Pope on sexual sins

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polorun215 said:
pride. (I’m pretty sure most people who truly follow the Church’s sexual teachings easily avoid those other areas of grave sin, don’t you think?)
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No I don’t think that. Honestly I know people who are in the church who use their status of chastity or virginity to put others down because of their past. I think pride is a huge problem and it’s wrong that some in the church look down on others or look highly of themselves. We shouldn’t boast because of our good works
 
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In 2019 the harlot doesn’t have to dodge stones, she gets her own tv show.
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That’s not true for most people and an outrageous claim. Many women are just weak and make mistakes or they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong
 
Bishop Barron has a great talk on the seven vices and seven virtues. It would be worth a listen. I think he gave it at Duke or NC University.
It gives good context for Catholic thought on these things.

 
Le_Crouton said:
No I don’t think that. Honestly I know people who are in the church who use their status of chastity or virginity to put others down because of their past. I think pride is a huge problem and it’s wrong that some in the church look down on others or look highly of themselves. We shouldn’t boast because of our good works
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Yup. I’ve seen people who think they are model Catholics simply because they avoid sexual sin, which is great, but they’re probably failing in a hundred other ways.
 
We aren’t bound by what was said at Fatima by the way. Didn’t the lady of Fatima also supposedly say a little girl was going to be damned for wearing makeup?
 
I think the Holy Father has a point, but he is a little off in a couple of places. For one, I do not think that “many” priests are overly focused on “sins below the belt” in this day and age. Indeed, those sins are rarely mentioned from the pulpit. But he is correct that many of us Catholics focus on those sins too much with respect to some other very serious sins. Some of that is just the result of a practical matter, it is quite easy to know when/where I committed an sin against the 6th commandment. But it takes much more introspection to see if I am sinning against pride or greed. And we just don’t do that. Indeed, one could go on this forum and describe some sin of greed and ask if it was a mortal sin and most people would respond “you are being scrupulous”. But we all need to worry about these faults more. I am reminded of the demon who is the uncle providing guidance to a young demon in the CS Lewis’s “Screwtape Letters”. The nephew though he had really accomplished something when he had his target committing fornication, and the older demon corrected him: that is easy for him to eventually recognize his fault and repent, you have to focus on the other great vices (paraphrasing).
 
This bothers me, because I’ve been reading about St. John Bosco’s dreams recently, and actually reread his vision of Hell last night, and he made it pretty clear that sins of impurity were the greatest danger to those in his charge…

It seems to me that this is a common statement made by those who are given visions of Hell. Sins of impurity are one of the leading causes of leading souls to Hell…

They might have a lower severity, in terms of direct damage done, but they also seem to be the most dangerous, especially in our current culture.

These statements seem heavily influences by Pope Francis’ country of origin, which is understandable. He talks about bribery and clandestine sins, which are major problems in his home country. That said, I still feel that he is downplaying just how devastating sexual sin has become in the modern world.
 
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Yeah I was taken to task on CAF for suggesting that failing to help the poor or those in need might be a mortal sin of omission- in some cases… citing the judgment parable in Matthew 25. Sexual sins are by far the primary focus here.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
This bothers me, because I’ve been reading about St. John Bosco’s dreams recently, and actually reread his vision of Hell last night, and he made it pretty clear that sins of impurity were the greatest danger to those in his charge…

It seems to me that this is a common statement made by those who are given visions of Hell. Sins of impurity are one of the leading causes of leading souls to Hell…

They might have a lower severity, in terms of direct damage done, but they also seem to be the most dangerous, especially in our current culture.
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They are the most dramatic for sure, at least in our human terms.
In my experience, the fight with lust is not very dramatic. In fact it asks for calmness, detachment, humility.

Humility especially. If I am not willing to admit that I need others, and need to serve other in humble service, I am easy picking for sexual temptation. Many times I need to just personally shut up, and go do God’s will, rather than sit and obsess about the fight with lust.
Our need to love and serve others needs to be properly ordered and engaged, and lust invites us to disorder and drama. That is a long and very boring fight honestly.
 
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Is it even 100% certain that Our Lady, if those were her words, meant strictly sexual sins when she said “sins of the flesh”? When St Paul speaks of the battle against the flesh, our sinful nature, I believe he has in mind a much broader spectrum of sins.
 
In many ways, the alleged stories after the approved apparitions at Fatima, took away hope for people as God’s mercy was overtaken by punishment and guilt.

Jim
 
St. John Bosco also spent his life dedicated to preaching to adolescent boys…I’m just saying that those boys probably committed that sin a lot and in his homilies he probably warned against those sins more frequently than other sins
 
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Yes, but there are other saints who echo this sentiment, not just St. John Bosco.

Certainly, his boys faced this issue a lot, but I’d argue that the world they live in was far more conducive to purity than ours. Back then, you had to go out of your way to seek sexual immorality. Nowadays, you have to go far out of your way to avoid it.
 
Well i certainly come to this forum as a sinner in humility. I know for a fact, that saying “sins below the belt are light sins” is not helping anyone get to heaven. Honestly, if I was in my younger days, this would lead me to think that having sex with this one girl wasn’t that bad (and I would go do it), because hey!, the pope said so.These sexual sins are pretty common for everyone living on this earth so it’s not exclusive to a country. I am not obsessed with the sin of lust, but serving others requires us to be in the state of grace. You can’t go out and do God’s will and be in the state of mortal sin. (whatever sin that might be, i don’t know).
 
The world wasn’t that pure for the orphaned street boy I don’t know what you’re talking about
 
I’m not saying it was pure, far from it. I’m saying that they didn’t have access to the most extremely indicent images at the click of a button the way we do now.

In terms of magnitude and access, our world is clearly worse than the world St. John Bosco lived in, which is saying something, because his world was also terrible.
 
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