View on smoking?

[saintlouisblues19]

What’s the Catholic Churches view on smoking? In particular under-age. I know a couple [catholic] friends that are a couple years underage and smoke an occasional cigar. Sinful if there is no inhaling? Just curious

 

[CTBcin]

Smoking itself is not a sin, although underage smoking is sinful, simply because it violates the law. Same for underage drinking.

 

[saintlouisblues19]

Yea I can definitely see drinking. Mortal or venial?

 

[CTBcin]

Personally, I would say venial for both, simply because I don’t think they constitute grave matter.

 

[saintlouisblues19]

Okay good, I’ve been trying to ease into swaying them in the opposite direction. Otherwise they are very devout

 

[EndTimes]

What’s the Catholic Churches view on smoking? In particular under-age. I know a couple [catholic] friends that are a couple years underage and smoke an occasional cigar. Sinful if there is no inhaling? Just curious

Our Body is the Temple of God’s Holy Spirit…

Smoking? Is unhealthy to the Body.

Not inhaling? Tossing money out of the window; up in smoke?

Since you ask… you must have had an inkling

 

[Thom18]

saintlouisblues19:

What’s the Catholic Churches view on smoking? In particular under-age. I know a couple [catholic] friends that are a couple years underage and smoke an occasional cigar. Sinful if there is no inhaling? Just curious

Our Body is the Temple of God’s Holy Spirit…

Smoking? Is unhealthy to the Body.

Unhealthy? Extremely. But I think G.K. Chesterton (or maybe it was a blogger) once compared the smoking of a cigar to the burning of incense in the Temple. I happen to enjoy the symbolism, even though the act (which I’m guilty of from time to time) is objectively unhealthy.

As for the OP, smoking is not considered sinful in itself. Still, it’s an unhealthy activity, and I don’t think we should promote it. “If you haven’t started smoking, don’t. If you have, try to quit”

 

[Convert3]

Walk through the cancer ward of a hospital. Why would anyone ever want to smoke?
Calculate how much you spend on this daily habit? Double that because of your future medical costs. It’ll keep you poor.

 

[Beryllos]

Additional information (and views?) may be found by searching the forum for threads on underage smoking. There was another thread on it about 2 weeks ago:

Buying Tobacco Underage Moral Theology

With the new law just passed, I a 20 year old, am no longer able to continue enjoying an occasional cigar. Thank you, Caesar. I’m really tempted to just walk into my usual tobacco shop and and pick one up like I normally do. I don’t know if I’d get carded or not, but I’m convinced that this is not a sin. Or if so, hardly venial. Please convince me otherwise. The only think that I think would be bad would be making the seller break law by selling the cigar to me. Maybe the fact that last week, I…

And there are other threads going way back. This one seems to cover a lot of aspects:

Is there a biblical basis for not smoking/drinking underage? Sacred Scripture

Well is there? Or it is just the wise thing to do?

 

[thistle]

What’s the Catholic Churches view on smoking? In particular under-age. I know a couple [catholic] friends that are a couple years underage and smoke an occasional cigar. Sinful if there is no inhaling? Just curious

While smoking per se is not a sin, the Church teaches that excess smoking (it does not define excess) is a sin.
However, sin or not, it’s a stupid habit to bombard your lungs with toxic smoke.