That is a sin of "Grave Matter"

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Does the Catholic Church have a list of every single “Grave Matter” that exists? I’d like to know all of them… But I’m not interested in reading through every single document that the Church has ever composed.
 
TEPO said:
Is it a mortal sin, as an example, if I read CCC 841 and say I doubted it for about a month straight… Is that a mortal sin?
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Why did you pick the one about muslims. I doubt if that was random.

If a Catholic rejects/denies or has an obstinate doubt (not a temporary doubt) about an infallible Church teaching then that is both a sin of grave matter and heresy.

If a Catholic rejects/denies or has an obstinate doubt about a non-infallible Church teaching it would not be heresy but would almost certainly be a sin of grave matter, albeit there could be rare circumstances in which it might not be a sin of grave matter.

In general, if a Catholic has any doubts about any teachings of the Church then every effort should be made to understand why the Church has such a teaching. Often Catholics read a teaching and if they don’t understand it they put their own interpretation on it which often is wrong.
 
thistle said:
Why did you pick the one about muslims. I doubt if that was random.

If a Catholic rejects/denies or has an obstinate doubt (not a temporary doubt) about an infallible Church teaching then that is both a sin of grave matter and heresy.

If a Catholic rejects/denies or has an obstinate doubt about a non-infallible Church teaching it would not be heresy but would almost certainly be a sin of grave matter, albeit there could be rare circumstances in which it might not be a sin of grave matter.

In general, if a Catholic has any doubts about any teachings of the Church then every effort should be made to understand why the Church has such a teaching. Often Catholics read a teaching and if they don’t understand it they put their own interpretation on it which often is wrong.
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What does it matter to you which one I pick? You have a very serious problem discussing posters and their intent, when you should be focusing on content only.
 
There are frequent posts on here about sin and I decided to look for a check list like we use sometimes to prepare for confession. I don’t know about the legitimacy of this site but I did like the way it was organized, so see what you think:

followthissite.com/list-of-sins.php
 
thistle said:
Why did you pick the one about muslims. I doubt if that was random.

If a Catholic rejects/denies or has an obstinate doubt (not a temporary doubt) about an infallible Church teaching then that is both a sin of grave matter and heresy.

If a Catholic rejects/denies or has an obstinate doubt about a non-infallible Church teaching it would not be heresy but would almost certainly be a sin of grave matter, albeit there could be rare circumstances in which it might not be a sin of grave matter.

In general, if a Catholic has any doubts about any teachings of the Church then every effort should be made to understand why the Church has such a teaching. Often Catholics read a teaching and if they don’t understand it they put their own interpretation on it which often is wrong.
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Just to follow up on this, here’s a handy guide to the levels of Magisterial teaching and the degree of assent that is required to each.

stjohn17v20-21.com/magist03.htm

-ACEGC
 
TEPO said:
Does the Catholic Church have a list of every single “Grave Matter” that exists? I’d like to know all of them… But I’m not interested in reading through every single document that the Church has ever composed.
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You ask a very good question…Actually there is no need to read “every document that the Church has ever composed”. Just read the Catechism:
1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.
As one might gather from this - while “Grave matter” is specified by the Ten commandments, the specific gravity is something less precise. This is why we have confessors and spiritual directors etc.

In the end, all sin is offensive to the one we profess to Love above all things. So all sin is to be avoided. When one makes this their goal and standard, then there is less need to try to define what is or is not grave matter, or just how grave something is.
Naturally we fail in ways large and small on our journey. This is to be expected…The most important thing is not specifying the gravity…but to turn quickly back to God, to learn from the failure and to commit to not letting it happen again.

Peace
James
 
I have no problems in mortal and venial. The Holy Spirit screams at me when, I´m tempted to commit a mortal sin. This scream has rescued me many times. Yes I have commited mortal sins. What happened then? Even now ,as I reflect on my mortal sins, two feelings come to mind. (can feelings come from the mind?) One is complete remorse in myself. The other is complete awe of My Saviors´ mercy. I really need spiritual poverty so many times. God bless:thumbsup:👍👍
 
TEPO said:
Is it a mortal sin, as an example, if I read CCC 841 and say I doubted it for about a month straight… Is that a mortal sin?
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That would depend on why you doubted, what you did to remove the doubt, etc. A Mortal sin is generally one which is in direct violation of one of the commandments from the Decalogue. The reason for that is these violations are in direct opposition to the central call we were given at Baptism, to love. The commandments aren’t prohibitions on fun stuff. They are prohibitions on activities that hate by their very nature. Talk to your confessor about this in the sacrament of Reconciliation.
 
I asked a similar question here a little while ago, but I approached it from the other direction. My question was,
What sins could not possibly be mortal (under any circumstances)?
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The Church teaches that, in order for a sin to be mortal, it must concern a “grave matter.” This seems to imply that there are sins that are less severe (by their very nature), and could never be mortally sinful under any circumstance. I asked for an example of a sin (ANY sin) that could never rise to the criteria of “grave matter” and, thus, could not possibly be mortal in nature.

However, in the reasoned replies that followed, it became clear to me that the criteria for “grave matter” was as flexible as the other two requirements for a sin to be mortal (knowledge and consent). There is no absolute criteria - it all depends on the particular circumstances. Any sin that you can think of has the potential to be grave (and, as with knowledge and consent, only God can say for sure if any particular sin meets this criteria).

So it seems that a list of (potentially) grave matters would be the same as a list of all possible sins. Such a list would be impossible to compile.
 
DavidFilmer said:
I asked a similar question here a little while ago, but I approached it from the other direction. My question was,
The Church teaches that, in order for a sin to be mortal, it must concern a “grave matter.” This seems to imply that there are sins that are less severe (by their very nature), and could never be mortally sinful under any circumstance. I asked for an example of a sin (ANY sin) that could never rise to the criteria of “grave matter” and, thus, could not possibly be mortal in nature.

However, in the reasoned replies that followed, it became clear to me that the criteria for “grave matter” was as flexible as the other two requirements for a sin to be mortal (knowledge and consent). There is no absolute criteria - it all depends on the particular circumstances. Any sin that you can think of has the potential to be grave (and, as with knowledge and consent, only God can say for sure if any particular sin meets this criteria).

So it seems that a list of (potentially) grave matters would be the same as a list of all possible sins. Such a list would be impossible to compile.
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Just curious, but when are Catholics usually taught this concept of “grave matter”, because I honestly never learned it in school growing up… I mean I’ve just never heard of it until I came to CAF. So is it taught in RCIA?

I was only taught that the 10 commandments were mortal sins.🤷
 
TEPO said:
Just curious, but when are Catholics usually taught this concept of “grave matter”, because I honestly never learned it in school growing up… I mean I’ve just never heard of it until I came to CAF. So is it taught in RCIA?

I was only taught that the 10 commandments were mortal sins.🤷
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Your teaching was correct, but maybe not as complete as it could have been.

You don’t say when you attended RCIA, or what catechism you used. The old Baltimore Catechism (used mainly in the United States) said that a sin must be “a grievous offense against the law of God” to be mortal in nature (Question 54).

The current (worldwide) Catechism has a more detailed definition:
Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.” The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger. CCC 1858]
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Like much of the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments are a “prototype” of what we understand today. For example, the commandment to “keep the Sabbath” applies to our Sunday Mass obligation, as well as our obligation to respect other Holy Days and various requirements of fasting and abstinence.
 
TEPO said:
Just curious, but when are Catholics usually taught this concept of “grave matter”, because I honestly never learned it in school growing up… I mean I’ve just never heard of it until I came to CAF. So is it taught in RCIA?

I was only taught that the 10 commandments were mortal sins.🤷
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I think I may actually be able to answer this one on my own. I’m going to say that people probably don’t get taught this quite as often because nobody wants to believe it…!:o:D:eek:
 
TEPO said:
I think I may actually be able to answer this one on my own. I’m going to say that people probably don’t get taught this quite as often because nobody wants to believe it…!:o:D:eek:
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Just so you know, for Catholics ignorance is not bliss. It is incumbent on Catholics to learn the teachings of the Church.
If a Catholic does not learn the teachings of the Church through laziness or deliberate refusal to do so they will be held accountable for any sins of grave matter they committed even though they did not know at the time they were sins of grave matter.
 
thistle said:
Just so you know, for Catholics ignorance is not bliss. It is incumbent on Catholics to learn the teachings of the Church.
If a Catholic does not learn the teachings of the Church through laziness or deliberate refusal to do so they will be held accountable for any sins of grave matter they committed even though they did not know at the time they were sins of grave matter.
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What do you mean by “held accountable”…? Hell or Purgatory? Because really, 99.999% of all Catholics in America (just as example), can read and have full access to catechisms.

I would imagine that globally, probably 97% of all Catholics are able to both read, and gain access to a catechism.
 
Sadly, I can only imagine that when we’re talking about mortal or “grave” sins, we must be specifically referring to hell.
 
TEPO said:
Just curious, but when are Catholics usually taught this concept of “grave matter”, because I honestly never learned it in school growing up… I mean I’ve just never heard of it until I came to CAF. So is it taught in RCIA?

I was only taught that the 10 commandments were mortal sins.🤷
Click to expand...
There were many youth in the years following Vatican II who received VERY poor catechesis. I taught CCD to 11th and 12th graders about 15 years ago. These youth had all gone thru 8 years of Catholic grade school and were in their 3rd and 4th years of high school CCD when I had them. None of them had ever heard of mortal sin. So I used different terms – serious sin? “No”; grave sin? “No”. I asked them what they had been taught. They said just “sin”. They could not remember when they had last been to Confession; one of them could only remember going for her first Confession. Sad.

Regarding RCIA: I would imagine there are a lot of RCIA classes that don’t teach about mortal sin either.

On a positive note, things are improving I think. The bishops realized how insufficient religion textbooks had become and have taken steps to put in place materials that have some content.

I hope you will take the time to start reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is excellent. It’s a big book, but set out just to read the first major section on the Apostles Creed - then it’s not so daunting.

Or, if your driving interest right now is on “sin”, you may wish to read about that first.
I would suggest the few paragraphs on “sin” (#1849 thru 1869 vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P69.HTM ) and then the longer section on the Ten Commandments (#2083 thru 2550 vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7A.HTM )
 
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