Is scrupulosity a sin of worry and anxiety?

[Ana_v]

Fr. Vincent Serpa once answered the question: “Is scrupulosity a sin?”

Not very long ago, I heard a Catholic theology professor say that scrupulosity is a sin. This was said during class in a discussion about scrupulosity. I believe the question I had asked that gave rise to the discussion was something along the lines of “Why on the one hand are we told not to be scrupulous and on the other hand told that we commit venial sins every day? Scrupulous people are told they see sin where there is no sin … yet it is admitted that we sin all the time.”

I was surprised to hear him say that scrupulosity is a sin. I did not think it was. I reasoned within myself that scrupulosity is something like concupiscence in this regard: it is a tendency, but in-itself not sinful.

However, recently after a Mass I found a stack of ‘Examination of Conscience’ sheets on a table inside the church I was in. I looked it over and saw that “worry” and “anxiety” were listed among “Sins of Pride”.

Scrupulosity is very much bound up with worry and anxiety. What am I to conclude?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

St. Alphonsus Liguori, the patron of moral theologians, had great difficulties with scruples. This is what the Old Catholic Encyclopedia has to say about scruples—and it doesn’t call scrupulosity a sin, but a disease.

catholic.com/encyclopedia/scruple

Today we see it as a form of obsessive compulsive behavior. The very LAST thing a person with such an affliction needs to hear is that scrupulosity, itself, is a sin!

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.