Receiving Commuion with possible mortal sin

[porthos11]

I do not challenge the catechism. The point I make is that today we tend to ignore the FACT that certain matter is OBJECTIVELY grave. We tend to dismiss the objectivity of sin and emhasize the SUBJECTIVITY of the culpability.

This is a ticket to relativism. It is pastorally useful to assure a penitent that his particular situation may render a sin non-mortal because of some personal mitigation. It is not useful for priests to say in confession that something is “not a sin” based on the mitigations as has frequently been done in recent years.

We do no such thing nor has anyone even attempted to ignore the objective gravity of a sin on this thread. The objective grave sinfulness of an act makes it a sin, even a serious one. It does not make it a mortal sin in and of itself, and in that area your last post is erroneous because you explicitly said that objectively grave matter apart from the other two conditions is mortal, and that is clearly wrong. Objective gravity makes it only grave, but not necessarily mortal apart from the simultaneous fulfilment of the other two conditions.

 

[mercygate]

We do no such thing nor has anyone even attempted to ignore the objective gravity of a sin on this thread. The objective grave sinfulness of an act makes it a sin, even a serious one. It does not make it a mortal sin in and of itself, and in that area your last post is erroneous because you explicitly said that objectively grave matter apart from the other two conditions is mortal, and that is clearly wrong. Objective gravity makes it only grave, but not necessarily mortal apart from the simultaneous fulfilment of the other two conditions.

If I said that objectively grave matter is mortal without the other conditions *in an individual case, *I apologize for my error.

The point I was making is that people (including priests) often make an illogical leap from “it’s not mortal without the 3 conditions” to “if I don’t think it’s grave matter, then it’s not” to “it is not even a sin.”

I was addressing that pastoral reality, not the theologically precise point of definitions. Someone in the grip of addictive behavior needs to be strengthened in his struggle and affirmed in his understanding that the objective matter is, in and of itself, a very serious condition. Self-deceit can easily confound a penitent, particularly when an addiction is involved.