Show me resources to answer this claim?

[Reepicheep]

Here’s the deal: I made a promise to a friend. The terms of the promise were “for the rest of my life”.

The content of the promise was something I was prepared to do, but that now I think would be (or might be, I have doubts) morally wrong.

Aside from the moral issue, I doubt my ability to meet my friend’s terms and still carry on my own life.

On the other hand, my friend is in need, and what I agreed to do is important to him (or at least, he’s convinced it is. Here also I have doubts).

I expect to have to debate him about it. He’s smarter than me and better at argument.

So my request; Please point me to reliable Catholic sources on the issues of promises, keeping and breaking them, and in particular what to do when, having promised something, one now believes the thing promised to be sinful or an occasion of sin.

I don’t expect to “win” this debate: but I want to be quite clear in my own mind as to the right and wrong of the issue, and as to what Mother Church has to say about it.

 

[Mike_Brick]

Although you seek a simple yes or no answer from the Church, you must work that out yourself with Her guidance. Refer to Part Three, Article Four of The Catechism of the Catholic Church, starting with Paragraph 1750, which is titled “The Morality of Human Acts”. Specifically see in Paragraph 1753 where it is written “A good intention…does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered good or just”, and it goes on to say that a bad intention can make what would otherwise be a good act evil. Obviously it is wrong to promise to do something morally wrong, and if you made such a promise without realizing the morality of your promise, a true friend will not hold you to the promise.

Perhaps you could negotiate an alternative and moral act as a substitute, while you learn to never make promises to anyone you might not be able to keep.

God Bless
Mike