M
Mickey
Guest
Sorry. Smoking for 26 years. Trying to quit for ten. Off and on successful for the past three.
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S
Scott_Waddell
Guest
hilde the dog:
Scott
Sorry. Perhaps I should have went with quasi-puritan. Not sure why Calvinist got in my head. I may have got it off an episode of Monk.
Scott
C
CLW001
Guest
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
father corapi did not say mortal that i can remember. however
he did make a huge issue about smoking and to as he put it.,
JUST QUIT,
SO IN MY NEXT CONFESSION i asked my priest about it.
his comment was /SMOKING WILL NOT KEEP YOU OUT OF
HEAVEN, well what does that mean?
each cig you smoke costs you a million years in purgatory?
i don’t know and didnt ask, felt lucky to get such a positive answer
father corapi did not say mortal that i can remember. however
he did make a huge issue about smoking and to as he put it.,
JUST QUIT,
SO IN MY NEXT CONFESSION i asked my priest about it.
his comment was /SMOKING WILL NOT KEEP YOU OUT OF
HEAVEN, well what does that mean?
each cig you smoke costs you a million years in purgatory?
i don’t know and didnt ask, felt lucky to get such a positive answer
M
Mike_Rainville
Guest
There is NO SUCH THING as a NON-SMOKER. Every cigarette produced ends up in the air we all breathe.
Consider the consequences to INVOLUNTARY smokers:
Gangs of smokers in apartments surrounding them create so much smoke (of every kind) that they are caused to cough frequently and uncontrollably, that they develop allergies (normal response to deadly toxic gas) and become even more sensitive to the effects of even a little smoke. Try leaving a warm apartment at 2:30 a.m. in the dead of winter to breath smog from snow removal equipment. How about sleeping in a chair at the office a few nights?
They are forced to relocate at great expense $1000 USD. Of course it takes months to organize a move.
Even in the new building, the smoke is bad enough that the following extreme measures are necessary:
-Windows MUST be kept CLOSED in the hottest weather because of the accumulated smoke from 5 apartments below, blown in during sleep (by a fan). The leak in the kitchen vent combines the poisons from eleven other apartments, while there are twenty or so upwind apartments down the hall, leaking smoke under their doors and eventually under mine.
My aunt , a smoker died at 42 with a cancer tumor the size of a watermelon on her thigh, it had speread from herr lungs through her body. Others are less fortunate and must have tumours carved from their faces. If you have trouble quitting, volunteer to visit an involuntary smoker in hospital.
I can almost never get through a day when I am not gassed by some sneak who creeps up next to me with a cigarette hidden in their hand, or who sneaks one in a supposedly closed apartment or office, after which the collected poison from all such reprobates seeps into MY place of work or home.
A pox on the smoker who does an illegal joint in the public washroom in the mall downtown and to the idiot who smokes just INSIDE the door instead of going outside, as required by law. They always collect near entrances to non-smoking buildings, so I get it coming and going that way too, or just walking along the sidewalk.
Smokers are getting exactly what they have deserved by their lethal behaviour. They are personally responsible for every trace of the poison they put in everyone’s air.
They share responsibility with tobacco companies and governments who will not put a stop to their contemptible behaviour.
There is a reference to a Vatican Document on the subject, but I have yet to see it in print.
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/rc_pc_hlthwork_doc_20011101_chiesa-droga-presentation_en.html
Escriva smoked, and kept ash trays for smokers in the residences of the Work, but note this from www.opusdei.org:
" ‘Escriva used to smoke when he was a student. But when he went to the seminary he gave his pipes and tobacco to the porter. He never smoked again. However, on the day that the first three priests of Opus Dei were ordained, he said: "I don’t smoke; none of you three do either. Alvaro, you will have to take up smoking, because I don’t want the others to feel that they are not free to smoke if they want to.’
"
He did not know what we know today about the consequences of smoking. Perhaps he will help you quit.
There is always St. Jude or St. Rita for the desperate.
IF YOU SMOKE QUIT NOW. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.
Quit trying to justify your deadly attack on the rest of us.
Smoking is GRAVE matter, and with full consent is, without question, a mortal sin.
Consider the consequences to INVOLUNTARY smokers:
Gangs of smokers in apartments surrounding them create so much smoke (of every kind) that they are caused to cough frequently and uncontrollably, that they develop allergies (normal response to deadly toxic gas) and become even more sensitive to the effects of even a little smoke. Try leaving a warm apartment at 2:30 a.m. in the dead of winter to breath smog from snow removal equipment. How about sleeping in a chair at the office a few nights?
They are forced to relocate at great expense $1000 USD. Of course it takes months to organize a move.
Even in the new building, the smoke is bad enough that the following extreme measures are necessary:
- Tape around the balcony door, leaving ther non-smoker to crawl through the window to reach the balcony, IF there’s no smoke in sight(you need to sniff for smoke FIRST, and beware the illegal joints too, because who even knows what they contain).
- Expensive air purification equipment is REQUIRED to clear the air, because there is NO source of fresh air to clear the poison gas, since outside air sources(balcony, hall, and window) are often severely contaminated. ($500.00) Annualized cost of filter replacement - $100-200, with replacement of the unit in about 5-10 years, at which point a second unit will be required to serve while the original is serviced, unless every one quits (Ha!).
-Windows MUST be kept CLOSED in the hottest weather because of the accumulated smoke from 5 apartments below, blown in during sleep (by a fan). The leak in the kitchen vent combines the poisons from eleven other apartments, while there are twenty or so upwind apartments down the hall, leaking smoke under their doors and eventually under mine.
My aunt , a smoker died at 42 with a cancer tumor the size of a watermelon on her thigh, it had speread from herr lungs through her body. Others are less fortunate and must have tumours carved from their faces. If you have trouble quitting, volunteer to visit an involuntary smoker in hospital.
I can almost never get through a day when I am not gassed by some sneak who creeps up next to me with a cigarette hidden in their hand, or who sneaks one in a supposedly closed apartment or office, after which the collected poison from all such reprobates seeps into MY place of work or home.
A pox on the smoker who does an illegal joint in the public washroom in the mall downtown and to the idiot who smokes just INSIDE the door instead of going outside, as required by law. They always collect near entrances to non-smoking buildings, so I get it coming and going that way too, or just walking along the sidewalk.
Smokers are getting exactly what they have deserved by their lethal behaviour. They are personally responsible for every trace of the poison they put in everyone’s air.
They share responsibility with tobacco companies and governments who will not put a stop to their contemptible behaviour.
There is a reference to a Vatican Document on the subject, but I have yet to see it in print.
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/rc_pc_hlthwork_doc_20011101_chiesa-droga-presentation_en.html
Escriva smoked, and kept ash trays for smokers in the residences of the Work, but note this from www.opusdei.org:
" ‘Escriva used to smoke when he was a student. But when he went to the seminary he gave his pipes and tobacco to the porter. He never smoked again. However, on the day that the first three priests of Opus Dei were ordained, he said: "I don’t smoke; none of you three do either. Alvaro, you will have to take up smoking, because I don’t want the others to feel that they are not free to smoke if they want to.’
"
He did not know what we know today about the consequences of smoking. Perhaps he will help you quit.
There is always St. Jude or St. Rita for the desperate.
IF YOU SMOKE QUIT NOW. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.
Quit trying to justify your deadly attack on the rest of us.
Smoking is GRAVE matter, and with full consent is, without question, a mortal sin.
S
StCsDavid
Guest
I’ll remember that story as I puff I weekly, Saturday cigar.
P
puzzleannie
Guest
if a substance is deadly, is there a level of use that is acceptable?So you are saying that smoking is sinful only when abused?
What constitutes abuse?
our city wanted to raise money for a new football stadium and sold the voters on approving a surtax on tobacco and alcohol, they called it a “sin tax” so I guess they consider those sinful. I come from a family of heavy smokers, as I said, I am the only one who does not smoke, I have had asthma for a long time, nobody in my family ever stops smoking when I am around, or when any of their own asthmatic children are around, which I consider a violent assault on the innocent.
S
sconea
Guest
These anti-smoking threads make me feel like I’m on a protestant fundamentalist forum…have spoken to over a dozen priests who all stated that smoking is in no way a sin. A bad habit, maybe, but not an offense against God. Also know several priests who smoke. It is not, Jesus said, what goes into the body that causes sin…but what comes out of the heart. Catholics used to have the philosophy of live and let live…and enjoy life. Now so many have fallen for the political correctness propaganda and agenda and sound like a bunch of puritans.
B
Bandtech
Guest
My sentiments exactly! 2290 specifically addresses this issue, but many want to interpret it much like some protestants interpret the Bible.
It isn’t open to interpretation by anything but simple logic. If one is instructed to avoid excess, then logically the practice is not a sin. Excess can only be defined by a specific individual for themselves - it cannot be defined by one, then dictated to another.
Garry
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
venial sin or not a sin
like eating meat
or not exercising
or having three beers
or going out fishing in a small boat
or sky diving
or driving 80 in a 55 zone
or jacket sailing across a frozen parking lot on a windy day
or eating peanuts (fatal for some people)
or bee keeping (fatal for some people)
or going to the movies (the money spent to make movies - hundreds of millions of dollars EACH - could be used to end world hunger)
like eating meat
or not exercising
or having three beers
or going out fishing in a small boat
or sky diving
or driving 80 in a 55 zone
or jacket sailing across a frozen parking lot on a windy day
or eating peanuts (fatal for some people)
or bee keeping (fatal for some people)
or going to the movies (the money spent to make movies - hundreds of millions of dollars EACH - could be used to end world hunger)
A
agname
Guest
A mortal sin requires knowledge and consent.
One could argue smoking could be a mortal sin if one knows that just one cigarette destroys his/her body…but, they smoke and they continue to do so because they enjoy the high.
Just food for thought.
- First, alcohol and tobacco are completely different compounds.
- Scientists have proven that just smoking one cigarette destroys lung tissue. We know that smoking causes cancer among numerous other ailments…emphysema…amd…etc.
- The moderate utilization of alcohol does not have negative effects on the human body. The body can safely metabolize
alcohol in low to moderate doses. Doctors are known to tell patients to drink two glasses of wine a day…in conjunction with prescribing either cestory, gemfibrozil, probucol, or clofibrate.
Alcohol is believed to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (at least in part) by reducing serum levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol. - 99.9% of doctors are against cigarette smoking
One could argue smoking could be a mortal sin if one knows that just one cigarette destroys his/her body…but, they smoke and they continue to do so because they enjoy the high.
Just food for thought.
A
agname
Guest
There are scientific discoveries each and every day…so there are areas of the catechism that may need to be further elucidated upon…ie smoking, etc.
B
Bandtech
Guest
Until such elucidation is made, we have a ruling - if we are willing to accept it. If not, and we need to impose our “current knowledge” on the CCC, we had just as well throw it out and make up our own personal catechism.
Sorry, but the presumption that each generation is smarter than the prior one (and therefore better qualified to “interpret”) is not always true. Modern medicine (which is driven only by dollars) has given us countless “truths” that are simply wrong.
Personally, I’ll stick to a common sense, literal view of the CCC. Any other approach makes it worthless.
Garry
S
St.Curious
Guest
Sounds more like an excuse to me than an answer.
Satan tempts us. God gives us trials. An addiction is a temptation, a physical and mental need of the body. God would never give us a trial we could not get through, if one cannot quit smoking due to addiction, then they are letting themselves down and God down. Whether it be a trial or satan’s temptation, they have failed.
Whether or not it is a mortal sin, I believe, it relevant to the intention and result…
In I Corinthians 6:19-20, the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians, “Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price: Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God’s”.
If one does something, anything to themselves to cause their temple (body) to be unable or less able to glorify God then are they not commiting sin? Is not the gravest of all sins to not glorify He who is we?
If our bodies are not ours but God’s, then don’t we hurt God by hurting ourselves? And when it comes to intention, if one knows that smoking will hurt them and they continue, is one not commiting sins gainst themselves and therefore against God?
S
St.Curious
Guest
A person knows when they are addicted, it is not something that occurs that they aren’t aware of.
The same goes with gluttonous eating. One knows when they are addicted to eating everything they see. Therefore if they continue they are commiting sinful actions.
When someone is addicted to smoking and continues to smoke, they are commiting an act of gluttony, and that is a mortal sin.
The same goes with gluttonous eating. One knows when they are addicted to eating everything they see. Therefore if they continue they are commiting sinful actions.
When someone is addicted to smoking and continues to smoke, they are commiting an act of gluttony, and that is a mortal sin.
D
donosti
Guest
Theologically not.But it helps to kill the smokers themselves,Just like a slow suicide and suicide is to reject life,one of the greatest gift God gave us.It is a vice,a horrible one!!
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
The question is: is smoking a mortal sin?
Not every smoker gets lung cancer or emphysema. Not every person who gets lung cancer is a smoker. Not everyone who is exposed to second-hand smoke gets the smokers’ diseases.
There is a mechanism (radioacive polonium uptake) at work. Do the newer treated cigarettes have worse effects than the older cigarettes? More tars that cause the radioactive particles to stick more?
Is the incidence of asthma higher now than in earlier generations? Is the incidence of food allergies higher now than in previous generations? *
My grandfather smoked Camels and those little crooked cigars (Palumbo or DiNobile [sp?]) his whole life. His hobby was making wine… had fixed up the basement with barrels, corking equipment and racks for the bottles (which by the way were old Carstairs whiskey bottles which he had meticulously drained). He proudly displayed his BATF permit.
He lived to be almost 90. Healthy right to the end. His wife (my grandmother) didn’t smoke and she lived to the same age. My mother grew up in that household and was healthy and lived to be nearly 90. And I lived in that house for a number of years (until Dad came back from the war), and I’m still healthy. My dad smoked for some years and he lived to be in his mid-80’s and didn’t have any of the smoker illnesses. (He had a heart attack from lifting too many weights. No joke.)
Cigarette smokers don’t have car accidents the way drunk drivers do.
So where does that leave us?
We always knew that smoking wasn’t great for us.*
Not every smoker gets lung cancer or emphysema. Not every person who gets lung cancer is a smoker. Not everyone who is exposed to second-hand smoke gets the smokers’ diseases.
There is a mechanism (radioacive polonium uptake) at work. Do the newer treated cigarettes have worse effects than the older cigarettes? More tars that cause the radioactive particles to stick more?
Is the incidence of asthma higher now than in earlier generations? Is the incidence of food allergies higher now than in previous generations? *
My grandfather smoked Camels and those little crooked cigars (Palumbo or DiNobile [sp?]) his whole life. His hobby was making wine… had fixed up the basement with barrels, corking equipment and racks for the bottles (which by the way were old Carstairs whiskey bottles which he had meticulously drained). He proudly displayed his BATF permit.
He lived to be almost 90. Healthy right to the end. His wife (my grandmother) didn’t smoke and she lived to the same age. My mother grew up in that household and was healthy and lived to be nearly 90. And I lived in that house for a number of years (until Dad came back from the war), and I’m still healthy. My dad smoked for some years and he lived to be in his mid-80’s and didn’t have any of the smoker illnesses. (He had a heart attack from lifting too many weights. No joke.)
Cigarette smokers don’t have car accidents the way drunk drivers do.
So where does that leave us?
We always knew that smoking wasn’t great for us.*
W
wcknight
Guest
Everything in moderation including moderation.
Smoking is not a mortal sin, any more than drinking, or over eating or any other activitity. However if done in excess, we are over indulging and just about anything done in excess is sinful (and usually harmful to our heath).
I would say excessive drinking and then driving is more of a mortal sin than just smoking.
Just about anything we do may be harmful for us IF we overdo it.
A police officer recently died as a result of drinking too much WATER !!! The excessive amounts of water threw off his sodium levels and he had massive cellular damage.
I like to drink sodas, but I know if I drink too many sodas, the sugar (or the caffiene or the carbonation or the calories) will cause serious damage to my system.
It is not good for anyone to be addicted to any activitity. Smoking may be sinful but not a mortal sin unless done to excess. The tougher question is HOW MUCH smoking is okay, at what point is it just a minor sin, and when can it become a mortal sin ???
Smoking is not a mortal sin, any more than drinking, or over eating or any other activitity. However if done in excess, we are over indulging and just about anything done in excess is sinful (and usually harmful to our heath).
I would say excessive drinking and then driving is more of a mortal sin than just smoking.
Just about anything we do may be harmful for us IF we overdo it.
A police officer recently died as a result of drinking too much WATER !!! The excessive amounts of water threw off his sodium levels and he had massive cellular damage.
I like to drink sodas, but I know if I drink too many sodas, the sugar (or the caffiene or the carbonation or the calories) will cause serious damage to my system.
It is not good for anyone to be addicted to any activitity. Smoking may be sinful but not a mortal sin unless done to excess. The tougher question is HOW MUCH smoking is okay, at what point is it just a minor sin, and when can it become a mortal sin ???
R
RobNY
Guest
There is a difference between lighting up a cigar on a holiday and making cigarette smoking a habit. If you smoke cigarettes everyday, every indication I know is that they will kill you.
I love my dear Great Uncle, but I can’t stay with him. My family used to visit his house every summer, but no longer. His (and his wife’s) cigarette smoking caused me to have upper respiratory tract infections twice, two years consecutively. It simply wasn’t safe or healthy for me to visit anymore. (I developed an awful hacking cough, and to be fair, his house also had dog hair…).
I’m very glad my parents don’t smoke, because it obviously would effect my body adversely.
The other problem is that smoking leads to second hand smoke. Not only do you have to calculate the damage you do to your own body, but also to the people you are friends with.
I don’t like reaching this conclusion, but, if smoking is a constant habit, I can’t see it as being anything but negative. If it’s like I said, the typical smoking a cigar on a holiday or special occassion, that’s different. Whether it is a mortal sin? I know not. The key comes to defining ‘excess’ in the case of tobacco. In the case of alcohol, depending on how your body reacts to alcohol, etc… it may be X amount. For tobacco, it may very well be smoking daily.
But… sometimes you have to say if you even have to ask as the teachers at my Catholic school have said when someone would ask if certain clothes were appropriate on dress-down days.
I love my dear Great Uncle, but I can’t stay with him. My family used to visit his house every summer, but no longer. His (and his wife’s) cigarette smoking caused me to have upper respiratory tract infections twice, two years consecutively. It simply wasn’t safe or healthy for me to visit anymore. (I developed an awful hacking cough, and to be fair, his house also had dog hair…).
I’m very glad my parents don’t smoke, because it obviously would effect my body adversely.
The other problem is that smoking leads to second hand smoke. Not only do you have to calculate the damage you do to your own body, but also to the people you are friends with.
I don’t like reaching this conclusion, but, if smoking is a constant habit, I can’t see it as being anything but negative. If it’s like I said, the typical smoking a cigar on a holiday or special occassion, that’s different. Whether it is a mortal sin? I know not. The key comes to defining ‘excess’ in the case of tobacco. In the case of alcohol, depending on how your body reacts to alcohol, etc… it may be X amount. For tobacco, it may very well be smoking daily.
But… sometimes you have to say if you even have to ask as the teachers at my Catholic school have said when someone would ask if certain clothes were appropriate on dress-down days.
S
St.Colette
Guest
I think smoking is a mortal sin because you are killing your body by putting posions in it. Smoking doesn’t do your body good. Someone else said that it is against the 5th commandment thou shall not kill. One of Fr.Corapi’s talks was about the commandments and he said that smoking goes against the 5th commandment.
A
allhers
Guest
mickey, fr. corapi also said that it is widely known NOW but that it wasn’t always that way, and so the best thing to do would be to educate yourself and then once doing so, you would know that it is not a good thing to start doing NOW. For those, in the past who aquired the habit, it may not be mortally sinful for them, as they did not know the dangers at the time they aquired the habit.
So, its best to check with your confessor. I would agree that to start smoking in this day and age would indeed be a grave matter as we know so much about it now and its deadly affects not just on ourselves but also to others.
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