What about a person who is under severe mental duress, denying God?

[txstm]

Sorry if this is not the proper place to post this, but I had to respond to Fr. Serpa’s response to Rup, who asked if a person who renounces his faith under threat of being murdered is guilty of apostasy. Fr. Serpa stated, “to deny the Lord to save one’s hide is a mortal sin.”
I could not disagree more with this statement and would appreciate documentation in support of his response.
Using this logic, a woman who is raped at gunpoint is then guilty of adultery or fornication.
A mentally ill person is not responsible for his/her sins; it should then follow that a person under extreme mental duress such as that caused by having a gun stuck in his face should should not be guilty of a mortal sin.
Many times I have prayed for the bravery of the martyrs who died in the defense of their faith, but what if God does not give it to us?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

Most woman who are raped don’t have much of a choice. Little Maria Goretti did manage to fight her attacker off, but died as the result.

My concern was with the objective morality of denying God. One must always begin with objective truth. This is not to say that there can’t be extenuating circumstances such as mental illness or the effects of extreme duress that can mitigate one’s freedom. But in the victim-oriented mentality that prevails in our current culture, we all too quickly lower the bar without much regard for the power of grace and the power of one’s love for God. St. Maria Goretti, twelve-year-old that she was, has a lot to teach us. By the way, the man who murdered her repented and is now in heaven with her.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.