The is it a sin question

[Tis_Bearself]

I suspect as you said it was a free quickie in hopes of helping Holy Week penitents who don’t confess regularly and don’t really know what they are doing.

 

[s.cono]

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.

OSN, I was going to ask Father about it. I think I won’t. I’m pretty sure it was an oversight of some kind.
There used to be some nicely professionally printed “A Primer to Confession” manuals in the rear of the church. I’m almost convinced that they might have run out and a staff member printed some of their own in a pinch.

 

[po18guy]

Too bad we don’t have a tongue-in-cheek emoticon…

 

[Tis_Bearself]

My preference has always been to have this site be 18 and over because even when the younguns aren’t asking about masturbation or marital sex, they often don’t post or act in a mature matter (with some notable exceptions). The answer to a lot of their questions is, “You need to talk to your parents” or “to your doctor” or “to your priest”. However, I don’t get to make the rules for the forum.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

To be honest that is an interesting question. Lets dissect it. Let’s just use the employer example you and the pamphlet chose. Large employers expect a certain amount of “shrinkage” in retail this happens in product going bad, becoming outdated, being damaged, stolen etc. Businesses factor in a percentage of shrinkage. This is why when you drop a candle at a grocery store and destroy property by accident, you are not required, morally or otherwise, to pay for it. It is the cost of doing business. A store will say, “it is in our best interest to keep our relationship happy so that we may benefit in the future from that customer or public perception.” Smaller stores have different thresholds. So, is there sin in light shrinkage barring intent to steal? Probably not. But with theft or carelessness or incompetence there is the risk of losing ones job, ones livelihood. So here, a sin is ADDED to the theft or carelessness sin. Perhaps stealing 5.00 from a till in Walmart is judged by a formed conscience to be venial. But the resulting jeapordization of a job to put food in your child’s mouth brings the matter being discussed from venial recklessness to mortal carelessness. So you would have 2 sins. A (potential) venial one stealing 5.00 from a superstore, AND the (potential) mortal putting the welfare of your family at risk. 1 act. 2 very different sins.

 

[Sbee0]

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?

I think it was just trying to make a distinction between grave sin and non grave sin. Grave sin, done with full knowledge and intent is always mortal.

Any kind of sin at all can be grave if the circumstances warrant it. That “small amount of money” may not be small at all from the employers perspective and may cause problems for them if it goes missing. And so on.

 

[s.cono]

I actually had a certain big box store in mind when I used the example of the repercussions of losing ones job over a trivial seemingly theft. I have personal knowledge of a couple of such examples.

Without mentioning the name of the retailer, one employee was terminated for eating a handful of grapes. Another for a bottle of soda. I realize that loss prevention might have been watching these people for some time, and they never committed any offense worse than that, but it might have been habitual over the course of time. Others have gotten their “exit interview” on the spot for stealing something major.

This company likes to make examples of its employees so as to dissuade other employees from doing the same. Fear factor.

 

[Sbee0]

I actually had a certain big box store in mind when I used the example of the repercussions of losing ones job over a trivial seemingly theft. I have personal knowledge of a couple of such examples.

Without mentioning the name of the retailer, one employee was terminated for eating a handful of grapes. Another for a bottle of soda. I realize that loss prevention might have been watching these people for some time, and they never committed any offense worse than that, but it might have been habitual over the course of time. Others have gotten their “exit interview” on the spot for stealing something major.

This company likes to make examples of its employees so as to dissuade other employees from doing the same. Fear factor.

Zero tolerance for that is typical in any retail setting. In a coffee shop I’ve heard of people terminated for taking a “donut hole” which costs 25 cents.