On Jimmy Akin and mortal sin

In my previous post, I noted how Jimmy Akin believes that "quite a number" of those Americans who are, "committing abortion and contraception...sleeping together outside of marriage, using porn, and doing a host of other things that can endanger their souls," will not end up in hell.  He writes, "It can be tempting to conclude that most Catholics in America today are going to go to hell.
Is the situation that bleak?...Although Catholics sometimes say things like “contraception is a mortal sin” or “sleeping together outside of marriage is a mortal sin,” this is a form of shorthand.
For a person to truly commit a mortal sin, more than a mere act of contraception or a mere act of fornication is needed.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

 

Let’s look at those three conditions

Grave Matter

If a married couple contracepts or if an unmarried couple has sexual relations, this fulfills the first of the three conditions: They have committed a “sin whose object is grave matter.”
But the other two conditions must also be fulfilled for the sin to be a mortal one.
In our shorthand way of speaking, we’re warning people against doing these things, because if the additional two conditions are fulfilled, it will be a mortal sin, but if they are not fulfilled then it won’t be.

Full Knowledge

The second condition involves having “full knowledge,” and here is where the reader’s remarks about society come into play.
The reader acknowledges that society makes it difficult for people to do what the Church teaches.
One of the ways it does that is by feeding them a constant narrative—through the media, through social interactions—that contradicts the Church’s teaching.
Even within the Church, there have been many people (priests, nuns, catechists) who have undermined the Church’s teaching in recent years.
We’ve had really bad catechesis for the last 40 years, as well as an assault on Church teaching by society and the media in general.
The result, as the reader notes, is that many people committing acts that are objectively gravely sinful do not believe that this is what they are doing.
As a result, for many of these people, the second condition needed for mortal sin may simply be lacking. On this point, the Catechism notes:

1859 Mortal sin . . . presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense.

This is likely the case with a large number of people who have been the victims of bad catechesis and the constant subversion of the Church’s teaching by society and the media.
On the other hand, if someone has a kind of willful blindness, that won’t let them off the hook:

1859 Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

How many people fall into this latter category? See below.

Deliberate Consent

The third condition is that of deliberate consent. According to the Catechism:

1859 Mortal sin . . . implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice.

1860 The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

This means that the brief thoughts that flit through your mind and that you try to get rid of swiftly are not mortally sinful. You are not deliberately consenting to them.
You’re only doing that if you purposefully dwell on and foster them.
In the same way, “the prompting of feelings and passions”—to which young people in particular are subject—“can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense.”
So can “external pressures” and “pathological disorders.”
So even when people have committed a sin with grave matter and done so with full knowledge of its sinfulness, there are a number of things that could keep the third condition from being fulfilled and thus keep it from being a mortal sin.

The State of American Catholics

Given the factors mentioned above, the situation for American Catholics does not look quite as bleak.
While it is true that many of them are committing sins that have grave matter, between poor catechesis in Church, society’s constant assault on Church teaching, and the various factors that diminish the voluntary and free character of a sin, quite a number of them likely do not have all three conditions fulfilled." (See here for full post).

The problem with Mr. Akin's thinking was addressed by Dr. Germain Grisez during a talk he gave entitled Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice which was given at a 1990 symposium on moral theology and the Catholic priesthood which was held at St. Charles Seminary in Overbrook, Philadelphia in 1990.

Dr. Grisez correctly noted that, "Even before the current moral crisis in the Church, legalism affected pastoral practice in many ways.  Very often God's sovereignty and the Church's teaching authority tended to overshadow the inherent reasonableness of moral requirements and their intrinsic relationship to the kingdom.  Obedience rather than charity seemd to be the basic Christian virtue.  Hell was a punishment that God would impose rather than the inevitable outcome of unrepented mortal sin...

Many pastors stressed the minimum required to avoid mortal sin...Because invincible ignorance frees one from guilt, pastors were more concerned about the sincerity of penitents than about the correctness of their consciences.  Considering morality a matter of laws rather than of truths, pastors assumed that people could easily be in good faith while doing what is objectively wrong. And ignoring the phenomena of rationalization and self-deception, pastors confidently thought that they could discern when penitents were and were not in good faith.

During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild.  Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins' malice.  Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins' inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin.  This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose.  That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability.  But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents' self-determination in making free choices."

Our Lady of Fatima told the children that if people would do what she told them, many souls would be saved.  The road to salvation is narrow as Our Lord said.  That road will not be found by freely choosing to commit sins which are grave while engaging in rationalization and self-deception and convincing oneself that such acts really do not constitute a grave sin.

Who to believe about mortal sin: Our Lady or Jimmy Akin?

Father Joseph Pelletier, A.A., was a native of Winchendon, Massachusetts.  And he served the Church at a time when most priests were still reminding the souls entrusted to their care about the reality of hell and that mortal sins, unrepented of, render a soul incapable of eternal life.

Back then, most Catholics knew and accepted God's Holy Word: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Corinthians 6: 9, 10).

Although the Catechism of the Catholic Church assures us that, "Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the 'eternal punishment' of sin," (CCC, 1472), many today - priests, religious and laity - would have us believe that mortal sin is rare.  For example, James Akin makes that case here.  But if all, or most souls, are saved, how do we explain the Scriptures?  When the Son of Man began His public ministry, He did so with the word "repent" (Matthew 4:17). And He advised the woman caught in adultery to "sin no more" (John 8:11). Likewise, in the case of the man cured at the Pool of Bethesda, Jesus advised him to "sin no more lest something worse befall thee" (John 5:14). When queried on the subject of how many would be saved, Jesus replied "few" because the "gate" to Heaven is "narrow" (Matthew 7:13-14). And while no one can pinpoint the precise meaning of the word "few," still, it is sobering that Jesus chose the image of a narrow gate.


Jesus is likened in the gospel to a stern master who has lazy servants flogged and murderous ones put to death (Matthew 21:41; Luke 12:47). And while it is true that Jesus is Mercy, He is also Justice. And for every parable illustrative of His mercy, there are three or four threatening divine retribution. Someone just accused me of being "too negative" for reminding others of this fact. But I didn't start a Blog to be popular. I prefer the friendship of Christ to that of the world.

The Judgment Day is always described as a day of wrath and never as a day of rejoicing (Proverbs 11:4; Zephaniah 1:15; Sirach 5:10; Romans 2:5; Revelation 6:17). Why is this? If everyone (or even a large segment of mankind) is headed for Heaven, why does Sacred Scripture refer to the Judgment Day as a day of wrath?

The smug, self-satisfied "we-are-all-saved-already" attitude found in so many Catholic parishes is the result of the sin of presumption. Because there are priests who are betraying Jesus by refusing to preach on the reality of sin and the reality of Hell, a spiritual dry-rot has infected much of the Church. This is why nearly everyone receives Holy Communion at Mass but nearly no one goes to Confession.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say about presumption: "There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit)." (CCC, 2092).

The words of Sacred Scripture remind us that such an attitude is very, very wrong: "Of forgiveness be not overconfident, adding sin upon sin. Say not:' Great is his mercy; my many sins he will forgive.' For mercy and anger alike are with him; upon the wicked alights his wrath." (Sirach 5:5-7).

Back to Fr. Joseph Pelletier, the Assumptionist priest who remained faithful to God's Holy Word.  In his book entitled The Sun Danced at Fatima, he vividly describes one of the visits of Our Lady to the three children when she said, "Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and repeat often, especially whenever you make a sacrifice for them: O Jesus, it is for  love of You, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."  Fr. Pelletier continues, "Then, as she utters these last words, she opens her graceful hands in that same gesture that recalls the Dominus vobiscum of the Mass.  Almost immediately Lucia utters a cry of horror...For, as the Lady parts her hands, beams of reflected light  radiate from them and seem to penetrate the earth.  And the abyss of hell is unveiled before the children's horrified eyes.  They observe an immense sea of fire which appears to be under the earth.  Immersed in the fire are the devils or fallen angels and the souls of damned human beings.  The two categories of individuals are easily distinguishable.  The souls have a human form whereas the demons appear in the terrifying and loathsome forms of horrible, unknown animals.  But both the devils and the souls are transparent and black or bronze-colored, like live embers.  Floating and tossed about in the conflagration by the flames which issue from them with clouds of smoke, they fall about on all sides without weight or balance, as sparks do in a great fire.  All the while they emit shrieks and groans of pain and despair which horrify the children and cause them to tremble with fear....It is fortunate that this vision lasts but a moment and that the Lady has prepared the children for it by her promise to take them to heaven, for otherwise Lucia believes they would have died of fright....The Lady reads their silent question and there is much tenderness and sorrow in her voice as she replies: 'You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.  To save them God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.  If people will do what I shall tell you, many souls will be saved and there will be peace..'"     Our Lady promised the Fatima seers that, if people did what she would tell them, many souls would be saved.  But, if mortal sin is as rare as Jimmy Akin and others would have us believe, what would these souls be saved from?  Venial sin does not merit hell.  Only mortal sin.   There is an effort today to contradict the Fatima message and even to suppress it altogether.  And this too is a preparation for the Reign of Antichrist - when sin will be celebrated.  

Ignorance: Invincible and Vincible

Jimmy Akin, in an article entitled "Ignorance - Invincible and Vincible," which was published in This Rock magazine (July/August 1999 edition) got it right when he said that, "In moral theology, ignorance is defined as a lack of knowledge that a person ought to have. Ignorance is distinguished from mere nescience, which is a lack of knowledge that a person has no need of. For example, a person who did not know the square root of 1429 would be ignorant of it if he were taking a test that required him to know the answer, but he would be nescient of it if performing a task that didn't require the number.

Moral theology divides ignorance into a number of categories. The two I will consider here are invincible and vincible. Ignorance is invincible if a person could not remove it by applying reasonable diligence in determining the answer. Ignorance is vincible if a person could remove it by applying reasonable diligence. Reasonable diligence, in turn, is that diligence that a conscientious person would display in seeking the correct answer to a question given (a) the gravity of the question and (b) his particular resources.

The gravity of a question is determined by how great a need the person has to know the answer. The answers to fundamental questions (how to save one's soul, how to preserve one's life) have grave weight. The answers to minor questions (the solution to a crossword puzzle) typically have light weight.

The particular resources a person has include (a) the ease with which he can obtain the information necessary to determine the answer (e.g., a man with a good textbook on the subject may be able to find the information with greater ease than a man who lacks such a textbook) and (b) the ease with which he can make an accurate evaluation of the evidence once it is in his possession (e.g., a smart man may be able to evaluate the evidence with greater ease than an ordinary man). The graver the question and the greater the resources available, the more diligence is needed to qualify as reasonable..."

Now, bearing all of this in mind, especially the last sentence in bold, read this article from Joe Sacerdo regarding Father Bryan Hehir and his excuse for having honored Mayor Thomas Menino even though the Mayor's opposition toward Catholic moral teaching regarding homosexuality and abortion are well-known by virtually every citizen who lives and works in and around Boston.

Would such ignorance be vincible or invincible? Come on, you know the answer.

Although Akin doesn't go into it, there is a category of ignorance known as affected or studied ignorance. When a person deliberately avoids knowledge in order to plead ignorance as an excuse, for example, refusing to read material or avoiding those persons who might inform him, this form of pretense is called affected or studied ignorance.

Something to reflect on this holiday weekend.