Is Cussing at something a sin?

[Spyridon]

@adgloriam and @exnihilo

Please read the article written by Father William Saunders on why bad language is sinful.

@FrDavid96 has endorsed it here.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Finally, profanity itself is wrong, even though such words may not specifically involve the name of God. God gave mankind the gift of language which should be used positively. Language should build good relationships with other individuals, and enable people to share their lives intimately with each other. Sadly, more and more, we hear in normal conversation profanity especially those four letter words, like s*** and f***. We also hear people speak profanely about good and holy topics; for example, they profane human sexuality or the act of marital love. Such language is not only negative, vulgar, impolite and offensive, but also debases the dignity of each human being. Moreover, this language reveals not only a person’s bad attitude and lack of respect for others, but also his own immaturity and insecurity in dealing with others. In using these words, the person builds barriers rather than bridges with another person.”

Why is bad language a sin?

It is always at least venially sinful to use foul language at all, period. There is no arguing your way out of this. You must face facts and come to terms with the reality that cussing is sinful.

 

[Spyridon]

I would consider those mere expressions, so long as you’re invoking God in a way and not blasphemously.

 

[exnihilo]

I think the author makes a mistake in lumping in all cuss words as profanity. There is the sacred and profane. The ‘s word’ does not reference anything sacred. It is not profanity. It may be foul or crude language. Since the subject is words we need to be precise.

I would consider those mere expressions, so long as you’re invoking God in a way and not blasphemously.

So if you don’t mean to blaspheme it is OK? So if you casually and without thought say Jesus Holy name when you stub your toe that is OK? I don’t think so. ‘Oh my God’ and ‘gosh darn’ are in fact bad as they are a way of avoiding actually saying God when that is the intent. You seem to want to be really strict in what language is wrong so I’m confused why you’d give this a pass. This is some of the most common profanity and is most often done by Christians who think they are doing something acceptable. In fact they often have a superior and excusing attitude about their profanity.

 

[Spyridon]

Gosh darn is simply not a crude word. It’s an expression, nothing blasphemous about it.

GD on the other hand is always wrong, it’s blasphemous to use any profanity which invokes the name or title of God.

F bomb and other words are bad simply because they are examples of profanity.

@exnihilo is there some reason why you’re digging in your heels over semantics here? Would you agree that all cursing, cussing, using Gods name in vain, and foul language is sinful to some degree?

 

[exnihilo]

I don’t know if you are familiar with the concept:

Minced oath - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Gosh darn is an expression. Everything in question is. It is one that is used in place of ‘God d***’. It is a way to express the same thought with different words. The thought is what is bad.

 

[PJM]

No! A sin YES!

A Mortal sin NO!

Should we degrade ourselves in this manner? NO

God expects more of US and so SHOULD we.

God Bless you

Patrick

 

[FrDavid96]

I think the author makes a mistake in lumping in all cuss words as profanity. There is the sacred and profane. …

Yet that’s exactly the opposite of what the author does. He list 4 categories of bad language. The last of these (the least sinful) is the basic garden-variety profanity–such as inserting 4-letter words into sentences.

 

[FrDavid96]

No, I am saying those words aren’t true profanity. Profanity involves sacred things. Cussing, cursing, or foul language are not all profanities. Profanity is always wrong and even includes ‘oh my God’. Also, minced oaths are wrong when profane. ‘Gosh darn’ is a minced oath which is wrong because of what it is substituting for.

The interesting question to me is whether ‘gosh darn’ is worse than the f word. A lot of folks who look down on people who use the f word say ‘gosh darn’. I think gosh darn is worse because it is profane.

My interest in the issue is truth and accuracy. I don’t think it is fair to impugn the motives of people who want truth and accuracy.

I see your point.

There is a difference between “profane utterances” which is more strictly defined (indeed even so far as to be defined as a delict in canon law in certain circumstances)…

…and on the other hand “profanity” which is a word we employ to refer to “bad language.”

Yes, there is a difference.

However, I think you’re going a bit too far in that assertion. Yes, it’s true and accurate as far as vocabulary is concerned. What we call “profanity” is not always “profane speech.” Nevertheless, we use the word anyway. We could use other words or phrases such as “inappropriate language” or “bathroom talk” or “filthy mouth” etc. etc. For whatever reason, we’ve come to settle on that word “profanity.”

It seems to me though, that most people here (including you) agree that such language (call it low-level profanity or bad language or whatever else) is a venial sin. Is that right?

 

[exnihilo]

Maybe we’ve settled on profanity as the word because we’ve lost a proper perspective on what really is sacred.

I think bad language (this is the term I’ll use for non profane or curse words) can be a venial sin. I think here it is more a matter of decorum. The words aren’t intrinsically bad. They are just not used in polite society. At least that is how I see it. If the ‘f word’ becomes very common it could be no longer considered bad. In fact I think that is what is happening now.

Again, my bigger concern is profane minced oaths because if those are wrong I think far too many people don’t know. It isn’t uncommon for me to hear ‘gosh’, ‘heck no’ and so on. And ‘oh my God’ is pretty common too.

 

[ATraveller]

Instead of justifying bad language, maybe we should train ourselves to speak better and improve our vocabularies.

 

[Greenfields]

I read something about the f word implies fornication?If some one aims that word at you as an insult ,and not just at an Innate object …I don’t think it could ever be normalised.I cringe everytime I hear it and that is very often.There’s real hate behind that word directed at someone.

 

[guanophore]

I read something about the f word implies fornication?

Yes. The origin of this slang is “fornication under the consent of the king”. In England, after separation from the Catholic Church, sex outside of marriage gradually became a social tolerance.

 

[Ioana]

Ok I’m not from an American culture. Over here the line between what is acually profanity and what is not is a bit blurred. I’m going to assume it is very probable that you are not from an only English-speaking household either (in my experience they don’t cuss at objects as much). In my head the first thing I thought when I read this is “Obviously not!” I mean I see literally no harm to your character or to anybody that comes from doing that (unless you used profanity to do with the faith which is different). Let us be realistic, if we didn’t use profanity among our friends at all we’d be seen as overly pompous (at least where I’m from if you don’t say “'my mother’s mother” or something to the effect at least once every 25 sentences or so you’re off) and if we use it too much or too aggressively we will be seen as angry, rude and uneducated. The point is that (English being an exception) profanity is neither something one can eliminate from their language without social consequences (or should strive to), nor something that has to be used towards hurting others (in your case it clearly was not) so there is no point from abstaining from profanity or considering it sinful in your case. If anybody disagrees (I read over some people here disagreeing over this) I’m actually non-ageessivley curious to be told why logically. Anyhow Merry Christmas to everyone .

 

[Littileboy]

Where are you from?

 

[Ioana]

You wouldn’t have heard of it and I don’t really feel comfortable saying. Let us just say that my language is based off Latin and I live in Europe. That should narrow it down a ton.

 

[TK421]

Ok I’m not from an American culture. Over here the line between what is acually profanity and what is not is a bit blurred. I’m going to assume it is very probable that you are not from an only English-speaking household either (in my experience they don’t cuss at objects as much). In my head the first thing I thought when I read this is “Obviously not!” I mean I see literally no harm to your character or to anybody that comes from doing that (unless you used profanity to do with the faith which is different). Let us be realistic, if we didn’t use profanity among our friends at all we’d be seen as overly pompous (at least where I’m from if you don’t say “'my mother’s mother” or something to the effect at least once every 25 sentences or so you’re off) and if we use it too much or too aggressively we will be seen as angry, rude and uneducated. The point is that (English being an exception) profanity is neither something one can eliminate from their language without social consequences (or should strive to), nor something that has to be used towards hurting others (in your case it clearly was not) so there is no point from abstaining from profanity or considering it sinful in your case. If anybody disagrees (I read over some people here disagreeing over this) I’m actually non-ageessivley curious to be told why logically. Anyhow Merry Christmas to everyone .

There has already been sufficient explanations in this thread why profanity is venially sinful and must be avoided. You can be 100.00% positive that the Holy Father strongly avoids all cursing. You should refer to the links or look deeper elsewhere .

It isn’t about whether it makes a practicing Catholic comfortable or uncomfortable. It is about what is true and right and beautiful and what isn’t. Cultural norms running thicker in some sectors than in other does not justify what is wrong. It is more of a norm to get drunk in England or Finland than in Mexico or Egypt, but it is objectively still against what is true and right and beautiful no matter what situation you are in.

When we read or learn something that is highly challenging to us, it is better to re-study it carefully and to ask for humility. We don’t have the power to make the right choices by ourselves.

 

[guanophore]

Let us be realistic, if we didn’t use profanity among our friends at all we’d be seen as overly pompous (at least where I’m from if you don’t say “'my mother’s mother” or something to the effect at least once every 25 sentences or so you’re off) and if we use it too much or too aggressively we will be seen as angry, rude and uneducated. The point is that (English being an exception) profanity is neither something one can eliminate from their language without social consequences (or should strive to), nor something that has to be used towards hurting others (in your case it clearly was not) so there is no point from abstaining from profanity or considering it sinful in your case.

It seems that the primary consideration here is social status and acceptance, rather than how one can best manifest the fruit of the Spirit.

 

[Laura_N]

Except language is very cultural, drunk is objective, drunk is drunk no matter what language you speak or how common it is where you are. Language subjective to the culture. The U.S. Especially has many words on the “bad word” list that other cultures don’t think twice about using in normal conversation. It’s society that deems a word inappropriate. And then there’s even sub-societies within those societies where language standards change. For instance, if were to stub my toe walking into church and I yelled the F word, that would be way inappropriate, and probably venially sinful, but if I was to hit my hand with a hammer on a job site and said the same thing, nobody would even bat an eye and wouldn’t be sinful at all. Language needs context to be either good or bad, you can’t just blanket statement things.

As far as I’m aware the Church has no official teaching on the sinfulness of your run of th mill cuss words, and even though there’s priests who say it’s sinful, I’ve had my personal confessors tell me it isn’t.

 

[FrDavid96]

As far as I’m aware the Church has no official teaching on the sinfulness of your run of th mill cuss words, and even though there’s priests who say it’s sinful, I’ve had my personal confessors tell me it isn’t.

The Catechism is “official teaching.”

2162, 2480. Just to cite 2.

This is a venial sin.

 

[TK421]

“Cultural” is not a justification for doing something sinful. If something is cultural that simply means a certain behavior or custom is performed on a macro level among a particular population.

You are indeed correct that different social settings can drastically change what is commonly seen as appropriate, but cussing at a construction site is still cussing, even if it probably won’t illicit surprise from anybody, and a Catholic can (and is obliged) to set an example.

Why would it be sinful to cuss outside of a church but not somewhere else? God’s house is in our hearts and our homes and he is with us always. Trust in God and he will provide the courage. Jesus is with us until the end of the age.