Pope on sexual sins

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That was me as a young convert. As an 18/19 year old new Catholic, I did manage to avoid all sexual sin. And I took great pride in that. I know I contributed to driving at least one person away from the faith in my zeal to condemn sexual sins in others.
Of course later God taught me a lesson after I did fall into impure habits myself.
 
I disagree. I think the world is better now. Just pornography is more prevalent. Less children are starving now. Less children are orphans.
 
polorun215 said:
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).
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In good faith, why don’t you give the Pope the benefit of the doubt with the “light sins” thing?
He was speaking to a secular journalist, and you don’t necessarily have the full context, and you are reading a translation.

It defies belief that Pope Francis thinks sexual sins are literally a light matter, don’t you think?
 
Greater access to physical goods doesn’t make the world better.

It’s wonderful that those good things are true, but from a moral perspective I don’t see how anyone could argue that the world is better today than it was in St. john Bosco’s time.

To say it simply as “pornography is more prevalent” is to speak of murder being more prevalent, or rape being more prevalent, or blasphemy being more present. The sheer cultural indifference to the obscene horrors of pornography is not something you can be ignored when discussing if the world is better or worse.

We have more goods and services, yeah, but morally, the world is way worse, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality.
 
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Sexual sins that are mortal are not “light”. Just like any other sin that is mortal is not “light”. Obviously the distinction between mortal sin and a sin that is not mortal is a VERY important distinction. One that determines if we will be in Hell or not. So, maybe next time he can be clear about what the Church teaches so there isn’t confusion.
 
If that is directed at me, I would point out I only took exception to one thing the Holy Father said. And that was not really his main point. Overall, I was trying to defend what he said.
 
polorun215 said:
Sexual sins that are mortal are not “light”.
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You’re reading an article about a book written by a secular journalist that contains snippets of quotes, that are translations. You are taking third and forth hand contexts, and ascribing to the Pope what amounts to apostatic positions.
So, maybe next time he can be clear about what the Church teaches so there isn’t confusion.
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given the above, you might be out of line just a little with your personal interpretations of third hand articles and translations of a man who might be more learned and holy than you. Has any of that crossed your mind?
 
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I don’t see the world as better or worse from any other time. It’s just different.
 
No it hasn’t. I’m just calling for clarity. Has nothing to do with him being “holier” than me. Am I not allowed to be disappointed? Or concerned? What do you think the Pope’s message was if the secular journalist changed up what the Holy Father said a little bit? This isn’t the only thing he has been ambiguous about… There is a pattern here.
 
I can’t say I disagree completely, but I do think we, as a culture, are far worse off in terms of sexual sin than we used to be. That’s my main issue with this, and why i felt the need to chime in. To me, this feels like Pope Francis downplaying “weaker” sin which is far more prevalent than the more damaging sins he talks about.

All that said, this particular sin is of the greatest interest to me because it is the sin which causes me the most struggle, and so I am more apt to see it as a larger part of life than someone who doesn’t struggle with it as much.
 
I think the pope is trying to make the point that pride is something we should care about more than simply thinking about sins committed below the belt because pride is the root of the problem AND many people DO think that simply because they are chaste they can let other areas of their life go unchecked

I just don’t get why there needs to be a critique of every little thing the man says. Imagine if you critiqued everything your teacher said or your parent. You’d never learn
 
We shouldn’t critque everything, no, but critque is still important when it is warranted.

I’m don’t think that Pope Francis is making light of sexual sin, far from it, but I also don’t think he’s giving them their due considering how prevalent they are. A big sin like Pride may be more damaging, but sexual sins will get you sent to Hell just the same, and those are far easier to fall into for the average person.
 
When it comes to "not hearing/talking about sexual sins from let’s say the clergy I think it’s because of these reasons:
  • Lack of courage to preach about sin with mercy
  • in habitual sin themselves
  • have an agenda
 
Masturbation is a grave sin that many people struggle with. Always remember there are infinite mercies found in confession
 
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Exactly, why is this hard to understand? We don’t want to give the sin up… that’s why. See this is great, we are to show mercy to those who sin, and even sin against us, but we need to live out doing our best to sin no more and tell people that.
 
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Because I was responding to someone who was talking about harlots
 
Remember when it was all over the news that Pope Francis said there was no hell?
Yeah, I’ll just sit and wait for proper clarification before panicking.
 
Yes proper clarification would be nice, so there isn’t any gray area/other distinction about what he said.
 
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