Is it a sin to have sex before marriage if you eventually get married?

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Yes, it is because the marital act is only allowed after Matrimony.

It is important to understand that the main purpose of marital act is for the couple to have children and educate them in the True Faith, which is Catholic Faith. Furthermore, if there is neither grace from the Sacrament nor the life contract that it implies, then the marital act will be disordered.
 
SuperSheepStyle said:
I was always taught that premarital sex itself wasn’t the sin, but it became the sin of adultery if you broke up with the person and had sex with someone else.
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This is wrong. Premarital sex is a sin even if you later marry the person. Once you are validly married, sex you have with them after the marriage (as long as it comports with Church teachings on sexual practices) is not a sin, but the sex you had with them prior to marriage is still sinful and must be confessed.

Premarital sex is always a sin whether you have it with one person A, or with 10 different people before you finally marry person A.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
We need to get rid of all this “grave” and “serious” business, and just say “mortal sin” or “venial sin”.
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We are not in the business of determining when somebody else has committed “mortal sin”. That’s between himself and his confessor. We can tell the person he committed grave sin, but mortal vs. venial is not our call to make for anyone other than perhaps ourselves; even when deciding for ourselves we do not always judge correctly. I’ve gone to very orthodox priests all set to confess my mortal sin and gotten told the sin wasn’t mortal or it wasn’t a sin at all.

A lot of the differentiation has to do with whether we actually meant to commit the mortal sin, and whether we actually knew it was a grave sin when we were doing it. There is a whole heck of a lot of stuff I was confused about when I was younger for various reasons, and it wasn’t a simple matter to go find out the “right” answer especially in the pre-Internet, pre-CCC, pre-Theology of the Body days, when many adults were also very squeamish about discussing sexual behavior with teens.

I have to say that I personally don’t find the “mortal” vs. “venial” sin demarcation to be very helpful to me personally. It seems like that would only really matter to someone who was trying to get out of having to go to confession. If you go to confession regularly, and you avoid anything that seems grave and/or confess it right away when you need to confess it, then you never have to think about whether you committed a mortal or venial sin, except maybe for refraining from Communion if you’re not positive. I don’t sit around classifying my sins. I just try to avoid all sin, period.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
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HomeschoolDad:
We need to get rid of all this “grave” and “serious” business, and just say “mortal sin” or “venial sin”.
Click to expand...
We are not in the business of determining when somebody else has committed “mortal sin”. That’s between himself and his confessor. We can tell the person he committed grave sin, but mortal vs. venial is not our call to make for anyone other than perhaps ourselves; even when deciding for ourselves we do not always judge correctly. I’ve gone to very orthodox priests all set to confess my mortal sin and gotten told the sin wasn’t mortal or it wasn’t a sin at all.

A lot of the differentiation has to do with whether we actually meant to commit the mortal sin, and whether we actually knew it was a grave sin when we were doing it. There is a whole heck of a lot of stuff I was confused about when I was younger for various reasons, and it wasn’t a simple matter to go find out the “right” answer especially in the pre-Internet, pre-CCC, pre-Theology of the Body days, when many adults were also very squeamish about discussing sexual behavior with teens.

I have to say that I personally don’t find the “mortal” vs. “venial” sin demarcation to be very helpful to me personally. It seems like that would only really matter to someone who was trying to get out of having to go to confession. If you go to confession regularly, and you avoid anything that seems grave and/or confess it right away when you need to confess it, then you never have to think about whether you committed a mortal or venial sin, except maybe for refraining from Communion if you’re not positive. I don’t sit around classifying my sins. I just try to avoid all sin, period.
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And so do I.

Quite right, we cannot judge when someone else has committed a mortal sin — but we certainly can see when someone has done something that, given the three conditions, would be a mortal sin. The act itself, we can see (or hear about, or be told about, etc.). The sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, we cannot know. We are not one bit out of line in using “mortal” as a synonym for “grave”, as in “that is a mortally sinful act”.

When people first became sheepish about using the word “mortal”, you would see “serious” sin referred to in examinations of conscience. I asked my pastor what the difference was between “serious” sin and “mortal” sin, and I love his answer! — “well, all sin is serious”. And then, somehow, “grave” became the word to say. Others will have to do what they think best, but I’m sticking with the old terminology. It’s clearer and more to the point.

As an aside, we do not do “squeamish” in our household, and my son (13) has always known that he can come straight to me, and ask me anything he wants to. And ask he does. He has no hang-ups and can be very blunt in his questions, but that’s good. He came out of his Catholic school after six years knowing very little of anything about Catholic morality — I just trusted his teachers, and my trust was misplaced. We are working to fix that.
 
Yes it is a sin because even though you have the intention to get married there is always the possibility of the wedding not going through.
 
Irishmom2 said:
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SuperSheepStyle:
I was always taught that premarital sex itself wasn’t the sin, but it became the sin of adultery if you broke up with the person and had sex with someone else.
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I am not sure who taught you this, but it’s wrong.
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Honestly, it sounds like a con job from a guy determined to get his girlfriend to cooperate.
 
1ke said:
Whoever taught you that is completely wrong, and if they are still teaching needs to be reported to their pastor as teaching this garbage.
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Hear hear! Im sure Im not alone when I say Im sick and tired of supposedly Catholic teachers making up their own religion and spreading it around.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
we cannot judge when someone else has committed a mortal sin
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Yes we can. We cannot judge what the consequences will be, that is, we cannot judge the person, but we most certainly can, indeed MUST judge what is sin and what is not.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
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HomeschoolDad:
we cannot judge when someone else has committed a mortal sin
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Yes we can. We cannot judge what the consequences will be, that is, we cannot judge the person, but we most certainly can, indeed MUST judge what is sin and what is not.
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We can say that an act has been committed that is, in and of itself, mortally sinful, but we cannot say with absolute certainty that the person had sufficient reflection (had been taught, and was aware, that it was mortally sinful) or full consent of the will (that they did not have anything in their will that impeded their free action or compelled them to act). The latter one is especially tricky. That is why we no longer deny suicides a Catholic funeral.

Just as an aside, that is why the sin of contraception is so troubling among Catholics. Unless their catechesis has been really poor, somewhere along the lines, they’ve been told that this is mortally/gravely sinful. Then they have either accepted the Church’s teaching, or they have essentially blown the Church off on this. So there goes the “lack of sufficient reflection” excuse. (Do they even realize that “blowing off the Church’s teachings” is mortally/gravely sinful?) And full consent of the will? Contraception, unless it would be coitus interruptus in a fit of panic (“oh, no, we can’t even afford the children we have, no way we can risk one more!”), requires full willful consent by its very nature — driving down to the drugstore or going to the physician for a prescription are not things that people do in a mental fog, a stupor, or paroxysms of passion.
 
By what authority can you determine if someone else’s sin is mortal? Since you claim it isn’t mortal are you willing to take responsibility before God in someone else’s place if you are wrong!?
 
There have been a lot of young women who had sex with their boyfriend and we not married. They ended up pregnant, which apparently was not what they wanted, and the abortion industry has been booming to the tune of 60 million babies in the US. There are a lot of single women with no partner trying to raise children, often below the poverty level.

God designed that a man and woman come before family, friends and God himself to make a commitment of marriage before they have sex. It’s good for babies, it’s good for women, and it’s good for men. It’s really good for a nation. This brings order to society and it is the building blocks of nations through the centuries.
 
Yes, my mom wanted me on the pill since I started my periods in middle school and I hated it and went off it as soon as I moved out. It’s only been two years since I’ve gone off it and my cycle is still kind of irregular so I’m scared about NFP’s effectiveness for me, but I wouldn’t consider any other kind of birth control, so I guess I’m screwed…
 
And just to ease everyone’s conscience, both my fiancé and I are virgins, but we’ve sweet talked and seen each other partially nude so after hearing this I think it’s safe to say there’s been some form of sin involved…
 
SuperSheepStyle said:
my cycle is still kind of irregular so I’m scared about NFP’s effectiveness for me
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There seems to be a misconception that NFP is like the calendar method so if you have some months that go long then it won’t ‘work’ for you. NFP shows a woman what to look for, when she is ovulating, when she has ovulated, or if her ovulation has been delayed due to stress or whatever. It’s information and it’s a shame that it’s not taught to young girls so they can understand basic human biology, go figure. Guess there’s no money to be made. A real disservice to young women to neglect showing them this. So if there’s a Natural Family Planning class near you, please go and see what it’s about.
 
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