IV. THE GRAVITY OF SIN: MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN

1854 Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. The distinction between mortal and venial sin, already evident in Scripture,[129] became part of the tradition of the Church. It is corroborated by human experience.

1855 Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.
Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

1856 Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us - that is, charity - necessitates a new initiative of God's mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation:
When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object . . . whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery.... But when the sinner's will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial.[130]

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."[131]

1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."[132] The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart[133] do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. 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.

1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

1862 One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.

1863 Venial sin weakens charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul's progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not set us in direct opposition to the will and friendship of God; it does not break the covenant with God. With God's grace it is humanly reparable. "Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness."[134]
While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call "light": if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession.[135]

1864 "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."[136] There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit.[137] Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.

V. THE PROLIFERATION OF SIN

1865 Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root.

1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called "capital" because they engender other sins, other vices.[138] They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.

1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are "sins that cry to heaven": the blood of Abel,[139] the sin of the Sodomites,[140] the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,[141] the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,[142] injustice to the wage earner.[143]

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
- by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
- by protecting evil-doers.

1869 Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. "Structures of sin" are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a "social sin."[144]

IN BRIEF

1870 "God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all" (Rom 11:32).

1871 Sin is an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law (St. Augustine, Faust 22: PL 42, 418). It is an offense against God. It rises up against God in a disobedience contrary to the obedience of Christ.

1872 Sin is an act contrary to reason. It wounds man's nature and injures human solidarity.

1873 The root of all sins lies in man's heart. The kinds and the gravity of sins are determined principally by their objects.

1874 To choose deliberately - that is, both knowing it and willing it - something gravely contrary to the divine law and to the ultimate end of man is to commit a mortal sin. This destroys in us the charity without which eternal beatitude is impossible. Unrepented, it brings eternal death.

1875 Venial sin constitutes a moral disorder that is reparable by charity, which it allows to subsist in us.

1876 The repetition of sins - even venial ones - engenders vices, among which are the capital sins.

   ENDNOTES

   1 Lk 15:11-32.

   2 GS 22.

   3 Col 1:15; cf. 2 Cor 4:4.

   4 Cf. GS 22.

   5 GS 14 # 2.

   6 GS 24 # 3.

   7 GS 15 # 2.

   8 GS 17.

   9 GS 16.

   10 GS 13 # 1.

   11 GS 13 # 2.

   12 Mt 5:3-12.

   13 St. Augustine, De moribus eccl. 1, 3, 4: PL 32,1312.

   14 St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 20: PL 32, 791.

   15 St. Thomas Aquinas, Expos. in symb. apost. I.

   16 Cf. Mt 4:17.

   17 Mt 5:8; cf. 1 Jn 2; 1 Cor 13:12.

   18 Mt 25:21-23.

   19 Cf. Heb 4:7-11.

   20 St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 22, 30, 5: PL 41,804.

   21 2 Pet 1:4; cf. Jn 17:3.

   22 Cf. Rom 8:18.

   23 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4,20,5: PG 7/1, 1034-1035.

   24 John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Saintliness the Standard of Christian
   Principle," in Discourses to Mixed Congregations (London: Longmans, Green
   and Co., 1906) V, 89-90.

   25 Cf. the parable of the sower: Mt 13:3-23.

   26 GS 17; Sir 15:14.

   27 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4, 4, 3: PG 7/1, 983.

   28 Cf. Rom 6:17.

   29 Gen 3:13.

   30 Cf. Gen 4:10.

   31 Cf. 2 Sam 12:7-15.

   32 Cf. DH 2 # 7.

   33 CDF, instruction, Libertatis conscientia 13.

   34 Gal 5:1.

   35 Cf. In 8:32.

   36 2 Cor 17.

   37 Rom 8:21.

   38 Roman Missal, 32nd Sunday, Opening Prayer: Omnipotens et misericors
   Deus, universa nobis adversantia propitiatus exclude, ut, mente et corpore
   pariter expediti, quae tua sunt liberis mentibus exsequamur.

   39 Cf. Mt 6:24.

   40 Cf. Mk 7:21.

   41 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 26, 4, corp. art.

   42 Cf. St. Augustine, De Trin., 8, 3, 4: PL 42, 949-950.

   43 St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 14, 7, 2: PL 41, 410.

   44 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 24, 1 corp. art.

   45 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 24, 3.

   46 Ps 84:2.

   47 GS 16.

   48 Cf. Rom 2:14-16.

   49 Cf. Rom 1:32.

   50 John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk," V, in
   Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching II (London:
   Longmans Green, 1885), 248.

   51 St. Augustine, In ep Jo. 8, 9: PL 35, 2041.

   52 1 Jn 3:19-20.

   53 DH 3 # 2.

   54 Cf. Ps 119:105.

   55 Cf. DH 14.

   56 Mt 7:12; cf. Lk 6:31; Tob 4:15.

   57 1 Cor 8:12.

   58 Rom 14:21.

   59 GS 16.

   60 1 Tim 5; cf. 8:9; 2 Tim 3; 1 Pet 3:21; Acts 24:16.

   61 GS 16.

   62 Phil 4:8.

   63 St. Gregory of Nyssa, De beatitudinibus, 1: PG 44, 1200D.

   64 Wis 8:7.

   65 Prov 14:15.

   66 1 Pet 4:7.

   67 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 47, 2.

   68 Lev 19:15.

   69 Col 4:1.

   70 Ps 118:14.

   71 Jn 16:33.

   72 Sir 5:2; cf. 37:27-31.

   73 Sir 18:30.

   74 Titus 2:12.

   75 St. Augustine, De moribus eccl. 1, 25, 46: PL 32, 1330-1331.

   76 Cf. 2 Pet 1:4.

   77 Cf. 1 Cor 13:13.

   78 DV 5.

   79 Rom 1:17; Gal 5:6.

   80 Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1545.

   81 Jas 2:26.

   82 LG 42; cf. DH 14.

   83 Mt 10:32-33.

   84 Heb 10:23.

   85 Titus 3:6-7.

   86 Cf. Gen 17:4-8; 22:1-18.

   87 Rom 4:18.

   88 Rom 5:5.

   89 Heb 6:19-20.

   90 1 Thess 5:8.

   91 Rom 12:12.

   92 Cf. Rom 8:28-30; Mt 7:21.

   93 Mt 10:22; cf. Council of Trent DS 1541.

   94 1 Tim 2:4.

   95 St. Teresa of Avila, Excl. 15:3.

   96 Cf. Jn 13:34.

   97 Jn 13:1.

   98 Jn 15:9, 12.

   99 Jn 15:9-10; cf. Mt 22:40; Rom 13:8-10.

   100 Rom 5:10.

   101 Cf. Mt 5:44; Lk 10:27-37; Mk 9:37; Mt 25:40, 45.

   102 1 Cor 13:4-7.

   103 1 Cor 13:1-4.

   104 1 Cor 13:13.

   105 Col 3:14.

   106 Cf. 1 Jn 4:19.

   107 St. Basil, Reg. fus. tract., prol. 3 PG 31, 896 B.

   108 St. Augustine, In ep. Jo. 10, 4: PL 35, 2057.

   109 Cf. Isa 11:1-2.

   110 PS 143:10.

   111 Rom 8:14, 17.

   112 Gal 5:22-23 (Vulg.).

   113 Cf. Lk 15.

   114 Mt 1:21.

   115 Mt 26:28.

   116 St. Augustine, Sermo 169, 11, 13: PL 38, 923.

   117 1 Jn 8-9.

   118 Rom 5:20.

   119 Rom 5:21.

   120 John Paul II, DeV 31 # 2.

   121 St. Augustine, Contra Faustum 22: PL 42, 418; St. Thomas Aquinas, STh
   I-II, 71, 6.

   122 Ps 51:4.

   123 Gen 3:5.

   124 St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 14, 28: PL 41, 436.
   125 Cf. Phil 2:6-9.

   126 Cf. Jn 14:30.

   127 Gal 5:19-21; CE Rom 1:28-32; 1 Cor 9-10; EPh 5:3-5; Col 3:5-8; 1 Tim
   9-10; 2 Tim 2-5.
   128 Mt 15:19-20.

   129 Cf. 1 Jn 16-17.

   130 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 88, 2, corp. art.

   131 RP 17 # 12.

   132 Mk 10:19.

   133 Cf. Mk 3:5-6; Lk 16:19-31.

   134 John Paul II, RP 17 # 9.

   135 St. Augustine, In ep. Jo. 1, 6: PL 35, 1982.

   136 Mk 3:29; cf. Mt 12:32; Lk 12:10.

   137 Cf. John Paul II, DeV 46.

   138 Cf. St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, 31, 45: PL 76, 621A.

   139 Cf. Gen 4:10.

   140 Cf. Gen 18:20; 19:13.

   141 Cf. Ex 3:7-10.

   142 Cf. Ex 20:20-22.

   143 Cf. Deut 24:14-15; Jas 5:4.

   144 John Paul II, RP 16.

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