Is smoking a mortal sin???

  • Thread starter Thread starter Valtiel
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Not in and of itself.

Several saints were noted smokers including Pope Pius X and martyr John Kemble, who after making final prayers had one last pipe with his jailer before execution. (There is apparently an expression from this called a “Kemble pipe”) In the canonization process a candidate’s tobacco use was sometimes brought up, but I don’t think there was ever a case of it disqualifying someone from sainthood.

From the CCC:
2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.
Click to expand...
The key word being “excess”.

Scott
 
I guess it would depend on what you’re smoking? 🙂 Pot, for instance, is illegal and has all kinds of social ills attached to it. Knowing that and doing in anyway would likely be mortal in my humble opinion.

Cigarettes are legal and therefore are not licit in themselves; however, if one knows that smoking too many of them destroys the body, and one does it anyway, that might be mortal, though I suppose one could argue that the addictive qualify of nicotine could potentially come into play to lesson one’s culpability. And, too, not everyone who smokes heavily gets sick…though a greater percentage do. Hmmm…I would be interested in other’s thoughts on that note. Would a two-pack a day habit be a mortal sin assuming one knew it was bad for one?
 
I personally think if you smoke when you pregnant knowing that you’re possibly harming your unborn child, it’s a sin. Since everyone knows that pregnant women shouldn’t smoke I think you can’t claim you didn’t know.

I have friends who have children with athsma (sp?) who were told they should NEVER smoke around their children. They refrained for a couple of months but now light up just as before - even when their children are in the car with them. I occasionally babysit their youngest and she literally reeks of smoke. I personally believe this is a sin - they are selfishly putting their own desires above the health of the children God has entrusted to their care.
Whether it’s a mortal sin though… I don’t know.
 
40.png
StCsDavid:
Would a two-pack a day habit be a mortal sin assuming one knew it was bad for one?
Click to expand...
No. Addiction lessens moral culpability. Smoking is not a mortal sin. Addictions enslave the will. In this case, smoking demonstrates the cumulative effect of venial sin. But I think it comes to a point when the addiction is so strong that it isn’t even venial.
 
No. It’s more like a vice. Still, it’s not good for a person, so it should be avoided. lights up a smoke
 
Here is food for thought:

The body is a temple of the Lord. Smoking can poison the body. The fifth commandment says “thou shalt not kill”.
Are we killing ourselves if we smoke?
An addiction is a serious affliction, and smoking is the worst of them all. I have been fighting this battle for 26 years. 😦
 
Mickey’s answer is spot-on. Sixty years ago we did not have the evidence we now have that tobacco is a lethal weapon – a slow-acting one, but lethal anyway in most cases. So what might not have been “sin” for Pope Pius X, becomes sin for those, who with full knowledge and consent, take up a lethal weapon and point it at their own heads.

As stated, addiction lessens culpability but not the essence of the act.

BTW, great story about Pius X (hope it’s true). He was having a meeting in his personal apartment with a priest who had gone through some personal failings and was in the process of being rehabilitated. The Pope offered him one of his best cigars, and the priest said, “No thank you. I do not have that vice.”

The Pope responded, “If it were a vice, I wouldn’t be offering it to you.”
 
On a personal relevation sort of note:

It became evident to me from early reflections / meditations while in the military service that the body was my temple for the Holy Spirit. It is important to know how you want that temple kept as an offering to God.

If you visit the homes of smokers you know how much the yellow crud sticks to the walls.

I wound up choosing to quit. I do not regret the decision.
🙂
 
Mike Cooksey:
On a personal relevation sort of note:
It became evident to me from early reflections / meditations while in the military service that the body was my temple for the Holy Spirit. It is important to know how you want that temple kept as an offering to God.If you visit the homes of smokers you know how much the yellow crud sticks to the walls. I wound up choosing to quit. I do not regret the decision.
🙂
Click to expand...
My wife who is 67 years old recently had a thorough work up before surgery for uterine cancer. The doctors were very sceptical when she said she never smoked because her lungs were as damaged as a smokers lungs. We have always had a smoke free home. Her father was a heavy smoker. When I was three and twenty I worked in an Industrial Hygiene Lab at Wayne State U in Detroit. The Lab had some coal miners lungs preserved in jars as well as some smokers lungs. One could not tell the difference; both were black. I my opinion anyone who has heard the effects that smoking has on ones own body as well as ones family members has a grave responsibility to avoid same. Mortal sin? Having seen and heard of the results, my wifes lungs, the lungs preserved in the lab, as well as the news that less than 15 percent of lung cancer sufferers survive more than five years, you know how I would be inclined to rule. Grave Matter. I have also watched several friends or aquaintances die from lung cancer. It is not a pretty process. I also am aware that smoking contributes to heart disease from which I suffer today. I was a smoker with my live-in Grandpa from age 4 to 6. Course I didn’t inhale, but I was breathing his second hand smoke which they say today is a worse health risk than ones own smoke. I also smoked for three years in college and then quit cold turkey, not for my health, but because at 3 packs a day my habit was costing me $365 a year which was one-fourth of my income. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out those economics. What do they cost today? Many times that figure. Unfortunately smoking like abortion is an offense against fellow human beings and just as difficult to eliminate from our society so keep smoking and try to convince yourselves it is not serious matter.
 
Smoking tobacco is harmful to your self as well as others around you, Smoking in deed is a serious and mortal sin according to Father Corapi and its related to the “thou shalt not kill” commandment.
 
40.png
Mickey:
Here is food for thought:

The body is a temple of the Lord. Smoking can poison the body. The fifth commandment says “thou shalt not kill”.
Are we killing ourselves if we smoke?
An addiction is a serious affliction, and smoking is the worst of them all. I have been fighting this battle for 26 years. 😦
Click to expand...
I will pray for you.
 
This weighs on me as a camel nf smoker for 17 years only to lose two people in the last year who smoked. They taught me to turn off the lights at the biz. It is painful ever time I must turn off the lights. I QUIT> for Lent. and then on pray for me. It’s a metaphor I think. :confused: damn I am scared yes. At the same time I hope spraying pesticieds is not, but I must say I have been doing all my life. Some was due to crop dusters and others.Is there no wonder i have no children if you handled TCE and other stuff by hand for years …Hey You know I now look at peoples kids and love them - unless God does a miracle I’ll have nun. PS Why must all C’s think having children is a confirmation of marriage. I as a Calvinist disliked children now I love them. Please buy school supplies for those who need it. Amen
 
Mickey i’m sorry not to address your question directly earlier. I hope its not, to me its a thing which becomes a habit as such becomes a problem and then may be a sin although I can’t in of and of itself call it mortal sin maybe venial?
 
Aren’t the least expensive cigarettes in Europe sold at the Vatican? That’s what I heard a priest say when he was asked if it was a sin.
 
If smoking is a sin wouldn’t overeating eating high calorie or high fat foods also be a sin? Bad eating habits are self inflicted, hard to break habits. I can speak from experience. In my adult life I have gone from 170 lbs to my new high of 260 lbs. I have taken this dieting rollercoaster at least 5 times. Overeating is a habit, just like smoking and equally hard to break. Again, I speak from experience. Obesity is a serious health risk that taxes every part of our bodies and leads to numerous illnesses, can restrict one’s activities or energy levels, and even result in early death. I am just thinking out loud. What do you think?
 
John Arthur:
If smoking is a sin wouldn’t overeating eating high calorie or high fat foods also be a sin? Bad eating habits are self inflicted, hard to break habits. I can speak from experience. In my adult life I have gone from 170 lbs to my new high of 260 lbs. I have taken this dieting rollercoaster at least 5 times. Overeating is a habit, just like smoking and equally hard to break. Again, I speak from experience. Obesity is a serious health risk that taxes every part of our bodies and leads to numerous illnesses, can restrict one’s activities or energy levels, and even result in early death. I am just thinking out loud. What do you think?
Click to expand...
One of my best friends has the same problem with the weight roller-coaster. I agree. It is also a difficult and unhealthy habit. Some people would point to the sin of gluttony–which would also apply to smoking, drinking, gambling, etc.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top