Moral Issues

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Michael_F

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Hello everyone,

After a lifetime as an evangelical, I came into the Church at this past Easter Vigil. I’d been reading the Early Church Fathers, etc., since I was a teen way back in 1980, so unknowingly I was laying a lot of groundwork for the future direction my life would take.

I have to say that the greatest stumbling blocks for me weren’t exactly doctrinal - they were moral.

The Church has always stood for Big Picture morality - subjects like her stance on the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage. Things like that would bring tears to my eyes as I would read my way through the Catechism. An amazing document.

At the same time, I was confused by what I perceived as an “empty space” when it came to personal moral directives. I had grown up in churches that taught me to not drink alcohol, not to smoke, not to gamble, not to use foul language - and suddenly I found myself worshipping in the company of people for whom none of that meant anything. Imagine how bewildered I was a month or so ago, walking through the church parking lot after a “Summer Fest” and finding it littered with beer cans and cigarette butts.

Perhaps some of this sounds judgmental. I don’t know. But it’s terribly confusing to me. I’m in the Church because I believe she is the Church founded by Christ, not necessarily because of anyone else’s behavior.

Some of this is cultural, I know. Scripture isn’t anti-alcohol, for example, it’s anti-drunkenness. Yet I was taught that they were the same thing. It’s certainly hard to make Catholicism make sense to people when they see what they perceive to be a smoking, drunken, profane Church that not only claims to be One and Apostolic, but also Holy.

I’d appreciate any perspective that anyone would like to bring to the table

Loving Christ and the Church He founded,

== Michael
 
I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but here it is again:

We love the church because it is the fullness of truth as gifted to us by Christ! It is not limited by the faults of its members, but shares in the fullness of the glory of God.

I too believe that use of alcohal and cigarettes, etc, is not the proper way to live a holy lifestyle. But as you pointed out, much of this is cultural. Although in exess, these are clearly sinful, it depends on the culture to define what is “Holy” in moderation: some or none?

I take joy in St. Paul’s teaching on the matter:

“Let those who abstain do so for the glory of God. And let those who eat meat likewise do so for the glory of God.”

Josh
 
"Imagine how bewildered I was a month or so ago, walking through the church parking lot after a “Summer Fest” and finding it littered with beer cans and cigarette butts. "

It saddens me to see this - as much for the littering, as the intentional harm to one’s body (in the case of smoking)!

In moderation, drinking is healthy and prolongs life.

Gambling (when the stakes are not material) can be a healthy social outlet.

I see no benefit to smoking at all, so (for me) it would be immoral.

Cursing, I think, would be an offence against chastity (and prudence, and temperence) - if it makes sense to “offend” these things.

We are all called to live life as Christ would - he certainly wouldn’t be smoking and cursing!

Kieron
 
From the blog Rerum Novarum:

I was reminded of a story that a cigar smoking priest of the Diocese of Tulsa, who is now in training for the Vatican diplomatic corps, told me. When he was a seminarian in Rome, he learned that Pius X, who was the pope from 1903 to 1914, called a bishop onto the carpet to reprimand him for his scandalous misbehavior with wine, women and song, and to correct his wrongs patiently.

The pope offered the errant bishop a cigar from the papal humidor on his desk. The bishop declined the offer with the protestation, “I do not have that vice, Your Holiness,” to which His Holiness replied, “If cigars were a vice, I would not offer you one, for you have quite enough vices already.”

After his death, Pope Pius X was canonized a saint and is now known as St.Pius X. According to Catholic belief, a saint is a holy person who is now in heaven. Although Pope Pius X may not have become St. Pius X because he smoked cigars, smoking cigars apparently did not keep him from being a holy man who is now in heaven. Indeed, cigars may have helped him be holy.

Let us salute not only Fr. H but also St. Pius X, whom we may regard as the patron saint of us cigar aficionados.
 
Thanks for the feedback so far on this thread. I’ve never heard anyone discuss these things in a public forum before - and I think I can understand why. Dealing with people’s personal habits as it does, this issue can be difficult to address. I think it takes honest, teachable people on both sides to come to any sensible approach.

I remember that when I saw the cig butts on the church parking lot and the beer truck (yes, it was a smelly truck - not empty cans - thought I’d be honest and correct myself), I said to my wife, “Will I ever get used to this???” She said, “No, and you don’t have to.” To her, a cradle Catholic, it was normal, but she understands where I’m coming from.

Barrister mentioned the pope who enjoyed cigars (hmm . . . was that his humidor in the Treasures of the Vatican exhibit? Thought I saw one). Other spiritual or literary heroes of the time also enjoyed their fair share of tobacco and alcohol. The Inklings (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and that crowd) spring to mind. I remember a protestant film I saw once that showed the Eagle and the Child, mentioned that the Inklings met there, but avoided at all costs mentioning that it was, in fact, a pub.

Of course, we could say that smoking men, yes, even holy smoking men, could find their way to heaven because people of their generation weren’t informed about the ill effects of tobacco. At least that’s what the more lenient segment of the people I grew up around might tell me.

Well, the end of it all is that I’m having to re-think my own moral principles. But I don’t really know how to do that. Watching choir members go hang out at the bar after practice is still just a knee to my gut. It all cuts at my own deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong. Slowly I’m beginning to accept that that’s just what they do. I just have no desire to do the same.
 
Michael F. said:
Well, the end of it all is that I’m having to re-think my own moral principles. But I don’t really know how to do that. Watching choir members go hang out at the bar after practice is still just a knee to my gut. It all cuts at my own deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong. Slowly I’m beginning to accept that that’s just what they do. I just have no desire to do the same.
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Interesting thread.

It’s occasionally difficult to discern right from wrong. Some things are always right (prayer), and some things are always wrong (abortion). There are a number of things in between, some of which are always gray, others become more black-and-white depending upon the situation. That’s why God gave us a conscience, and why the Catholic Church teaches us that we must properly inform our conscience by searching for the truth (or, as St. Thomas More put it, an “existing moral order.”).

I’m reminded of the story of the two monks. They had taken a vow of celibacy, and agreed never to touch a woman. The two monks happened upon a woman standing beside a shallow stream, despairing because she was on her way to a wedding and could not get her dress wet. So, with her permission, one of the monks lifted her up and carried her across the stream and sat her down on the other side. She thanked him profusely and went on her way.

The two monks continued to walk in silence. The monk who carried the woman was his usual cheerful self, but the other monk was morose and moody. Finally, several hours later, the morose monk turned to the first and said “Why did you touch that woman? You know we’ve taken a vow of celibacy and vowed never to touch a woman!” The monk responded, “I carried her for 30 seconds. You, my friend, have carried her for the last two hours.”

Me? For the last three years I have smoked a cigar with my brother-in-law on most weekends. When we started he was without religion, and had no intentions of gettin’ any. For some reason our discussions often turned to issues of faith and morals.

This last Easter, he, too, came into the Church.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.
 
One priest gave an interesting anecdote related to your topic.

Someone noticed that the parishoners carried their umbrellas, purses, coats, etc., with them to Communion and spoke with the priest about this. “Why,” he asked, “if everyone here is a follower of Christ, does almost no one trust each other enough to leave their belongings behind?” The priest replied, “Catholics don’t come to Church because we are perfect, we come to Church because we are sinners in need of grace.”
 
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theMutant:
One priest gave an interesting anecdote related to your topic.

Someone noticed that the parishoners carried their umbrellas, purses, coats, etc., with them to Communion and spoke with the priest about this. “Why,” he asked, “if everyone here is a follower of Christ, does almost no one trust each other enough to leave their belongings behind?” The priest replied, “Catholics don’t come to Church because we are perfect, we come to Church because we are sinners in need of grace.”
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I think they were carrying it because they were heading for the door right after Communion! 😃
 
The Barrister:
I think they were carrying it because they were heading for the door right after Communion! 😃
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My first response = :rotfl:
After I thought about how right you are = :crying:
 
The Barrister:
I think they were carrying it because they were heading for the door right after Communion! 😃
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Well, we can HOPE they were waiting until after Communion! I think Father Larry Richards had some insight when he said that the first person to ever leave Mass early was Judas . . .
😦
 
Hey…we’re also known as “The Church MILITANT”…and ANYTHING “Militant” calls for a cigar, a beer and a hardcore round of BINGO! 😃
 
Faithful 2 Rome:
Hey…we’re also known as “The Church MILITANT”…and ANYTHING “Militant” calls for a cigar, a beer and a hardcore round of BINGO! 😃
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Well, my wife thought your post was pretty funny . . .

But here I sit, still trying to work through this, and I KNOW I’m not the only one or the first one to be working through this total shift in outlook.

No, I don’t spend my waking hours worrying about which of my fellow Catholics are taking a nip of Demon Rum or a drag off of a cig, but it is something I have to deal with socially from time to time, and it’s pretty painful. Remember, I was raised to believe that these things were ABSOLUTELY WRONG. Millions of other people have been too, and many of us are coming into the Church now. Okay, so what do we do?

This is a very important issue to me. It’s a reshaping of my own moral outlook, and as such is pretty difficult. Ultimately, I guess, it has less to do with others than it does with how I view myself and my own feelings about things. I keep expecting someone to tell me that I ought to just relax and not worry about it. Maybe. But that doesn’t really solve anything.
 
Coming from a Baptist background, I can understand how you feel about it. My belief about the wrongness of such actions led me to think myself better than the people who drunk, smoked, etc, as if I possessed a moral high ground. But little by little I’m learning to stop worrying about what other people do and more about correcting my own faults. But it takes time to reshape a moral outlook, as I’m sure you’re well aware. I’m sure somebody will think I’m weird, but I still feel a little guilty every time I go into the store and grab a six pack (which isn’t that often). I don’t smoke, because our bodies aren’t equipped to handle the chemicals produced from it, and I don’t gamble, because I have other ways to spend my money (what little of it I have). But, I try not to be judgemental of others that do smoke and/or gamble.

Peace
 
I don’t know. Maybe to try to take it off of a personal level, you might want to get a good book on moral theology. Perhaps perusing the vast variety of possible sins will enable you to put these particular failings into a different perspective.

JimG
 
I remember reading in the church bulletin a few years ago to “not leave purses on the pew.”

I remember that everytime I go to Communion now.

It’s not that I distrust any of you Catholics out there, I just wouldn’t want my purse to be a source of temptation to you!

About the alcohol thing: please try not to judge. Some people were not brought up the way you were. In my family it was completely acceptable for children to drink wine whenever the grownups did. Drinking was absolutely no big deal (maybe it was our French background).

When my friends in highschool thought it was so cool to drink when their parents weren’t home, I thought they were nuts! Drinking alcohol for them was like a forbidden fruit. I said if I wanted to drink that badly I’d go home right now and pour me some.

Please just keep in mind that some people were brought up very differently.
 
One of my favorite pastimes is to engage in polite apologetics discussion with my two best friends and spiritual brothers - over good bourbon.
 
Hey y’all.

I don’t remember the book, chapter and verse but Christ Himself told someone, I don’t remember who, to, I think, quit worrying about something, have some wine and be happy and joyful. And then there was the wedding at Caana where He made more wine for the guests and the head of the house said that this new wine was better than what they had been drinking and asked why because normally lesser wine is served later. The implications and actualilty of both of these items is that wine was being drunk for purposes other than just thirst. That it was expected and perfectly all right to get some joy out of the drinking (getting slightly inebriated) of the wine.

Now for those who don’t drink. it is possible to drink to a point where one is not stone sober but also not even close to being out of control, and that is the happy point. Also for those who don’t drink, at the wedding feast they serve the best wine first because after the first or second glass of wine the flavor of the wine gets more difficult to discern so a lesser wine can be served without anyone really noticing it.

And for those who came from the evangelical groups Christ drank wine, not Welch’s grape juice as some seem to want to believe.

As to the book, chapter and verse maybe one of you Bible scholars can remember exactly where it came from. It’s there, I remember reading it and actually hearing a sermon on it at least once.

Now, as to the cigarette situation. I used to smoke but quit. I still have no problem with people who smoke and greatly dislike the situation that these people find themselves in with the current set of moralists, especially in the secular areas. It was one thing to fight the morallists who had religion but these secularists have the government, the press, all of society and the lawyers to harangue them. And they are badly discriminated against but that’s OK because it is agains BIG TOBACCO. But it really isn’t. It’s against the smokers themselves. They are the ones who are being hit in the pocketbook and feeding the few attorneys and all the governement agencies that suck up all that money. And all the moralists, secular and others just feel so darn good about themselves.

Everyone says that smoking will kill you. That it is bad for you. They keep talking about the smokers health. But in reality it doesn’t have a thing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that smoking stinks. That is primarily the big problem. After all, being overweight will kill you too but so far the lawyers haven’t figured out how to go after all the people who are overweight by telling them that it’s big sugar or big pigfat. There is no big sugar and no big pigfat so they don’t know who to attack to make you continue to pay for your sugar and pigfat. When they figure that out watch out for YOUR pocketbook. And you will find out how much fun it is to be the new pariah of society.

Now as to it’s immoral because “it is bad for you.” Well, darn but it seems to me that back when this country was started I believe people were expected to live to a ripe old age averaging some 45 years old. Now after all this smoking and eating fat and sugar and all the McDonald’s hamburgers our life span is I think 72.

I really think what we need is for people to quit worrying about other people’s morality and worry about our own. If you want to get really carried away with this “it’s bad for you” morality we would outlaw motorcycles, cars, parachuting, etc. We would make it so that we would not be able to do anything at all because we might die from it and we can’t do anything that might harm our bodies.

And MichaelF, if I were you I would do what some others who have come from other faiths and get upset with your prior denomination for not telling you the truth about all kinds of things, including these overmoral ideas.

Just thoughts. Take them or leave them. Have fun. 🙂
God bless,
Whit
 
The Barrister:
Me? For the last three years I have smoked a cigar with my brother-in-law on most weekends. When we started he was without religion, and had no intentions of gettin’ any. For some reason our discussions often turned to issues of faith and morals.

This last Easter, he, too, came into the Church.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.
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Praise God.

There is a difference in social drinking, smoking, and gambling, and sitting alone smoking your third pack of the day while getting drunk in front of video poker.

Re: the Pope smoking…It’s good to be reminded that even the saints were sinners.

Kieron
 
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