To commit a mortal sin, do you have to know that what you are doing is a serious/mortal sin?

[Scribbless]

If someone does something and they aren’t even sure if it was even a sin, is it still a mortal sin, or do you have to know that it is a mortal sin for it to be a mortal sin??

Thanks!

 

[strugglingalong]

If someone does something and they aren’t even sure if it was even a sin, is it still a mortal sin, or do you have to know that it is a mortal sin for it to be a mortal sin??

Thanks!

Three components are required for a sin to be mortal:

1. Grave matter
2. Full consent
3. Full knowledge

If a person honestly did not know something was grave then it could not be a mortal sin - most usually it can be seen in the Friday fast from meat: someone didn’t know they were to abstain from meat on every Friday during the year and thus it is not a mortal sin; but once they know then they are responsible.

Pax Christi tecum.

 

[FRATER_PAVLVS]

Try this: St Thomas Aquinas, Summa, Prima Secundae Partis, Question 88. Venial and mortal sin:
newadvent.org/summa/2.htm

 

[Will_B]

Whether you know it’s a sin or not, it is still a sin… The consequences of the sin are at the mercy of God.

Example: In the USA our young people are taught it’s permissible to live with a person of the opposite sex prior to marriage or even in place of marriage… The act is still a mortal sin in the eyes of God… If the person living under these conditions knows it’s against God’s commandments to do so, and still does the act, then the consequences of the sin are much greater then on the couple who believe what they told by the media, (some public schools), etc.

But to the person or people who teach it’s just OK to sin… Jesus said, it would be better for that person to have a mill stone hung around his neck and tossed into the sea… God may not be so merciful with those who teach our youth that sinning is just fine.

 

[briang72]

If a person honestly did not know something was grave then it could not be a mortal sin - most usually it can be seen in the Friday fast from meat: someone didn’t know they were to abstain from meat on every Friday during the year and thus it is not a mortal sin; but once they know then they are responsible.

Pax Christi tecum.

Not to hijack the thread, but I felt it necessary for anyone who may have read this quoted post to know that we are NOT guilty of mortal sin if we eat meat on Fridays outside of the season of Lent. Please read Jimmy Akin’s article on this: catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0501bt.asp

 

[strugglingalong]

Not to hijack the thread, but I felt it necessary for anyone who may have read this quoted post to know that we are NOT guilty of mortal sin if we eat meat on Fridays outside of the season of Lent. Please read Jimmy Akin’s article on this: catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0501bt.asp

Well, first a judicial canon law priest in my diocese has told me that it is a sin to not abstain from meat on Fridays. Now the USCCB has made the decision that someone can substitute another sacrifice in its place but Friday is still a day of penance and some form of penance must be observed.

Here it is in Canon Law. Note that it does not say a Bishops Conference can do away with the necessity of penance but just that they can allow for substitutions:

CHAPTER II.

Days of Penance

Can. 1250 The penitential days and times in the universal Church are **every Friday of the whole year **and the season of Lent.

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Can. 1252 The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Pastors of souls and parents are to ensure that even those who by reason of their age are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence, are taught the true meaning of penance.

Can. 1253 The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.

Pax Christi tecum.

 

[briang72]

Here it is in Canon Law. Note that it does not say a Bishops Conference can do away with the necessity of penance but just that they can allow for substitutions:

…

Can. 1253 The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.

Here is the USCCB statement from a document titled Penance and Abstinence issued Nov 18, 1966:

1. Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance
   which we especially commend to our people for the future observance
   of Friday,** even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of
   abstinence binding under pain of sin**, as the sole prescribed means of
   observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.
   We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will
   ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as
   formerly we did in obedience to Church law. Our expectation
   is based on the following considerations:
   a. We shall thus freely and out of love for Christ
   Crucified show our solidarity with the generations of
   believers to whom this practice frequently became,
   especially in times of persecution and of great poverty,
   no mean evidence of fidelity to Christ and His Church.
   b. We shall thus also remind ourselves that as
   Christians, although immersed in the world and sharing
   its life, we must preserve a saving and necessary
   difference from the spirit of the world. Our deliberate,
   personal abstinence from meat, more especially because
   no longer required by law, will be an outward sign of
   inward spiritual values that we cherish.
2. Every Catholic Christian understands that the fast and
   abstinence regulations admit of change, unlike the
   commandments and precepts of that unchanging divine
   moral law which the Church must today and always defend
   as immutable. This said, we emphasize that our people are
   henceforth free from the obligation traditionally binding
   under pain of sin in what pertains to Friday abstinence,
   except as noted above for Lent. We stress this so that “no”
   scrupulosity will enter into examinations of conscience,
   confessions, or personal decisions on this point.

 

[strugglingalong]

Here is the USCCB statement from a document titled Penance and Abstinence issued Nov 18, 1966:

Here’s the paragraph’s right before your quote:

1. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance
   throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be
   mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind which they are
   called upon to help expiate in union with Christ Crucified.
2. Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the
   entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly
   Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a
   day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the
   passion of Jesus Christ.
3. Among the works of voluntary self-denial and personal penance
   which we especially commend to our people for the future observance
   of Friday, even though we hereby terminate the traditional law of
   abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of
   observing Friday, we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat.

Notice that last bold part. What is terminated? “[T]he traditional law of abstinence binding under pain of sin, as the sole prescribed means of observing Friday”. It doesn’t say that the requirement to penance is terminated but rather that abstinence from meat as the sole prescribed means of observing said fast. This fact is clear from the reading of the document. The section on Friday as the day Our Lord was crucified mentions how meat used to be rare and thus was a real sacrifice but now it is more commonplace. The fact is that there is still a requirement to make sacrifice but that it doesn’t have to be abstinence from meat (especially since I do not think the USCCB can terminate any canon within the Code and since the Code itself does delegate the right for conferences to make substitutions).

Pax Christi tecum.

 

[blessedtoo]

Whether you know it’s a sin or not, it is still a sin… The consequences of the sin are at the mercy of God.

But the culpability may be removed. If the OP engaged in a behavior with no awareness of it’s sinfulness, he/she would not be culpable.

In another thread, the OP stated he/she was a recent convert. With this in mind, it is entirely possible that NONE of the conditions for mortal sin would be met.

 

[RachelsAlumni]

speaking of abstaining from meat on Fridays did you know that McDonalds has “$1 Filet-O-Fish Fridays”? and at the McDonalds where I live it’s year-round, and not just during Lent.

Here’s the story of how it came to be:

One thing many people might not know is that the notion of giving up meat on Fridays is actually what produced the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich! Back in the 1960s, a man named Lou Groen, who owned a McDonald’s in Cincinnati (the city’s first) was becoming discouraged because the restaurant was losing business on Fridays. The area was heavily Catholic, and Catholics did not eat meat on Fridays (back then, it was customary to refrain from meat on Fridays all year round); meat was (and is) a large portion of the McDonald’s menu. In an effort to save his business, Groen decided to create a fish sandwich, as fish was not off limits to Catholics (Groen himself knew this, as he is also Catholic.) After a wager with another McDonald’s bigwig, Lou Groen added the Filet-O-Fish sandwich to the McDonald’s menu and sold over 300 sandwiches on the day it premiered! By the mid-80s, Groen owned over 40 McDonald’s restaurants in Ohio and Kentucky. associatedcontent.com/article/166230/the_mcdonalds_filetofish_an_invention.html

It just so happens this is my favorite sandwich at McDonalds.

As far as whether you have to know that what you are doing is a serious/mortal sin? Ignorantia juris non excusat. I think it’s still a sin, but the culpability or degree of guilt is affected by foreknowledge, not whether the act itself is a sin. So basically ignorance downgrades the sin from mortal to venial.

The remedy is still the same though - confession. So it wouldn’t really matter if I didn’t know whether it was a venial or mortal sin when I’m confessing since the priest does know. He usually asks questions to determine culpability during confession. Either way, my sins are still forgiven.

But I do have a related question.

If I had been receiving communion with what I thought was a venial sin on my conscience, but later discover it was a mortal sin, do I need to confess that I received communion in a state of mortal sin?

 

[strugglingalong]

But I do have a related question.

If I had been receiving communion with what I thought was a venial sin on my conscience, but later discover it was a mortal sin, do I need to confess that I received communion in a state of mortal sin?

I would ask a priest but I’d say you need to confess the mortal sin itself but not the sin of sacrilege for receiving Our Lord in a state of mortal since because if you did not know - in innocence - that it was a mortal sin then you could not have sinned mortally because you need to have full knowledge.

Pax Christi tecum.

 

[benkim]

So what if someone was completely unsure whether doing something was a mortal sin (meaning he or she thought the action might have been or might not have been a mortal sin), but did it anyways somewhat reluctantly. Would that be a mortal sin? I dunno cause it doesn’t fulfill the “full knowledge” condition, but…