What exactly is scrupulosity and some examples?

[CroatCatholic]

Title says all about my question.
I hope you will help me learn a bit about this term which I have heard a lot on this forum, but never understood it fully.

 

[Salibi]

Scrupulosity is somewhat equivalent to religious OCD.

It’s when someone has a feeling of persistant guilt and/or is constantly worried he or she has committed a mortal sin.

It’s also when a person is constantly worried that something mundane is a sin, or that a venial sin is mortal or unforgivable.

It’s best not to feed the anxiety of a scrupulous person. This is why on the forums we direct scrupulous posters to a priest or a counsellor.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Scrupulosity on these forums is generally indicated by someone worrying that something that they have done is a sin, or even a grave sin, when a normal person wouldn’t consider whatever it is to be a sin at all, much less grave.

The first thread I saw like this, several years ago when I first joined the forum, was someone who posted how they usually buy a sandwich for lunch and eat half of the sandwich and save the other half for later. However, on this day they had eaten the whole sandwich instead of saving half. A normal person would just think, “I must have been really hungry” or “That sandwich was really good today so I ate it all.” But the scrupulous person posting was afraid they had committed the sin of gluttony.

Scrupulous people might also post here worrying that sins they confessed and were absolved of, sometimes many years ago, somehow weren’t confessed properly or they missed something, or the priest didn’t do the confession right, and so they think this sin is still with them and they want to go re-confess it somehow.

A number of great saints, notably St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Therese of Lisieux, had really bad scruples and it caused them a lot of suffering. Because of St. Alphonsus, the Redemptorists (his order) focus on helping people with scruples and have materials and webpages for that.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

Another feature of scrupulosity seems to be an obsession with technicalities and minute details. For example, there was a series of threads recently in which the poster worried, among other things, whether his absolution for a particular sin might be impeded by the fact of his living in an apostolic vicariate rather than a diocese. He had many such concerns, such as whether he needed to receive absolution in every ecclesiastical jurisdiction in which he had resided for three months or longer and whether it was possible for absolution for a particular unspecified sin to be reserved to the ordinary in one jurisdiction but not in another.

 

[Servant31]

I had a run with scrupulosity for a while. It wasn’t fun. I think it’s generally misunderstood and, tbh, I think that understanding is still developing. I heard many components of scrupulosity but that didn’t really encapsulate the whole.

Some have called it the doubting disease, others a sensitive conscience. One saint referred to a “lack of trust in Gods mercy”. Often scrupulous people feel they have committed a sin where there is no sin. Or they struggle with having confidence in confession, or if they approached sacraments correctly. Many often have intrusive or blasphemous thoughts that they can’t get rid of. Personally I had “If I eat this piece of chicken (or whatever I had in my hand) I sold my soul to the enemy”. I think all of these are factors and symptoms which are common.

I have a family member who is scrupulous. From an external perspective: He needs constant reassurance in every area of life, he often checks everything over and over to make sure its done right, and he is very conscientious. He is also one of the few people which I can say I honestly would trust with faith questions and is very involved in the faith community.

For me though it was a pretty severe case of depression, with a bit of OCD in there. In some ways I view it like a rock in your sleeping bag. When your very very tired, either through your own fault or the fault of others, that small rock feels massive. And your not getting any sleep.

I had about five things in life occur at once. I was a former athlete at a reasonable level, 14 years of catholic school, by all accounts a healthy and “durable person”. However after 5 years of working graveyards, college at a liberal arts school where there were very low behavioral standards, and basically losing my dream career (which is why I was doing all this in the first place) I finally just cracked with all the stress and unhealthy living.

I don’t say this to complain in any way, but more to say that I think some scrupulous persons are people, with a certain temperament, who have been pushed past their limit, either by themselves or others. Like burnout to a severe degree. At least that’s the case with me and, I think, my family member. He worked 70 hours a week. It’s too much, and the mental health starts to deteriorate. The symptoms are varied and cover a broad spectrum as mentioned above.

Sadly I think our current culture is partly to blame with relativism rampant, it’s becoming more and more difficult to be a good Christian. Gaslighting can be everywhere. And I think we need to be honest, people, both in the Church and without, can be pretty petty and cruel sometimes.

I’m sorry for such an amorphous answer, but that’s part of the issue. An interesting article about it below as well. Hopefully something in here helps clarify some.

https://ocdla.com/scrupulosity-ocd-religion-faith-belief-2107

 

[po18guy]

Just watch for threads that begin with “Is this a sin?”, “Was my sin forgiven?”, “Was my confession valid?” “I’m always in mortal sin” etc.

Basically, it is doubt. Doubt about self. About sin. About the Sacraments and ultimately, about God’s mercy and grace. It is often due to a form of anxiety disorder, which is another epidemic. 64 million in the US suffer from some form of anxiety disorder.

Fortunately it is treatable, and almost always without drugs - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy being the gold standard in treatment.

 

[catholic03]

I have had scrupulosity.

It is when a member of the Christian faithful fails to understand that they are not sinning at all, or have only committed venial sins. It is often indicative of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

E.g., last July, I was worried I had mortally sinned (and posted about it here), because I had had ‘too much free time’ whilst on holiday. Last year, I was very worried that if I did not obsessively spend my life studying the faith without free time or social time, then I would not be a good Catholic.

I am in a much better position now, and I see how ridiculous it was to worry about these things.

The problem is that, at the time, people just do not understand that they are not sinning because their ability to distinguish between venial and mortal sins, or no sins and mortal sins (etc) is severely impaired.

I think fear of Hell also drives it. It rightfully makes any Christian ‘shiver’ when thinking of the words ‘get away from me…I never knew you’, as Christ may say to those who die in a State of Mortal Sin, but scrupulous people have an overly obsessive fear of Hell which dominates their life.

Our Lord has a lot of compassion for those who suffer from this Cross.

In fact, having scrupulosity, as Fr Thomas Santa has argued, severely impairs one’s ability to mortally sin in the first place.

Scrupulous people must be treated with the love and compassion that Jesus Christ showed to the sick and the suffering, and continues to show today.

Our priests here do an excellent job of dealing with scrupulous people.

 

[po18guy]

Perhaps a good examination of conscience would help. A good one which explains both venial and mortal sins, as well as our imperfections - which are not sins at all . Imperfections are often confused with sin and are confessed, but are not in the category of sin. There are many Examinations of Conscience available, this one being the best that I have seen recently.

https://www.leafletonline.com/examination-of-conscience