Is racism a Mortal Sin

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I was discussing with a friend today about racism, both he and I were recently subjected to racial profiling by a police officer. He’s not Catholic, he’s Mormon and he’s Polynesian. He asked me if the Catholic Church considers racism a sin. I told him that I’m not sure what the Church’s stance is on racism, I told him that I’m sure the Church denounces it.

So my question is what has The Magisterium officially said about racism, and is it considered a sin?
 
reff said:
I was discussing with a friend today about racism, both he and I were recently subjected to racial profiling by a police officer. He’s not Catholic, he’s Mormon and he’s Polynesian. He asked me if the Catholic Church considers racism a sin. I told him that I’m not sure what the Church’s stance is on racism, I told him that I’m sure the Church denounces it.

So my question is what has The Magisterium officially said about racism, and is it considered a sin?
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I think this link describes the view of the church and the late Pope (God bless his soul)
quite well

ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PCJPCHRA.HTM

But how people of the church is acting is another thing, i guess racism we will never be away with , you can even be a racist without feeling it yourself and thats the problem.

Hidden racism is worse a nazi you can always deal with but when people come in the name of the church and acts opposite to her teachings, there is the danger, you maybe wont feel it and also they themselves do not.
 
reff said:
So my question is what has The Magisterium officially said about racism, and is it considered a sin?
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Racism degrades Man and divides Man. More importantly it divides us from God.

If it isn’t considered a Mortal Sin, Then it ought to be.

However, the seriousness of a Sin always depends on knowledge And will power. If they’ve got a condition called “terets”, then its difficult to acuse such a person of racism.
 
I have no idea if it is a mortal sin or not but it is definitely a sin. That said, it divides people and I think it should be considered a mortal sin if it is not already.
 
I think it depends on what that racism leads to - it’s always a sin, but it’s probably less of a sin, say, to mutter something racist than it is to refuse to hire someone because of their race, etc.

If something is preventing you from acting in a way that recognizes that basic dignity of the human person, on an ongoing, systemic level, than it it’s probably mortal. Maybe. I don’t know. None of us are God, so we can’t really answer the question … and what’s mortal for one person may not be mortal for another, etc.

Racism is evil. Period.
 
pentecostbaby said:
I think it depends on what that racism leads to - it’s always a sin, but it’s probably less of a sin, say, to mutter something racist than it is to refuse to hire someone because of their race, etc.
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I would disagree that it’s always a sin. Like lust, I’d say indulging racial thoughts or attitudes is a sin. Making racist remarks or acting out racial actions is a sin. But to feel…like your race is better, is superior and that others are less…that’s not a sin if upon inspecting this thought you reject it.

I live in Louisiana, I’m white and know many african americans (vast majority of my co-workers), asians, and mexicans.

I work as a nurse on an evening shift at a nursing home. I worked election night and my co-workers were watching the results come up on Black Entertianment Television. They started hollering and clapping as the states started turning blue. And BET’s commentary was…hard to tolerate. And yes, many times that night I was tempted to think, “they don’t know jack about the issues, they are all clapping and laughing b/c Obama’s black.” (note: I voted Ron Paul, he was on our ballot) But as these racist temptations surfaced, I said “no”. Yes, it’s possible they weren’t informed, but it’s also quite possible they were as I already know I disagree with many of them on moral issues from previous conversations.

And what about attraction? I don’t find blacks, hispanics, or asians attractive. Is that racist? I have had many friends of other races in high school and college. I’ve been on teams with them, had them as roommates, been in choirs and Bible studies, but never dated a different race, and never wanted to.
Still I could change the previous paragraph from race related to weight related, and I’ve known and befriended many obese people but never wanted to date one.

I’m sure some people would call it racist and sinful…I’d say it’s quasi-racist…how about racial, but not sinful.
 
Sin is nothing else but a bad human act, that is to say, a knowingly chosen act. Racism, as a tendency to favor or disfavor one ethnic group or another, is not an act, so it is not a sin.

Racism is a moral disorder whenever it is a tendency to unjustly favor or disfavor one ethnic group. A narrow definition of racism could be made so that racism was always immoral; this is what most persons today seem to mean by the term: unjust discrimination based on race.

However, racism broadly defined would include a preference for marrying someone of one’s own ethinicity; God’s choice of one ethnic group, the Hebrews, over others; a preference in hiring to a disadvantaged group in order to remedy past injustices; a preference in choosing students for a college in order to have a diverse student body; etc. Such racial preference would not be always wrong.
 
From the CCC:

**1935 **The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it:

Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.
 
Smber2c said:
And what about attraction? I don’t find blacks, hispanics, or asians attractive. Is that racist? I have had many friends of other races in high school and college. I’ve been on teams with them, had them as roommates, been in choirs and Bible studies, but never dated a different race, and never wanted to.
Still I could change the previous paragraph from race related to weight related, and I’ve known and befriended many obese people but never wanted to date one.

I’m sure some people would call it racist and sinful…I’d say it’s quasi-racist…how about racial, but not sinful.
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Absolutely not, like me you have a preference as far as attraction goes. I tend to only be attracted to hispanic and middle eastern girls, and don’t find caucasian or african american girls attractive. Now is that racism? No it isn’t. Simply because it doesn’t mean that I like the other races any less, just that I find the former the most attractive and the two ladder not attractive. Doesn’t mean I have any hate or ill-feeling towards them.
 
Racism is a sin against the 5th commandment, just like any other form of calumny. Whether or not it is mortal depends on the gravity, and the knowledge and will of the perpetrator.
 
reff said:
Absolutely not, like me you have a preference as far as attraction goes. I tend to only be attracted to hispanic and middle eastern girls, and don’t find caucasian or african american girls attractive. Now is that racism? No it isn’t. Simply because it doesn’t mean that I like the other races any less, just that I find the former the most attractive and the two ladder not attractive. Doesn’t mean I have any hate or ill-feeling towards them.
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Well, you ARE dismissing half the members of a whole race or three, and promoting half the members of another race or three, in a totally offhand way based on the few examples of those races you’ve met.

There’d probably be at least half a billion Caucasion women on this planet, and probably tens of millions of African-Americans and many more Middle Easterners and Hispanics.

Fact is none of us in our entire lifetimes will know nearly enough members of any race to generalise about their attractiveness or lack thereof (even their attractiveness to yourself) as you do.

What you’re saying exhibits an unwillingness to see realities that might not actually be racist, but is certainly close-minded and makes a sad and inaccurate stereotype out of races which are composed of many millions of unique individuals.
 
LilyM said:
Well, you ARE dismissing half the members of a whole race or three, and promoting half the members of another race or three, in a totally offhand way based on the few examples of those races you’ve met.

There’d probably be at least half a billion Caucasion women on this planet, and probably tens of millions of African-Americans and many more Middle Easterners and Hispanics.

Fact is none of us in our entire lifetimes will know nearly enough members of any race to generalise about their attractiveness or lack thereof (even their attractiveness to yourself) as you do.

What you’re saying exhibits an unwillingness to see realities that might not actually be racist, but is certainly close-minded and makes a sad and inaccurate stereotype out of races which are composed of many millions of unique individuals.
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How is what I said anymore generalizing or closed minded than what Smber said?
 
I am going to post a quote rather than just the link because of the gravity of the situation; to make sure people actually read it. Viewing the posts on another thread titled, “Is Racism a Sin?” inspired me to investigate:
from “THE CHURCH AND RACISM:
TOWARD A MORE FRATERNAL SOCIETY”
Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace
IV:24-25 states: "24. Racial prejudice, which denies the equal dignity of all the members of the human family and blasphemes the Creator, can only be eradicated by going to its roots, where it is formed: in the human heart. It is from the heart that just or unjust behavior is born,(63) according to whether persons are open to God’s will-in the natural order and in the Living Word-or whether they close themselves up in those egoisms dictated by fear or the instinct of domination. It is the way we look at others that must be purified.* Harboring racist thoughts and entertaining racist attitudes IS A SIN AGAINST THE SPECIFIC MESSAGE OF CHRIST for whom one’s “neighbor” is not only a person from my tribe, my milieu, my religion or my nation: it is every person that I meet along the way.*
It is not through external means-legislation or scientific proofs-that racial prejudice can be uprooted. It is indeed not enough that laws prohibit or punish all types of racial discrimination: these laws can easily be gotten around if the community for which they are intended does not fully accept them. To overcome discrimination, a community must interiorize the values that inspire just laws and live out, in day-to-day life, the conviction of the equal dignity of all.
  1. A change of heart cannot occur without strengthening spiritual convictions regarding respect for other races and ethnic groups. The Church, on its part, contributes to forming consciences by clearly presenting the entire Christian doctrine on this subject. She particularly asks pastors, preachers, teachers and catechists to explain the true teaching of Scripture and Tradition about the origin of all people in God, their final common destiny in the Kingdom of God, the value of the precept of fraternal love, and the total incompatibility between racist exclusivism and the universal calling of all to the same salvation in Jesus Christ. Recourse to the Bible to justify a posteriori any racist prejudice must be firmly denounced. The Church has never authorized any such deformed interpretation of Scripture.
    The Church’s persuasive task is equally carried out through the witness of life of Christians: respect for foreigners, acceptance of dialogue, sharing, mutual aid and collaboration with other ethnic groups. The world needs to see this parable in action among Christians in order to be convinced by Christ’s message. Of course, Christians themselves must humbly admit that members of the Church, on all levels, have not always coherently lived out this teaching throughout history. Nonetheless, they must continue to proclaim what is right while seeking to “do” the truth.(64)
 
It’s cute how opinions are given. Being a Catholic requires adherence to doctrine. Immortal souls should not be left to mere opinion and speculation. The church has official teachings on this stuff, people. Bother to investigate. And yes, it is a MORTAL SIN against THE SPECIFIC MESSAGE OF CHRIST for whom one’s “neighbor” is not only a person from my tribe, my milieu, my religion or my nation: it is every person that I meet along the way.* Racial prejudice, which denies the equal dignity of all the members of the human family and BLASPHEMES THE CREATOR, can only be eradicated by going to its roots, where it is formed: in the human heart.It is the way we look at others that must be purified.

This is from Roger Cardinal Etchegaray
President Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace
 
Jamse said:
It’s cute how opinions are given. Being a Catholic requires adherence to doctrine. Immortal souls should not be left to mere opinion and speculation. The church has official teachings on this stuff, people. Bother to investigate. And yes, it is a MORTAL SIN against THE SPECIFIC MESSAGE OF CHRIST for whom one’s “neighbor” is not only a person from my tribe, my milieu, my religion or my nation: it is every person that I meet along the way.* Racial prejudice, which denies the equal dignity of all the members of the human family and BLASPHEMES THE CREATOR, can only be eradicated by going to its roots, where it is formed: in the human heart.It is the way we look at others that must be purified.

This is from Roger Cardinal Etchegaray
President Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace
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Agreed but this is an old thread.
 
Nobody has yet bothered to provide a proper and consistent definition of what racism essentially is, which should perhaps come as a bit of a surprise given the loose usage the term gets these days. So what is racism? I’ll briefly add my two cents or so.

The ‘-ism’ suggests a genus of proposition or theory (e.g., theism, deism, paganism, materialism, determinism, socialism). Thus racism will likely assert something about the state of reality as it is objectively supposed to be. Such a classification would already rule out attitudes, behaviors, policies, feelings, and the like from being primary examples of this misunderstood concept’s referent. But we must go further than the genus and narrow down the species through differentiation amongst other propositions and theories. Hence, I’ll propose what I think the truest definition is:

Racism is the ethical theory that a human being’s basic personal worth and character, especially with relation to overall moral quality, status, or capacity, is mostly if not entirely determined by the biological race(s) of which he is a genetic descendant and ethnic member to some minimally-significant, phenotypical extent.

So racism is fundamentally a form of biological determinism, and it technically doesn’t take a particular side in favor of either negative or positive racial attributions, as long as both arise out of some underlying assertion of genetic destiny. I suppose it’s arguable that racism has to entail one or another particular affirmation of racial superiority or inferiority as well, but I wouldn’t say such a criterion is at all necessarily or self-evidently the case. Likewise, due to the internal nuances of Man’s theoretical structures of belief, I hardly think it would be easy to point out who does or doesn’t actually ascribe to the tenets of racism; nor should it ever be so apparently effortless and uncontroversial to casually identify racists as it seems today to be in Western standards for acceptable social discourse.

But not everyone will agree there. I haven’t critically reviewed it yet, so if anyone catches any glaring errors or likely problems, feel free to indulge in the appropriate deconstruction.
 
An old thread indeed, so let’s just put it to its rest. Whoever says ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother is a liar. That’s all that needs to be said on the issue.
 
Racism is not difficult to define. It is prejudice based on a person’s ethnicity.

All someone needs to do is ask himself a question such as, “Would I mind if my daughter married a person from a particular race?”

Is it a sin? Of course it is. Jesus was asked which was the greatest Commandment and he gave two, the second of which was “Love your neighbour as you would love love yourself”. If you hold prejudicial views on a person (or worse on an entire set of people) because of their ethnicity then you clearly are not loving our neighbour as you would love yourself. Of course it is a mortal sin as it breaks the second greatest Commandment. It is clearly a sin without an element of charity, so it is mortal.
 
many of you don’t understand this at all, you go by whatever you have heard of the media and then base that as fact.

Naturally people stick to their own kind, so racism is utter nonsense and makes no sense whatsoever.
 
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