, because people are more conscious today of their responsibilities, the time has not come when the transmission of life should be regulated by their intelligence and will rather than through the specific rhythms of their own bodies.

This kind of question requires from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection on the principles of the moral teaching on marriage—a teaching which is based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation.

No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law. It is in fact indisputable, as Our predecessors have many times declared, (l) that Jesus Christ, when He communicated His divine power to Peter and the other Apostles and sent them to teach all nations His commandments, (2) constituted them as the authentic guardians and interpreters of the whole moral law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel but also of the natural law. For the natural law, too, declares the will of God, and its faithful observance is necessary for men’s eternal salvation. (3)

In carrying out this mandate, the Church has always issued appropriate documents on the nature of marriage, the correct use of conjugal rights, and the duties of spouses. These documents have been more copious in recent times. (4)

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

 

[mumto5]

Well, we could debate the ‘full knowledge’ part - I have full knowledge in an academic sense that the church teaches birth control is a mortal sin. However I do not have the interior knowlege where I KNOW it is s sin. What of people that have never had the chance to properly form their conscience? I have spoken to 6 priests after the birth of my last child and the circumstances and 5 of them had no problem with it if we chose to use birth control (assuming it was non-abortifacient). Now, I have a problem with this for another reason, in that I think they have the duty to uphold what the church teaches in their roles, but that is beside the point.

I don’t have time to properly respond to the posts at this moment but will do later.

 

[YinYangMom]

mumto5:

I have tried to understand the Church’s teaching on birth control. I’ve spent many years trying to understand it. I can understand why abortifacient birth control is a sin because it ends a life. I fail to understand why barrier methods are sinful. It’s got nothing to do with lack of effort to understand or lack of desire to understand - I really do WANT to understand and believe. I just can’t.

You’re expecting too much from yourself. Do not turn away from the Truth just because you do not understand it. That’s what the Jews did when Jesus was in their midst. Accept the Truth and obey then have faith in the knowledge that you are pleasing God.

You’ve read up on the matter. You know what the Church teaches is Truth from God’s revelation to man over 2000 years. You don’t get it, certainly, but you know it. The Church speaks on behalf of Jesus - while you were reading all that stuff, that was Jesus talking to you. Can you really find peace listening to him but then doing the opposite of what he told you?

Yes, a properly formed conscience might help but I never learned my faith as a child. I did my first communion thinking it was symbolic, my parents told me that I only had to do the mandatory first communion confession and never had to go again after that, my parents always taught me birth control was the right thing to do, I didn’t even know the church had a teaching on birth control until I was 17 and didn’t realise that the church took it seriously until much later because in Catholic schools everyone had the 2 children and used birth control.

The past is the past. That’s the beauty of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We can stop beating ourselves up over sins which no longer exist, and we can learn from the mistakes we made. You can now form your own conscience in accordance with Church teaching. You don’t have to rely on your parents, your friends…you can visit the Vatican website, you can listen to Relevant Radio or Ave Maria Radio, you can watch EWTN, you can read numerous books by wonderful Catholic authors on Church teachings, you can read and study the Bible.

I almost died having the last one and where were the Catholics? Where was the church? No-where. My Catholic friends weren’t the ones that visited or called to see how I was. I was very sick for a long time. Even when they knew I was having trouble dealing with the trauma, they didn’t get in touch for ages. I came to the realisation that if I had died, the church wouldn’t be there when my husband alone and stacking the dishwasher at 10pm, the church isn’t going to help him pay the bills or give him time out.

While each of us has Christ within us and are called to live by his example, including you, we often times fall far short on that. How your Catholic friends responded to your time in need is their weakness - it is not a reflection of the Catholic Church herself.

Do you believe your life 24/7 is an accurate reflection of the entire Catholic Church and all Her teachings over 2000 years? Would you want people to judge the entire Catholic Church by your example?

When you say the church would not have been there had you died you are wrong. The Church indeed would have been there to offer your funeral mass, to bless your internment, to offer support to your husband and children. The individual parish members of your church may not have been, but THE Church most certainly would have.

If your husband were to ask the parish priest for help in those areas (bills, time out, housecleaning)** I know** the priest would have responded to your husband’s needs. There are several parish ministries whose primary purpose is to help those in need - St. Vincent DePaul, Ministers of Care, etc. The priest would have referred your husband to them and he would have given your husband’s number to the directors there to follow through on the request.

I still want to ‘get it’, I just can’t. I don’t think I am hard-hearted or I wouldn’t want to believe it.

I believe you. It’s not that you’re hard hearted at all. You’re worn down, you’re weary, you’re frustrated, you’re disappointed in the Catholic role models around you. It’s most understandable.

Please focus on Jesus as you reflect on these matters. Talk to him at Eucharistic adoration, or if you don’t have that available, visit him at the tabernacle. He will help you to see, to understand, to accept. Out of your deep love for Him, obey His Church and you will find peace.

 

[YinYangMom]

mumto5:

Well, we could debate the ‘full knowledge’ part - I have full knowledge in an academic sense that the church teaches birth control is a mortal sin. However I do not have the interior knowlege where I KNOW it is s sin. What of people that have never had the chance to properly form their conscience? I have spoken to 6 priests after the birth of my last child and the circumstances and 5 of them had no problem with it if we chose to use birth control (assuming it was non-abortifacient). Now, I have a problem with this for another reason, in that I think they have the duty to uphold what the church teaches in their roles, but that is beside the point.

I don’t have time to properly respond to the posts at this moment but will do later.

Oh yes, I recall your situation now from other threads.
I’m sorry, mum that you have encountered such conflicting information from church representatives, and I understand how this confuses you.

But please, please, rely on Jesus here.
When it comes down to it that’s what it’s all about.

You have specific medical circumstances which makes it impossible for people here on this board to help you and your husband find resolution for your problem.

You’ve already sought the advice of priests and they’ve given you conflicting advice.

You’ve read up on the matter extensively.

I don’t recall if you and your husband are already practicing NFP or have attended any seminars about NFP or the Creighton Model. I don’t know if you’ve called the Pope Paul VI Institute.

If you haven’t, then do.
If you have, then I would rely on their advice once they have full details about your medical condition then trust in the Lord that you’ve done all that you could to reach the right decision with your husband on this matter.

 

[fix]

YinYangMom:

Oh yes, I recall your situation now from other threads.
I’m sorry, mum that you have encountered such conflicting information from church representatives, and I understand how this confuses you.

But please, please, rely on Jesus here.
When it comes down to it that’s what it’s all about.

You have specific medical circumstances which makes it impossible for people here on this board to help you and your husband find resolution for your problem.

You’ve already sought the advice of priests and they’ve given you conflicting advice.

You’ve read up on the matter extensively.

I don’t recall if you and your husband are already practicing NFP or have attended any seminars about NFP or the Creighton Model. I don’t know if you’ve called the Pope Paul VI Institute.

If you haven’t, then do.
If you have, then I would rely on their advice once they have full details about your medical condition then trust in the Lord that you’ve done all that you could to reach the right decision with your husband on this matter.

Excellent advice!

 

[migurl]

I understand how my post could have been read as blind acceptance, but if I accept the catholic church’s teachings on everything and understand 90% of it, why would I suddenly say “oh, birth control should be fine! The church is wrong”? THat is illogical. we can’t go thru catholicism picking and choosing our own truths. Relative truth means nothing, only absolute truth matters.