Smoking is a Mortal Sin...!

[TEPO]

Is eating cheeseburgers and pizza also a mortal sin, since foods high in saturated fats are unhealthy and can lead to hardening and clogging of the arteries and, eventually, to heart attack?
Also, it’s too bad Blessed Father Damien Molokai, Pope St. Pius X, and Blessed John XXIII didn’t realize this and are now suffering in hell for all eternity for lighting up.

These Clergy members had no proof that smoking was scientifically proven to shorten ones life. There is no way they could have made a willful decision to shorten their lives. We know better. We need to repent.

…And yes, someone who is over a hundred pounds overweight due to poor food choices is also killing themselves. They should repent.

 

[Prayerfully]

Alot of Catholics think they can just slide into heaven w/ no problem… I disagree. We need to make every effort to be as Christ-like as we can. It’s been pointed out to me, that very very few of us will ever actually enter into heaven. I’ve heard that even many priests will fall short.

youtube.com/watch?v=GCf8C1Xcpds&feature=player_embedded#at=295

So then, can we safely assume that you only eat organic food, that was grown and processed within a “fair trade” environment? Do you use a higher than 45SPF sunscreen at all times when you are out of doors? Do you avoid any toxic paint, cleaners, and medications? I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that when we start calling out one sin, others in that category naturally follow…

 

[ProVobis]

What if you smoke while in the confessional?! :hey_bud:

Like the old joke. It’s okay to pray while you smoke but not smoke while you pray.

 

[Prayerfully]

These Clergy members had no proof that smoking was scientifically proven to shorten ones life. There is no way they could have made a willful decision to shorten their lives. We know better. We need to repent.

…And yes, someone who is over a hundred pounds overweight due to poor food choices is also killing themselves. They should repent.

So then, can we safely assume that you only eat organic food, that was grown and processed within a “fair trade” environment? Do you use a higher than 45SPF sunscreen at all times when you are out of doors? Do you avoid any toxic paint, cleaners, and medications? I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that when we start calling out one sin, others in that category naturally follow…

 

[CountrySteve]

I tend to think that smoking is a disordered attachment, but hardly a grave matter. There is a distinction between imperfections, bad habits, etc. and lacking holiness!

Divorced from morality for the sake of argument, it seems that smoking is disordered in the same way masturbation is disordered. Both are done for self-pleasure, whereas the central tenet of true Christian self-love is to “deny” yourself so you may grow and see that true pleasure rests in God, not in our manufactured worldly things. If smoking is a way of laying down the cross you are ordered to take up, it is certainly against the very order of Christ to smoke. How can it be called anything other than masturbation, in fact? Sharing a cigarette is merely mutual masturbation.

You may call me a puritan, and sarcastically compare smoking to drinking wine or eating chocolate, but those are actually very different. I support wine and chocolate, because they are at least forms of drink and food. They can be legitimately shared as sustenance in community and by oneself, because they are of the form and matter of food and drink. They make ordered use of the digestive and oral faculties which God has endowed us with. Smoking, on the other hand, is a disordered use of the breathing and oral faculties. Our lips and lungs exist to facilitate the entrance of air and food and drink and other essential things.

A cigarette is not even close to proper sustenance, except for some psychological fix. From what I can see, it is the sort of spiritual imperfection and bad habit that makes a man less able to immediately enter Heaven, as an undue attachment. The matter of the health of the act is, itself, secondary. We’re talking about the spirit. It is true that “what goes into a man is not the measure of what defiles him”, but “what comes from his heart”; however, the heart may express its disordered attachments and imperfections by the intake of non-essential pleasures.

I bitterly weep and cry over the souls who have to experience one more second of purgation just because they had to have puffs - neither food, nor drink, but mere habitus, mere mollities.

i don’t think masturbation and smoking can both be compared the same, masturbation is a mortal sin cause it cause adultery for didnt Jesus say if you lust after a girl in your heart you have committed sin which masturbation leads about lust after flesh while i believe smoking can be a sin but it depends on the person or situation

 

[CountrySteve]

Alot of Catholics think they can just slide into heaven w/ no problem… I disagree. We need to make every effort to be as Christ-like as we can. It’s been pointed out to me, that very very few of us will ever actually enter into heaven. I’ve heard that even many priests will fall short.

youtube.com/watch?v=GCf8C1Xcpds&feature=player_embedded#at=295

those who are baptized and do God’s commandments but God is all loving and very merciful i don’t think that info you received is correct

 

[Te_Deum]

Please explain how watching pornography is worse than smoking 2 packs a day. I think they’re equally sinful.

The fact that you even posit such a question is a glaring example of how far the “cult of health” has infiltrated society today.

 

[TEPO]

The fact that you even posit such a question is a glaring example of how far the “cult of health” has infiltrated society today.

I disagree. But not because I am an environmentalist or a New Age follower of any sort. IN fact, my track record here on CAF proves that I am opposed to the New Age agenda, including all it’s panthiesm, and man/earth worshipping tactics.

I am opposed to the culture of death, and all its tolerance tactics. I am against the slow but sure agenda of the world that tries to muddy the waters between good and evil.

My objective is not to desensitize peoples conscience from what few sins the Church is willing to testify against, but to awaken my heavenly family’s awareness of other sins, which the Church is unwilling to testify against.

Lets just call sin exactly what it is… Sin.

To shorten your own lifespan is no better than shortening anothers.

 

[Te_Deum]

Lets just call sin exactly what it is… Sin.

The point is smoking is not a sin and to attempt to construct it so in the Catholic Faith is nothing but imposing the morality of the “cult of health” onto the Body of Christ.

You’re working with the unattainable.

 

[Lormar]

For those of us who did’nt know, smoking is a grave sin, and must be confessed.

Nonsense.

 

[TEPO]

This kind of thinking, when applied in a legalistic manner, can lead down a very slippery slope…

Think about that. If you eat something that is not organic and healthy, you are committing a mortal sin. If you purchase food that was farmed by those who were not paid a livable wage (as most migrant farmers are not), then you are committing a mortal sin. If you buy products made in China and they were most likely manufactured in sweat shops by children (or others) not paid a just wage, then you are committing a sin. If you shop at Wal-Mart because that’s all you can afford, you are still committing a mortal sin by purchasing food that is not organic (and thus was farmed with harmful and carcinogenic chemicals), you are committing a mortal sin…

See how quickly this can go from smoking into an entire debate that would lead us into only eating a raw diet (since cooking foods can put carcinogenic molecules in the air) if we wanted to avoid being in mortal sin…

First of all, we should never not call a sin a sin, nor should we ever abandon Truth because the enemy partakes in some Truth.

So many Catholics these days are afraid to take their own health seriously because they’re afraid that they will be offending God in some way… Why…? Because the New Age movement revolves around health.

In the same way, some Catholics denounce Charity, because they see the modernists partaking in it, or they see the freemasons taking part in it.

We cannot afford to let the enemy deceive us. We need to put on our horse blinders and just go about, following Jesus.

Finally, it cannot be a mortal sin to buy products sold by someone who purchases from an immoral source. There is no moral issue there whatsoever. I’m talking about direct immoral acts which offend God. Not people.

To willingly shorten one’s life is an offense to God. It is a grave sin.

 

[TEPO]

The point is smoking is not a sin and to attempt to construct it so in the Catholic Faith is nothing but imposing the morality of the “cult of health” onto the Body of Christ.

You’re working with the unattainable.

How is it not…? Why then is euthenasia a sin…?

 

[Prayerfully]

First of all, we should never not call a sin a sin, nor should we ever abandon Truth because the enemy partakes in some Truth.

So many Catholics these days are afraid to take their own health seriously because they’re afraid that they will be offending God in some way… Why…? Because the New Age movement revolves around health.

In the same way, some Catholics denounce Charity, because they see the modernists partaking in it, or they see the freemasons taking part in it.

We cannot afford to let the enemy deceive us. We need to put on our horse blinders and just go about, following Jesus.

Finally, it cannot be a mortal sin to buy products sold by someone who purchases from an immoral source. There is no moral issue there whatsoever. I’m talking about direct immoral acts which offend God. Not people.

To willingly shorten one’s life is an offense to God. It is a grave sin.

Again, do you eat a raw diet or 100% organic food? I just want to know, without a side-stepping answer. If you are calling out people for choosing to eat unhealthily and calling it a sin, I certainly hope you are on a 100% organic diet! Otherwise, it would be a little like the speck in someone’s eye while you’ve got a plank in yours…

 

[pnewton]

Please explain how watching pornography is worse than smoking 2 packs a day. I think they’re equally sinful.

The operative phrase here is “I think”. At least this time you make it clear that this is your opinion only.

First of all, we should never not call a sin a sin, nor should we ever abandon Truth because the enemy partakes in some Truth.

Then quit abandoning Truth and embrace it instead.

The source of all truth is not found in TEPO or his opinions. The pillar and bulwark of Truth is the Catholic Church. If anyone comes here expressing his own opinions and says that he is speaking for the Church, he is not to be believed unless he can show where the **Church **says what he is saying. The OP has come here with an opinion that the Catholic Church has never promulgated based an an illogical connection with smoking and euthanasia/suicide. For anyone that can not see this simple logical fallacy, it is this. One is the deliberate ending of human life. Smoking on the other hand does not deliberately end human life. Like driving or over-eating, it is a risk factor, if one smokes regularly. It is simply not true that every one who picks up a cigarette, cigar or pipe will die from smoking.

 

[ClamDigger]

If addiction diminishes culpability then it’s safe to assume that masturbation is also a venial sin then too if you’re addicted to it.

Addiction does diminish culpability:
“To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.”

 

[ClamDigger]

These Clergy members had no proof that smoking was scientifically proven to shorten ones life. There is no way they could have made a willful decision to shorten their lives. We know better. We need to repent.

People knew smoking caused health problems in the 1960’s when Pope John XXIII was pope.

…And yes, someone who is over a hundred pounds overweight due to poor food choices is also killing themselves. They should repent.

Oh please. Maybe you need to go tell the congregation of the doctrine of the faith to start putting these things in the Catechism. Don’t forget tanning either, though! Or eating microwaved food!
Also, you do realize that you can be unhealthy and have unhealthy eating habits without being overweight, right? My father had 98% clogging of his main coronary artery and isn’t significantly overweight (he weighs about 200 pounds and is six feet tall).

 

[ProVobis]

One is the deliberate ending of human life. Smoking on the other hand does not deliberately end human life.

PN, this is a tough one. I generally agree with your overall premise but Russian roulette is not necessarily a deliberate end of a human life, yet there is no doubt it is senseless and highly immoral act. Although the chances of death are about the same as one round of roulette, a resulting death from smoking is not as immediate. Perhaps (as one poster has already expressed) this all boils down to whether one smokes out of addiction or does it just to give it a try. But he or she should never give up trying to stop, and that’s only my opinion.

 

[pnewton]

PN, this is a tough one. I generally agree with your overall premise but Russian roulette is not necessarily a deliberate end of a human life, yet there is no doubt it is senseless and highly immoral act.

Yes, and although the analogy has serious differences, it serves your point on the level you used it. Yes, it is immoral to risk our life senselessly. However, the smoker will tell you that there is some reason for smoking, as opposed to Russian roulete. Also, there is the question of moderation. A bullet is a bullet, but smoking in moderation, or on occasion does lessen the health risk. The Catechism points out the sinful nature abusing our health. The point at which we commit sin, and the point at which this sin is of a mortal nature is not specified, though.

I do think this can be extrapolated as a cautionary tale to value life, our own included, whether it is in food, drink, smoking, driving habits, or any other action we take that puts us needlessly at risk.

 

[redrosetea]

Baloney…plenty of the clergy used to smoke…Bishop Sheen smoked like a chimney and he is shortlisted to become a blessed

Blessed John 23 smoked too …cigars I think

 

[ClamDigger]

Baloney…plenty of the clergy used to smoke…Bishop Sheen smoked like a chimney and he is shortlisted to become a blessed

Blessed John 23 smoked too …cigars I think

Exactly! And, plenty of clergy still smoke!