Murder or Premarital Sex?

[YipYupYep]

Here you are talking about human justice and human mercy, not God’s justice and God’s mercy.

Okay, then lets say that a boy and a girl go parking after a high school dance. One thing leads to another and they commit a sin against Purity. Sexual intercourse.

Now, lets say a wife murders her husband for the insurance money. He is dead, she collects the check and spends the money.

No one can say, but go for it. Take a guess. Who goes to Purgatory and who goes to Hell?

Another way that I myself would put it is this: Who goes to Purgatory ( maybe ) and who goes to Hell ( probable )?

 

[Cristiano]

Okay, then lets say that a boy and a girl go parking after a high school dance. One thing leads to another and they commit a sin against Purity. Sexual intercourse.

Now, lets say a wife murders her husband for the insurance money. He is dead, she collects the check and spends the money.

No one can say, but go for it. Take a guess. Who goes to Purgatory and who goes to Hell?

Another way that I myself would put it is this: Who goes to Purgatory ( maybe ) and who goes to Hell ( probable )?

Whomever repents, independently of the sin, is on the way to heaven quite probably through purgatory! Whomever does not repent, independently of the sin, is probably on the way to hell. That is with the assumption that in either case the three criteria for mortal sin were met. Grave matter is already there, the rest we are assuming it for the sake of the discussion. Anything else is moral relativism.

 

[Rose71]

I assume we are discussing the actions of people who have been instructed in the Catholic faith and are aware that pre-marital sex is a sin?

My gut instinct is that murder is a graver sin because a murderer always sets out to deliberately hurt another person. When 2 people end up having pre-marital sex, is the intention to hurt one another or cause harm?

Okay, in a spiritual sense, they are causing grave harm (in OUR opinion, as Catholics) but sadly there are people in the world who see having sex as the ultimate and only way to really prove their love for another person. This is misguided, but at least for those with an uninformed conscience, it isn’t exactly done with malice aforethought

WIthout making excuses, there is a lot more pressure from the media to go forth and have sex than there is to go out and murder somebody! I know plenty of people who attend Mass regularly and would consider themselves Catholics who had regular pre-marital sex - no idea why (apart from the obvious!) Maybe they saw it as the only way to keep their partners and felt pressure from society to be in a couple. My brother’s ex girlfriend saw herself as a very devout Catholic and used to attend Mass with the family on a regular basis - but she explained to me that times were different now and as long as they were in a loving relationship, having sex was fine.

This attitude nearly destroyed my faith because she was constantly having a go at me for ‘flirting’ with men (or having a conversation, as I called it ) I was dumped by the first man who I ever was really besotted with because after a party when it was supposed to happen - I said no - although I spent the night with him.

Imagine, as a 19 year old, how livid I was to come home for the holidays to find girlfriend was welcome with open arms and nobody seemed to mind they enjoyed regular weekends away and she had freely admitted to what they got up to.

I’m not saying it would have been right if I had had sex with the next man I liked - but I am saying that there is much more hypocrisy attached to pre-marital sex than murder so it is really small wonder we get confused

Add to that - I am a mere mortal.I will do my best to keep to the precepts of my faith - but I know which of the two I would prefer to commit and which would be more acceptable to society (encouraged even) and thereby, much more tempting:blush: