You almost make it sound as if scrupulosity is a sin, which is certainly not Catholic teaching. It’s also irresponsible, as such a statement can cause excruciating mental anguish to a scrupulous person who doesn’t realize that you’re wrong.
As someone who suffers from scrupulosity (although I’m getting a little better) I can tell you that it has nothing to do with a lack of trust in God’s mercy. It is not God that we do not trust, but ourselves. For example, it is common for a scrupulous person to analyze his confession after the fact. Often, he will realize something that he forgot to confess, or notice something irregular in the confession, and begin to doubt that he made a sincere confession. He will ultimately come to the conclusion that he lied and retroactively attribute a sacrilegious confession to himself. He will then feel the need to reconfess everything, in addition to the sacrilege. This will happen each and every time he goes to confession. He perfectly trusts God, but doubts himself.
That’s just one example. Scrupulosity is a real mental condition closely related to OCD. It’s a cross, not a lack of faith.
Thank you for correcting her. You did it with tact and it was informative. I’m basically like you are. I am scrupulous over some things, and it’s not a lack of faith in God that puts me there in that condition or anxiety, it’s my own doubting myself. The example you give of the confession process is similar to how it makes me feel. I feel guilty if I leave something out unintentionally, but remember it later.
With mortal sins, like masturbation, for example, it’s clear cut and there’s nothing to be scrupulous with about a sin like that, unless you are addicted to it, you have fetishes/addictions which make it harder to resist, etc. At one time I was like that, so I felt less scrupulous about it because I KNEW that I had less control and it was less voluntary and was force of habit and the fetishes made it worse. But now that I’ve made huge progress and many of these pitfalls to sin are now eliminated from my life, I feel more scrupulous when I do fall again, because you’d think that I’d be stronger, and in actuality, I feel weaker because with more support and less temptation it still happens just much less frequently and with less severity. If I had a psychologist, he would probably say this is great progress and nothing to be ashamed about. But he’s only thinking of my mental faculties, not my spiritual life and immortal soul. Ultimately, God is the one taking care of me.
The devil and his demons also have their hand in scrupulosity as well, and rather than it being a “Catholic problem” as the OP states, it’s really spiritual warfare is what it is. It’s spiritual warfare, and it afflicts everyone from any religion or faith. What makes the warfare worse, as it gives the enemy more ammunition, is when we are scrupulous. He cannot make us scrupulous, but he can suggest it to us, make us doubt, and make it worse. So, I also think what alot of people think is depression, guilt, and scrupulous behavior are also demonic attacks or influenced by demonic attacks, which is why we need to pray to the Holy Angels more and more and have devotions them, our guardian angel, and Saint Michael in particular, so that they can help calm and sooth our souls, rouse our confidence, and help us find some balance so when scrupulosity strikes, whether the devil is behind it or not (he’s not always, since he figures the person will torture themselves enough with their own afflictions that he doesn’t have to lift a finger), we’ll have some relief outside of confession, mass, prayer and perpetual adoration of the blessed sacrament.
You’re right to compare scrupulosity to an OCD, and I think that’s a fair way to look at it.
The plus side to all of this is that it’s completely reversible. When we’ve gotten to a point where it’s not as troublesome, the demonic aspect will be even more apparent, and we’ll be able to combat it better, because we’ll have the weight of the normal condition (or abnormal as it were) of scrupulosity lifted and non-existant to such a degree that we’ll be aware when it’s own minds doubting and when it’s the devil messing around. When we catch him red-handed like that, we know to pray more especially in those moments, since his diversions aren’t working and we’re more aware of his presence and know what we should and need to do- pray.
