All Sin Is Bad

I want to start by thanking everyone who read and commented on my last post. It was great to see it get so much traffic, and if you haven't read it yet go do that, and leave a comment.

Onto today's topic, NEWSFLASH: ALL SIN IS BAD! Kind of obvious, right? You'd think so, especially since it's an eternal offense against God (in the sense that it is an offense against Him who is eternal). However, take a closer look, and you'll see that we like to rationalize sin. Sin is never something we need to do, but you can always find somebody to make a case for why they absolutely must commit this one itty bitty little sin just this one time, and then they'll get back on the straight and narrow.

That is not how it works, though, and I think that deep down, we all know it. And of course there will always be a "What if you were hiding a Jew from the Nazis? Aren't you allowed to lie about it then?" sort of scenario in which there is the pitting of a venial sin (lying to the Nazis that you're not hiding Jews from them) against a mortal sin (helping the Nazis kill Jews by turning Jews over to them). These situations are red herrings. They are meant to distract from the fact that sin is bad by saying that it's not bad to commit one sin in place of committing a worse one. The Church, however, rejects this mentality, and has always preached that if one is faced with a choice between two evils, one cannot choose either. This is not an easy teaching, but then, sin is typically the easy way out.

Back to the Nazi situation for a second, we are helped out by the Catechism*, which has much to say about lying in the section on the Eighth Commandment. In paragraph 2485, it says, "By its very nature, lying is to be condemned. It is a profanation of speech, whereas the purpose of speech is to communicate known truth to others." Before anyone ruptures a blood vessel at the thought that we ought to have sold out Jews to their murderers simply because we (hypothetically, in this case) were speaking to them, I point you to paragraphs 2488 and 2489, which reveal that we are to avoid lying at all costs, though "...in concrete situations [we must] judge whether or not it is appropriate to reveal the truth to someone who asks for it," because "No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it." This sounds like a tricky way around saying "lie your way out of it, but it isn't. If you read the entirety of those two paragraphs, you will see that the use of discreet language is recommended to avoid both lying and revealing the truth to a person who has no right to know it.

I don't think I need to say that lying, not being the only sin, isn't the only bad thing we can do, but there, I just said it for the benefit of the conversation. This comes up because I am currently engaged in a conversation with my mother about whether or not certain sins are worse than others, which I've noticed seems almost a ridiculous distinction (although there is much merit to the distinction between venial and mortal sins, as it is an important one), because all sin is bad, no matter what you call it. Normally I would not have engaged her, but I feel that this could be an important "teachable moment" as our president would say, though she has told me a few times that she has nothing to say to a priest in Confession. However, the fact that I decided to go to an evening Mass on Sunday rather than the usual morning Mass I attend when I open at work, backfired on me spectacularly when I got out of work half an hour before Mass began and discovered my car's battery was dead. Mass was halfway over by the time my car was jumped, and I knew of no other Masses in the area at that time, so I did not go to Mass at all.

This may not seem like a big deal to some, but it bothers me that I have no way of knowing whether or not I am in a state of mortal sin (which is kind of a big deal). My mother believes, as a result of a shoddy analogy on my part, that taking God's name in vain is a more serious sin than missing Mass on a Sunday. In truth, I do not know whether taking God's name in vain is a mortal sin, though I do know that missing Sunday Mass without an appropriately good reason is. The point, in any case, is that it's kind of silly for my mother and I to say that either sin is worse than the other, because both are sins, ergo, both are bad.

It is silly that conversations like these should take place, but they are an integral part of the human rationalization of sin. I hear these conversations any time talk of voting comes up, and I am forced directly or indirectly to admit that I cannot vote. Not in the sense that I'm not registered to vote, since that takes all of fifteen minutes, but in the sense that I could not conscionably cast a vote for most political candidates. I'm a registered Democrat, and much to the chagrin of my friends who think I'm going to give that up any day now and register as a Republican, I'm not. I think that the Democrats have the best ideas on many issues, but I take issue with their platforms on abortion, stem cell research, marriage, euthanasia, adoption, contraception, etc. Other than those issues, I agree largely with what the party stands for, so I'm in a bind.

My parents have tried many times to rationalize voting for politicians who will promote and facilitate the execution of these things by saying the other issues more than make up for them, but they don't. My conservative friends have done the same, saying that the life and social issues more than make up for the other ones, but they don't. I have also been told that it is a venial sin not to vote if you can, and I do believe that if one has the power to affect change in how things are run, then there is a duty to do so, but unfortunately, I rationalize the sin of not voting by saying I cannot vote for a Republican in good conscience. I think, however, from now on I'm going to write in the Cardinal-Archbishop of Washington or Mickey Mouse, just to be able to go out and vote.

In conclusion, although there is an important distinction between venial and mortal sins that should not be ignored, all sin is bad. No matter how much rationalizing we do, there is no excuse for committing sin. Reading the Catechism will help us live out our universal call to holiness and sort our sticky situations. I probably need to go to Confession about missing Mass (at the very least). And finally, God is good.

*I realize I stuffed a lot of quotes from the Catechism into one paragraph, so I didn't want to link every single one. Here is the link to the Catechism section of the USCCB website, in case you want to read for yourself the parts I quoted. I recommend buying a copy, if you are so inclined, since it's only $20, and very useful reading for any Catholic.