posted
Well, at least for Catholics we have a partial answer:
quote: Defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, is among several sins that can be forgiven only at the highest level, officials said. Yet confessions of crimes the general public may consider even more serious, including genocide and serial murder, can be dealt with by local priests or bishops.
Sins that are considered so heinous by the Catholic Church that only the Pope can grant absolution include:
Defiling the Eucharist, either by spitting it out or using it in a Satanic ritual
Attempting to assassinate the Pope
As a priest, breaking the seal of confession by revealing details about a repentant sinner
As a priest, offering absolution to ones own sexual partner
Participating in an abortion, even by paying for it, and later seeking to become a priest
I guess PZ Myer and his cracker has to make the long trip to Rome. He should have wimped out and gone with the genocide Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
so if you spit out the wafer, that's harder to get forgiven than if you, like, engage on a campaign for the systematic murder of millions of people, then take off your uniform, go out and strangle people at night.
quote:Defiling the Eucharist, either by spitting it out or using it in a Satanic ritual.
It makes me wonder if it is quite this simple. I suspect that there is an unstated but understood "knowingly" and "intentionally" in that.
I can understand why Catholics would consider it an extremely serious sin for someone who believed the Eucharist to be literally the body Christ and who spit it out with the intent of defiling Christ.
Its hard to justify if it applies equally to unbelievers who it was just a cracker or believers who happen to sneeze at the wrong moment.
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posted
In the long version of the article it says this
quote:Defiling the Eucharist is one of five sins that can be dealt with only through the tribunal. Cardinal Stafford says there has been a rise in incidents of people receiving the host and spitting it out or otherwise desecrating it, sometimes in Satanic rituals.
I don't exactly know what you mean by "knowingly" and "intentionally" though, so I don't know if that helps.
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posted
Along with what The Rabbit said, it looks like it isn't a case of more or less "sinny" but whether the sin was specifically ecclesiastical in nature. Sins specifically dealing with Church issues like the Eucharist or priesthood.
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posted
I'm fairly sure there is a clause like that, The Rabbit. Sin requires intention, to the point that some theologians have said if there is no intention, there cannot possibly be a sin.
There are a couple of sins on that list that I'm pretty sure aren't there because of "seriousness" but because of a concern for regularity and proper apostolic succession. Any priest can stand in persona Christi and offer absolution for sins, but the Pope's the guy in charge of the whole mechanism for ordination, so it makes sense that he'd need to be involved in cases where there's a legal bar to ordination.
Some of the listed sins, like defiling the Eucharist, are there because they are very "sinny." Others are there because of the temporal complications they present.
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Subjective: A person is given strengths and weaknesses that are particular to him. If giving charity, suppressing anger, and general kindness come easy to him, then his reward for such activity is relatively small. His destiny is greater than such simple acts, and he must work to use his potential.
We do not applaud someone resisting the urge to break the glass of a jewelry store and make off with the goods - none of us, or most of us, do not share that desire. But we DO applaud someone resisting the urge to cheat in business, white collar crimes, because that more "refined" form of stealing is indeed a test for many.
So a great sin is dependent on the person. If resisting something should be easy for them and they do not? That is a terrible sin.
There is a tamudic saying: lefum tzara agra - according to the pain/effort is the reward. It is proportionate.
Objective: In this world when we are not always privy to knowing the weight of every subjective favor in others and even in ourselves, there are objective sins that are meant to be perceived better or worse.
The worst sin mentioned in the Talmud is: "Chilul Hashem" - or Desecration of the name.
What it means is basically a PR disaster for God. So, if an outwardly religious man, say, in a hassidic garb, commits a felony - that basically causes people to cock their heads and say to themselves: "Wow. Guess that Judaism isn't all that moral."
The Talmud explains that death itself will not cause God to grant forgiveness for that sin.
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I can see where an ecclesiastical organization may want to allow serial murderers and genocides to not require access to higher ups. Just from a practical standpoint.
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quote:The worst sin mentioned in the Talmud is: "Chilul Hashem" - or Desecration of the name.
What it means is basically a PR disaster for God. So, if an outwardly religious man, say, in a hassidic garb, commits a felony - that basically causes people to cock their heads and say to themselves: "Wow. Guess that Judaism isn't all that moral."
The Talmud explains that death itself will not cause God to grant forgiveness for that sin.
Very interesting.
My answer would be "murder and denying the Holy Ghost." That second one would be kind of similar in theory, I think.
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posted
Thinking more on Rabbit's comments on intent, here. If I were to defile the Eucharist, it would be a very, very grave thing indeed, because I believe in transubstantiation. In the eyes of the Church and in my own eyes I would be defiling God himself. While I find what Meyers did disrespectful (and honestly a little revolting), there's no way he actually believed it was Christ. In terms of sin/culpability, he's likely more guilty of disrespect or anger or pride or something... All of which is naturally irrelevant if you don't believe there's a God or any such thing as sin.
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Which leads to the question, how many practicing Catholics believe in literal transubstantiation? I know several who do, and several who don't.
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quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: Sin requires intention, to the point that some theologians have said if there is no intention, there cannot possibly be a sin.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but would another way to put that be: There is a line between temptation and sin and it can be crossed intentionally.
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posted
In the New Testament, there is the Unforgivable Sin (what exactly that sin is has been debated for a long time):
Mark 3:28-29: "What I'm about to tell you is true. Everyone's sins and evil words against God will be forgiven. But anyone who speaks evil things against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. His guilt will last forever."
Matthew 12:31-32: "So here is what I tell you. Every sin and every evil word spoken against God will be forgiven. But speaking evil things against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. A person like that won't be forgiven either now or in days to come."
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Which leads to the question, how many practicing Catholics believe in literal transubstantiation? I know several who do, and several who don't.
Depends on what you mean by "literal" when you talk about transubstantiation. It is more complicated than it seems.
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posted
I think there's a fine difference, Traceria. If someone is insane to the point where they don't know what they're doing, how can their actions be called sin? For most of us, your statement probably holds true, but there are more obscure circumstances that it wouldn't cover.
EDIT: I hate double-posting. kq, it does get a bit complicated, but I do, inasmuch as I've been able to understand what the Catechism and teachers of the Church have taught regarding it. I recognise the presence of the accidents of bread and wine, but I believe the substance or quiddity of it is body and blood.
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posted
It's interesting. Most Jews don't know what transubstantiation is but we learned a lot about it in our Jewish History class. My professor claimed that it was one of the most grievous sins in Catholicism to desecrate the host, which explained why there was so much imagery in medieval times of Jews hanging out with demons doing host desecration.
I was pretty curious about the topic and I found out that someone was trying to sell a consecrated host on ebay until Catholic protests caused them to take it down.
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quote:I recognise the presence of the accidents of bread and wine, but I believe the substance or quiddity of it is body and blood.
That is what most of the people I would say "believe in it literally" believe. That is how I understand it from what they say anyway. The others believe it is symbolic and not literal, which has always interested me because they are otherwise "good Catholics" and I always thought that was one of the main differences between the Catholics and the Protestants (although I of course could be wrong on that. )
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quote:Originally posted by Eaquae Legit: I think there's a fine difference, Traceria. If someone is insane to the point where they don't know what they're doing, how can their actions be called sin? For most of us, your statement probably holds true, but there are more obscure circumstances that it wouldn't cover.
Oh, I agree with you. Actually, I was just reading one of those MSN articles on sleep disorders that mentioned homicidal sleepwalking. Here it is. I guess it's just ONE way a person can sin, taking that step from temptation and knowlingly giving in to it. There are plenty of unintentional instances of a more obscure nature, and I also know there have been times over the years where I (not suffering a sleep disorder) didn't realize until after the fact that I'd done something wrong.
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posted
Are those really extra-sinful sins or is this like the difference between a state crime (most murders) and a federal crime (mail fraud)?
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quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: Are those really extra-sinful sins or is this like the difference between a state crime (most murders) and a federal crime (mail fraud)?
Disclaimer: This is a really awful example.
To me, it'd be something akin to the difference between a premeditated murder and one of passion.
But like I said, really bad example, though kind of along those lines.
In fact, I'm going to critique that right here. premeditated murder, definitely BAD and an intentional sin. A sin you might feel convicted of after the fact would be more like...hm... It's Friday afternoon and I can't seem to think of anything. Basically, you realize later what you did was wrong.
Edit: Okay, in finally getting some thoughts together, an unintentional sin could be one that stems from anger, more specifically, allowing it go too far. You act rashly, and then you catch yourself and realize you've overreacted. Stolen shameless from this summary : In a tantrum because Jo and Meg will not let her accompany them to the theater with Laurie, Amy burns the book Jo has been writing. Jo is furious and unforgiving until Amy follows her to ice skate with Laurie and falls through the ice because Jo did not caution her. Jo is ashamed and forgives her sister while resolving to control her anger..
posted
Shigosei, I think that your example is a very good one for the kinds of sins the article was listing. Another example would be the difference between regular courts and military courts martial.
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posted
It is my understanding that the term "literal" is very important to catholics and that priests are not supposed give the eucharist to anyone who does not believe in the literal transubstantiation.
The use of the word literal is not optional, but it seems that its definition is quite fluid. Literal need not be understood to mean a scientific physical transformation of bread into flesh and the wine into blood.
Its my understanding that this is one of the great mysteries and that trying to define what is meant by "literal transubstantiation" in a way that replaces them with other words is considered a form of heresy. None the less, I think most Catholics do try to understand what it means.
Here is what I have gleaned from several conversations on the subject.
Taking the Eucharist is not solely a symbolic act, it has literal miraculous power that can transform a person.
By taking the Eucharist one becomes one with Christ in a way that is not merely symbolic.
In so far as these are accurate representations of the "literal transubstantiation", they are consistent with my views as a latter-day saint even though we would never use the words literal or transubstantiation.
As a Latter-Day-Saint, I would say that our "sacrament" is not just a symbolic act, it is a priesthood ordinance that has the miraculous power to transform us. I would say that partaking of the Sacrament helps bring me closer to being one with my Jesus Christ in a way that can be considered miraculous and powerful.
I'm not trying to say that my belief is identical to the Catholic belief. I recognize that the actually word "literal" and "transubstantiation" are very important in Catholicism. I'm just saying that when you dig into it, our beliefs are not as far apart as they might initially seem.
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posted
The Rabbit, I would agree with that with the addition of the concept of "presence". Catholics believe that Christ is present in the Eucharist. Of course, then we must define "present"...
I wouldn't say that transubstantiation is one of the bigger differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Especially not now.
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posted
I once said that the Holy Spirit can go to hell (is that even possible?), and well, there I said it again just now, so really being an atheist is the only logical road, as I'm irrevocably bound for hell if Christianity is right Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Which leads to the question, how many practicing Catholics believe in literal transubstantiation? I know several who do, and several who don't.
I think a lot of them do, actually. I know my husband does, much of his family and mine do, many of our friends in the church (not that we've polled them all)...
For devout Catholics it's not much of a leap. A lot of people make light of this sacrament but it is a core belief for Catholics -- which is why I stopped taking the Eucharist when I stopped believing in it. It's a matter of respect.
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I'm a Mormon raised Catholic who still believes in transubstantiation. Actually "still" isn't really accurate because during most of my adult life I was an atheist. But somehow when I became religious again, that came back to me from my childhood Catholicism, and I still like to go to mass occasionally and take communion there.
I don't think there's any harm in it. To me, Catholicism was like my grade school and atheism was my high school and college, but becoming a Latter-day Saint was like a post-graduate degree. You don't repudiate your earlier knowledge when you get more. You just deepen and broaden it. It's not necessary to exclude it. That's how it's working for me. YMMV.
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posted
I'm not technically Catholic yet(I will be as of Easter this year), but I'm pretty sure that article is confusing absolution and excommunication.
The explanation I was reading by the priest over at Catholic Answers (catholic.com) clarified it a little better. It's not that those sins are so bad they can only be forgiven by the pope. It's that sins such as defiling the Eucharist, procuring an abortion, etc, incur an automatic excommunication that can only be lifted by the pope. In other words, you can't receive any further sacraments until you've gone through that tribunal. A man can be ordained as a priest before that excommunication is lifted- but he's automatically placed in a state of suspension- not allowed to offer mass, amongst other things, until he's had the excommunication lifted. The best explanation of this I've heard is over at "What does that prayer really say?" a priest's blog. He's got one article on the first page, http://wdtprs.com/blog/, and one on the second.
As far as "intent" is concerned, it's one of the ways to tell if a sin is mortal or venial. For a sin to be mortal, there must be grave matter(example, killing someone), deliberate consent(you meant to kill them when you performed the act), and full knowledge(you had to KNOW it was mortal sin). For example, killing in self-defense isn't mortal sin. Neither is killing someone when you're forced to do it, or killing someone in your sleep. ALL THREE requirements must be there for it to be mortal sin.
So, as far as Dr. Myers is concerned, it's mortal sin... but he's not been excommunicated, because he was never a part of the church to begin with. So, that tribunal wouldn't really have anything to do with him, I'm pretty sure, unless he wanted to enter the church or be ordained(I'm not certain about that last part.)
Again, I'm not Catholic yet, and this is just my understanding, so I could be wrong, and would be happy to be corrected by other, older, wiser Catholics.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: It is my understanding that the term "literal" is very important to catholics and that priests are not supposed give the eucharist to anyone who does not believe in the literal transubstantiation.
Well if you follow all the vatican rules, a sizable majority of American catholics are not supposed to be given eucharist.
I mean, for example, if you aren't supposed to give it to people who have sex outside of marriage and/or are okay with having sex outside of marriage, that's about half of american catholics right there. If you're not supposed to give it to people who take birth control or are okay with birth control, that's .. what, 80%? 85%?
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posted
It's not that priests "aren't supposed to give it to them." It's not the priest's responsibility to make sure only those who are in a state of grace are receiving the Eucharist- that falls on the person doing the receiving. Priests can't possibly be expected to know by looking that a certain parishioner thinks abortion is okay, for example. Those who are receiving who shouldn't (who are either not in a state of grace, or not a member of a church in full communion with the church of Rome), have the responsibility of making sure they're absolved of those sins beforehand. And they should know what all that entails. If they receive without being in a state of grace due to mortal sin, then that's another mortal sin on their shoulders, and I'm pretty sure is one of those things that entails automatic excommunication- defiling the Eucharist by receiving unworthily.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I once said that the Holy Spirit can go to hell (is that even possible?), and well, there I said it again just now, so really being an atheist is the only logical road, as I'm irrevocably bound for hell if Christianity is right
You're fine if Mormonism is right. Denying the Holy Ghost, according to us, requires that you know you've received revelation through the Holy Ghost but lie about it and actively work to lead others astray.
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"You're fine if Mormonism is right. Denying the Holy Ghost, according to us, requires that you know you've received revelation through the Holy Ghost but lie about it and actively work to lead others astray."
This is sufficiently narrow a definition that it means that the guilty probably wouldn't have wanted salvation anyway.
So it's got that going for it. Which is nice.
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posted
You make all that sound like a legal issue, and catholics are not muslims. In fact the eucharist is and is not the body of christ (read Pascal), like Christ was a man and God, not half of each.. One could say it's sophistical, but i prefer thinking that it deals with paradox, therefore a more complex truth. Coming back to the point, it's not ours to judge which sins are worse; in any case you won't get away with your sins by thinking like a lawyer, that's all you need to know. Excuse a frenchman's english and have a good day gentlemen
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quote:Originally posted by Tinros: It's not that priests "aren't supposed to give it to them." It's not the priest's responsibility to make sure only those who are in a state of grace are receiving the Eucharist- that falls on the person doing the receiving. Priests can't possibly be expected to know by looking that a certain parishioner thinks abortion is okay, for example. Those who are receiving who shouldn't (who are either not in a state of grace, or not a member of a church in full communion with the church of Rome), have the responsibility of making sure they're absolved of those sins beforehand. And they should know what all that entails. If they receive without being in a state of grace due to mortal sin, then that's another mortal sin on their shoulders, and I'm pretty sure is one of those things that entails automatic excommunication- defiling the Eucharist by receiving unworthily.
Ok, so according to this, instead of priests not supposed to be giving the eucharist to X% of catholics here, its instead that X% of catholics here are worthy of automatic excommunication when they participate in communion.
This number is hypothetically between 50 and 85.
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For Mormonism, to deny the Holy Ghost is a very serious sin that demands more than a slip into bad judgment. It is an active process of direct rebellion. There is lots of discussion about how much knowledge you have to have, but you do need a Spiritual Witness of significant degree. Although there has been some attempts to point out who in Scripture might qualify (Cain for sure and Judas most likely), it is such a serious offense that no human qualifies to make a judgment. Regardless of what some anti-Mormons and even a few Mormons might say, excommunication for apostasy is NOT the same thing.
As the LDS Doctrine and Covenants says; Sin against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable in this life or the next. Although "to murder innocent blood" has been interpreted as murder as the unpardonable sin, I believe in context it is refering to Jesus Christ. It is to bring Jesus Christ to open shame and crucify him again.
I bring this up only because Mormonism has considered this topic in detail. Seeing another Christian faith's view on the subject as more than a curiosity is interesting.
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posted
Pretty much, Samprimary, though I'd question those figures until I saw actual statistics polling ONLY Catholics, instead of the "X% of Americans believe Y" ones that I always see. Priests are only guilty if they KNOW someone shouldn't be receiving the sacrament and they give it to them anyway.
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posted
Who is playing the "possem," anyway? Pixiest? It alternately sounds like Blayne, Thor, and T:man- some sort of amalgam parody of all of them, or a new breed of one trick pony (or one trick possem).
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quote:Originally posted by Tinros: Pretty much, Samprimary, though I'd question those figures until I saw actual statistics polling ONLY Catholics, instead of the "X% of Americans believe Y" ones that I always see. Priests are only guilty if they KNOW someone shouldn't be receiving the sacrament and they give it to them anyway.
hmm, well, three-quarters of Catholics support requiring health insurance plans to cover birth control pills. (http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/news/pr/2008/documents/executivesummary.pdf). About 85% simply do not agree with the vatican's standpoint on birth control and are okay with condoms, pill, whatever.
with doctors it's even higher. 87% of catholic doctors would prescribe the pill and 93% support the promotion of condoms, especially in places like africa, to halt the spread of aids.
I don't know the figures on ordaining women and allowing priests to marry but I think both are over 60%.
I also thought this was interesting.
quote:The late Pope John Paul II in 1968 restated the Catholic Church's doctrine on the issue, saying that "every marriage must remain open to the transmission of human life" and that all forms of contraception are intrinsically evil. However, more than 75% of U.S. Catholics believe the church should allow the use of contraception, according to a recent Gallup poll (Roylance, Baltimore Sun, 4/10). Because U.S. Catholics tend to abide by the values they consider most important and "quietly ignor[e]" church teachings with which they disagree, many U.S. Catholics use birth control regularly, the New York Times reports (Murphy/Banerjee, New York Times, 4/11). In addition, Italy -- which is 97% Catholic -- has the lowest birth rate in all of Europe, and that rate has declined since 1978, when John Paul II became pope, according to the Sun (Baltimore Sun, 4/10).
posted
Unless you go with the theory that hell is the absence of God. In that case once the Holy Spirit shows up it ceases to be hell.
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That is how I understand it from what they say anyway. The others believe it is symbolic and not literal, which has always interested me because they are otherwise "good Catholics" and I always thought that was one of the main differences between the Catholics and the Protestants (although I of course could be wrong on that. 
