The is it a sin question

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I have seen threads with a similar title, is it a sin ( insert topic ) …

My question , for those of you who have posted a question like that, have you ever gone to a priest or deacon or religious, to ask that in person either before or after posting on this forum ?

If so, did you find the answers between the two to be the same / similar / or different / conflicting ?

If not, why ?
 
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I think in general CAF tends to jump to “that’s a mortal sin, go to confession” much faster than most priests.
 
I think in part its because we should not ever take on another’s conscience. If somebody comes in here and asks if squishing a beetle that was on the floor while in line for communion was a sin it isn’t really our place to say. This happens a lot with masturbation questions and scrupulocity. The best advice is to take it to the confessional and recieve spiritual direction to form your own conscience. Not poll strangers on the internet. I rarely tell someone something is not a sin. Basically you are saying, “in my opinion it isn’t a sin and if I’m wrong I’ll stand before God and take the blame for you” nope.
 
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A lot of those posts are from people with scruples. Sometimes it takes a few post to realize that, but once it’s realized we try to tell them to ask their priest then get the thread shut down.
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
I rarely tell someone something is not a sin. Basically you are saying, “in my opinion it isn’t a sin and if I’m wrong I’ll stand before God and take the blame for you” nope.
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I generally do the same, unless it’s so obviously not a sin that it’s ridiculous. Otherwise, i’ll go with something like “seems like it’s probably not a sin, in my opinion” making it clear that it’s only my opinion.
 
My thought is that people think this is an official arm of the Catholic Church, so, they come here with the embarrassing questions.
 
In my case, I certainly plan to go to Confession. When I have asked the “is it a sin” question here, it was really just to help examine my conscience before my next chance to confess.
 
Honestly I cant imagine asking an internet forum if something is a sin. I can see asking about grave matter, confusing medical ethical questions, etc but I am shocked at the idea that we ask complete strangers for a consensus on the state of our actions or souls. The Church has incredibly detailed and clear definitions and guidelines. Mostly we cant judge the state of a soul. We can identify evil or sin. But it is very straightforward. Take the neverending masturbation questions. Masturbation is sinful. That is clear. Dont do it. Period. It’s not a debate…
 
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That might depend on what you mean by “judge others”. If you’re taking the place of God and pretending to know something that you cannot, then yes, that would be the sin of usurpation. Mortal? I’m not so sure about that. Judging an objective matter as grave, and therefore concluding that in all probability that someone is not in the state of grace, and advising based on that, is not a sin in itself. Of course there are questions of prudence involved. (Ie: will this correction have the desired effect, will it serve to confuse further, etc). Falsely concluding that someone is in mortal sin is also potentially much less harmful than falsely concluding that they are not.
 
Yeah which brings me back to a huge criticism I have about the forums. Many of these questions are sexual in nature or from someone with OCD/scrupulocity. Putting CAF at risk. Having a site where minors are asking internet strangers about madturbation is really really troublesome.
 
I thought I’d put this in this thread as it has been bugging me for awhile. About 2 weeks ago I noticed a holder with tri-folded pieces of paper in the confessional. It was something I hadn’t seen before, so I took one on the way out.

It turned out to be a guide to confession “How to make a Good Confession, Five Steps to a Good Confession”.

It was the usual examination of conscience based on the Commandments. Just prior to that was a guide to the three criteria that separate mortal from venial sin.

The part that confused me was:

“(3) the person must have sufficient freedom of the will. So I cannot commit a mortal sin if the matter is not serious (e.g., if I stole a small amount of money from my employer), or if I did not know what I was doing. . .”

I was a little taken aback. Is it ever not a major sin to steal money from your employer, regardless of the amount? Lets say you are the bread earner in your family. Is not jeopardizing the income to feed your family a mortal sin? I don’t know. It just puzzled me. I don’t think taking a pen or a few paperclips is in the same class. What do you think?
 
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s.cono said:
What do you think?
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I assume it means something like, “oh, I signed my time card saying I arrived at 8, but actually it was 8:02, so technically I stole 1/30th of my hourly wage…” type stuff. Like basically stuff where common sense tells you the employer wouldn’t care anyway.
 
s.cono said:
I was a little taken aback. Is it ever not a major sin to steal money from your employer, regardless of the amount? Lets say you are the bread earner in your family. Is not jeopardizing the income to feed your family a mortal sin? I don’t know. It just puzzled me. I don’t think taking a pen or a few paperclips is in the same class. What do you think?
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That is odd indeed cono, I suspect that the pamphlet you found, is not something that say your Bishop personally constructed and then dispersed in your diocese . It would be worth investigating who actually created it, and printed it, and then put it in your particular parish, It might be worth asking if your priest is familiar with the pamphlet as well. An ask his take on the matter. To me the answer on stealing is, where does it say any where that there are different degrees of stealing, or when does one not have free will in regards to stealing. Is stealing fifty cents from an employer less of a sin versus embezzling sixty thousand or more from an employer ? Does God say well, you only fifty cents so you go to purgatory, and not hell, or does He say well the person who embezzled sixty thousand or more, stole that money from Planned Parent Hood, so no punishment at all.

No one can honestly answer how God judges us. The Church just gives / creates, guidelines to live by. An decides what sin, is a sin, to reduce the seriousness of the sin, is probably debatable as well and not worth the time as for me I see it as a road to scruples, Venial and Mortal sins, and the definitions are to each are enough for me to be guided by. Again though, when push comes to shove, Only God is judging us. The Church can decree all it wants , but how can it prove that God is going judge us on the same human level that the Church is guided by. How can the Church possibly prove that God wont change his mind from what the Church decrees a mortal or venial sin, and not grant the soul of the person in question mercy… ??? An that mercy is in part through reconciliation, but that mercy is not limited only through reconciliation. If Gods mercy,love, and access to; was only limited through and by the Roman Catholic Church, a large majority of the human population would in turn be going directly to Hell, no questions asked.
 
I haven’t posted one of those questions but I have suffered from scruples which is a mental issue. You want to put the nagging doubt and guilt to bed ASAP and you don’t want to annoy a priest by constantly asking inane questions. That’s my guess.
 
All printed “examinations of conscience” are going to be deficient in some way. The idea is to stimulate your own conscience. If I read that, I would think in terms of “I took a pencil from the office” or “I wasted 10 minutes of time” rather than “I stole 10 dollars of the till that had 5000 dollars in it.” One needs to use common sense reading those things.
 
It could be this was something that was copied and pasted from an online source and a small number printed for that day. I’ve never seen it in our parish’s confessional before. This was Monday of Holy Week where confession was offered from 3 - 11 PM. The secretary might have been asked to provide something and didn’t scrutinize every word in it. I think all the staff was stressed. I still don’t think it was the greatest choice of an example, but that’s me. I was taught by nuns. 🙂
 
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