Sin and Its Consequences
By
Since
the Modernist revolution took place in the 1960's Roman Catholics throughout
the world, but particularly in Europe,
the United States and Canada, have been subjected to a constant bombardment of
false doctrine concerning sin and its consequences. Sadly, many Catholics have been lured away from the
fullness of truth and have swallowed hook, line and sinker the
philosophical system foisted on them under the guise of "a
more compassionate view of human nature."
The basic tenant of the
New Church morality consists of the idea that as long as you "don't hurt any one" then you are not committing a sin. This
extends even further. Even
if you
do hurt someone you are probably
not really culpable for your actions because the circumstances in your past or present mitigated your responsibility. All sinners in this
philosophical world view are victims. Thus ,
the murderer can be excused of
his crime of murder
because his mother drank when he
was a fetus, or he was beaten as a child
by an over- bearing father, or he was a drug addict at the time of the
murders and really didin't know what he was doing. In other words, there is
always an excuse and therefore very few
people can be held responsible for their "mistakes" or
"failings".
An
illustration of the Modernist concept
of sin can be seen from an
incident that took place in my own life. In my quest for the
priesthood, I ended up in the diocese of Santa Rosa, California and was accepted
as an "intern". I
had completed all
my theological studies,
in Rome and was ready to
be ordained. They placed me
as a religion teacher
for sophmore and junior high school students
at a small parish school
in Petaluma, California. What
a wonderful experience. I
dedicated myself to teaching
these students their Catholic faith with great zeal. I
knew that once these kids were exposed to the richness
of the Catholic Faith they would fall in love with it. And so they did. Most of these students had
been in Catholic schools all their lives and when
I tested them on the first day
of class, to see how much they
knew, it was frightening to
see their lack of
understanding. Out of
the 85 students that I tested on that day only about 4
answered the majority of questions
correctly and these were very basic questions. Their exposure to the
Catholic Faith was
minimal if not
totally nonexistent because of
the modernist education they had received. As I
began to teach them the Faith they
became more and more on fire with love for it.
Later, I was informed
by others that many of the students had actually
inspired their parents to
return to full participation in
the Church and as a family they
would all go to Confession and to
holy Mass. The truth is an exciting
thing when one is finally exposed to it.
Now,
why did I bring this
incident up in an article about
sin and guilt? Let me explain. Because
I was
able to teach these young men and women solid Roman Catholic teaching in
a way that they not only understood
also about which they became enthusiastic,
I became a
grave threat to the Modernist agenda in the Santa Rosa
Diocese. Consequently, when the first semester had come
to an end, and time came for my first
review, Sister Maureen, the
feminist principal of the high school, called
me into her office to report that
she had given me a
"terrible" review because of my "backward, Pre-Vatican II
theology" and wanted to know
what I
thought I was
doing teaching "all this stuff" to these impressionable
kids. You must realize that I
had never been confrontational about the Faith with anyone there. In fact, I had gone out of my
way to be as non-confrontational as
possible (if you can believe that).
I asked many
times how I
was doing during the semester and the reviews were always very positive. Because the students were so ill
informed about Catholic teaching I had to incorporate the basics of the Catholic
Faith into the main subject matter
required by the curriculum. For example,
I taught the juniors, in their
class on the
sacraments, the Ten
Commandments as the foundation to understanding the Sacrament
of Confession. So you
can imagine my
amazement when Sister asked me "What do the 10 Commandments
have to do with the Sacraments
anyway?" I very
gently explained to her, as I would to a little child, that in order
to be able to confess one's sins one needed to know what sin was and the best
way to know how one offends God and neighbor
is to learn God's Commandments. She then launched into
a tirade about my "emphasis" on mortal
sin. Actually my
emphasis was on love contrasted to mortal sin, its
opposite. And here's the point: she proclaimed
indignantly that, "These
kids are incapable of committing a mortal sin." My response to this
incredible statement was, "I don't know about you, Sister,
but at
that age I was more than capable of committing mortal sin and did
it quite often, as I
recall." This seemed to end that
part of the conversation. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to my
point. But I was forced to set the scene.
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that these Modernists do not believe
people are capable of sinning and will
give any excuse
they can to deny sin
altogether. They even deny the
fact that we are born with original sin by so redefining this dogma that it no longer has any resemblance to
the Roman Catholic dogma. The
Catholic Church has always taught that the only human person
ever conceived without original sin was the Blessed Virgin Mary. The phony Modernist "theologians" today
imply, if not explicitly proclaim, that we are all
immaculately conceived. This ,
of course, is false and twisted
doctrine but it
has permeated our Catholic schools and institutions of
higher learning for more than 30 years.
The
RomanCatholic
Doctrine
on Sin
The
Real Roman Catholic doctrine on sin and
its consequences is both reasonable and balanced. It proclaims the
essential dignity and intrinsic
freedom of man
and the fact
that each rational individual alone is
personally responsible for his or her actions and the consequences
thereof.
Before
we look at the actual
teaching of the Church on
sin it would be beneficial
to have a brief
understanding of the terms
"objective" and "subjective." Simply speaking, the term objective refers to
anything that stands on its
own independent of any one person's preception of it. In the
moral order an objective moral precept
applies universally to
all humanity, in
every place and at all times, e.g., the prohibition against adultery. Subjective, on the other
hand, refers to an individual's response to an objective influence.
In the moral order this
would apply to the individual's response within the context of the moral
law, e.g, committing the act of adultery.
.
SIN: A
deliberate act of
a rational individual's will, either in thought, word,
action or omission, which is
contrary to the will of
God. The guilt and
consequences of sin
are determined by the intent of the individual, the seriousness
of the offense and the circumstances surrounding the
offense. However, it must be noted that there are certain actions which,
by their very nature, constitute an
objectively grave offense against
God and His laws. These "intrinsically evil" acts of the will violate the objective law
of God in two ways: First, because
they usurp God's authority over
His creation and, secondly,
because they bring
disorder and disharmony to the intended natural
order and harmony of
God's creation.
There are two kinds
of sin: mortal and venial. The difference between the two
can be described as the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor. A
venial sin transgresses God's law but is not of its nature seriously disordered
or as damaging. For example, saying a
cuss word can be considered a venial sin
A mortal sin, however, deals specifically with objectively serious
matter. A mortal sin has the
effect of a felony in the secular order in the way it affects
not only the person but society as a whole. The action, thought ,
word or omission
of action that would do injury both to God's justice
and authority and
also injure oneself and/or
others, such as, deliberately missing
Holy Mass on Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation is a good example of a mortal sin.
Now a sin is only a
sin when the person committing the transgression is aware that his actions
are against the will of God and he chooses to
do them anyway. This knowledge
does not have to be explicit nor expressed. One knows things simply by the natural dictates of the
Natural Law and does not necessarilty
have to be "informed" by
an authority. We
all a have a natural sense of what is right and wrong
particularly in regards to those things which are dictated by the Natural Law
God has woven within the very fiber of our being. In these things
we also have
a certain perception of the
gravity of a particular action
The greatest problem lies in the fact that human beings have
an incredible ability to rationalize and give excuses for any
action we do that
we "know" is not right.
We will do anything to justify
ourselves because we don't want to accept the limitation of our humanity
and the failure to do what it right.
Therefore we will bend over backward to convince ourselves and those
around us that what we want to do, even
if it's wrong, it
is right for us.
Now
that I have provided at least a brief foundation for a correct understanding
about sin I would like to give two concrete examples of how a
particular serious transgression
against the eternal law and objective
will of God can have different results
and effects on
the subjective level in an
individual. It is
important to note
that every action
we do has a consequence;
therefore, every individual action must be weighted by the application of
the above-referenced principles to
determine whether or not the person who transgressed the law can be held fully
responsible and therefore guilty. The Modernist attempts to analysize
sin from a continuous attitude. They call this the "fundamental option" or choice. The Roman
Catholic, on the other hand,
looks at every action on an
individual basis and analysizes each
transgression by the same set of criteria.
Rufus Freespirit is a college student at the local Catholic University. He considers himself "a faithful Catholic" and
in fact, goes to Mass not only
on Sundays but as often as he can
during the week. He has a girlfriend
with whom he has had an ongoing relationship for 2 years. Often after he
goes to Mass
in the evening he will head over
to his girlfriend's to "spend the
night". When confronted by a friend that
to have premarital sex is a
mortal sin Rufus snaps back, "It's not a sin if we love each other."
Buddy
Niceguy is a mechanic who works at his
dad's auto shop. He was raised in a
Protestant family who went to church most every Sunday especially when he was
young. He was taught basic morality by
his parents but they were pretty typical in regards to 1990's American culture
attitudes. He also has a girlfriend
whom he has known for 2 years. The sexual aspect of their relationship is
expected and implicitly
condoned by their parents. After a conversion experience of
accepting Jesus as his personal
Lord and Savior Buddy tells
his girlfriend that he wants to remain
pure until they get married. However,
that very night before he was going home they kissed and the old habit of their
passion over took them. He fought it as
much as possible but gave in.
Nonetheless, he stopped before he completed the act because he was still
fighting his passion. He got up. Got dressed and went home.
Now, who do you think had the greater guilt and culpability of a mortal sin? It is important to note that this is the process that every good confessor must go through to help the penitents understand his culpability and the mitigating circumstances that may surround the particular objectively wrong action.