I just love your rationalistic outlook Brian which allows you to deny reported facts without even needing to look out the window - based purely on your untested apriori certainties. Like those generations of philosophy lecturers who berated obviously stupid farmboys in their classes who dared to suggest Aristotle got it wrong when he stated somewhere that horses had x number of teeth. Good to see you have turned my posts back on.
Actually no, this is a new account so I never got around to turning any posts off. Given your nonsense here though, thanks for the reminder. Bye.
Brian I was well aware this was the reason. I was curious to see how pedantic you are prepared to be to make sure others know of your contempt when they disagree on your somewhat 2D takes on reality. Sadly you exceeded my expectations.
I suppose Guestmaster is the modern word for the ancient role of Porter, the keeper of the Monastery door. He is the one responsible for saying who stays and who goes and provisioning guests with food and shelter. You may know that the older orders have a "vow" of looking after strangers and pilgrims for in entertaining them one may unknowingly be succouring Christ himself. Unfortunately the Trappists are low on numbers so committed live-in lay persons assist now. Such a one provided the advice I related above, perhaps inaccurately, perhaps not. It may well reflect ancient Benedictine practice. The Church has many ancient schools of thought, not just the politically correct Roman one you and I know so well. As for your comments re mortal sin. You are mistaken because you still seem to have the simp!istic understanding that we learnt in primary school. Surely you are capable of something a little more 3D and substantial now!
I am wondering how hard it is for a non-Catholic to commit a mortal sin as we Catholics understand it. Even for many Catholics it must be hard to commit such a sin. First of all you have to know it is a sin. Then you have do know it is mortal; that without repentance and forgiveness it puts you in hell, then with this knowledge you have to deliberately go ahead and commit it anyway, with complete disregard of God's will. How does this relate to non-Catholic Christians, those with little or no knowledge of the Catholic Catechism. With regard to Communion they would depend on their idea of what unworthy meant.....or the guidance of a so called guestmaster. Are non-catholic Christians bound to attend church on a Sunday under pain of mortal sin? I think not. What about non-Catholic denominations that teach divorce is O.K. Are their followers to blame and if not are they really capable of mortal sin. These are genuine questions.
Sorry about that Mac. You are an intelligent and articulate guy. I just find it hard to understand how you get tripped up like this. Objective mortal sin is simply neutral grave matter. Most of us can see that without full and internalised knowledge/understanding such grave matter is no more mortal or sinful than the, for example, killings or promiscuity that is widespread in the rest of the animal kingdom in which we dwell.
So someone who has no idea what constitutes unworthy reception of communion cannot commit the mortal sin this entails?
You ask curly ones Joe. Need to unpack this a little I think. First up I am not 100% certain that unworthy reception of Communion is always grave matter. Like stealing it may admit "parvity of matter" (ie smallness of matter) dependent on actual circumstances. Off the cuff I am not sure what unworthy reception actually consists in. Giving public scandal by receiving (even if in a state of grace) seems to rank high on the list (even remarried couples living as brother and sister may not receive if their situation is well known in the service). In the interior consciousness one of course is banned by Church discipline from reception if one is conscious of having engaged in some unconfessed grave matter whether imputable (true personal mortal sin) or not (objective mortal "sin" only). Ideally one should receive without venial sins but that is usually taken care of by the Confiteor, Lamb of God or personal act of contrition on the way up to Communion. However I do not believe failure to do so through inattention constitutes serious disrespect. Lastly I suppose one's behaviour, dress, psychological presence and recollection has some bearing also. I would find it hard to accept that non-Catholics are incapable of intuiting for themselves what basic respect is required when receiving God in Communion if they have the basic understanding that they are receiving God Himself, as one would a noble King, into the temple of their own body. Even my "Buddhist" wife understands what that means.
I like St Paul and Aquinas (and the CCC) approach on this Joe. Morality derives from natural law and can be discerned from the natural creation by right reason. This is the "system" of cardinal virtues (and corresponding vices). Direct knowledge of God is not required. In fact Aquinas goes so far as to say that even Christians can sin mortally without consciousness or realisation they are in fact deeply offending God. They may even think they are serving God.
Surely sin is be measured not by the one committing it but by the one offended by it. God is Righteous and Holy. Nothing unholy, stained by sin can come into His presence. Repentance is key. Sorrow for offending God calls down His mercy. Ignorance is no excuse in the presence of holiness.
Yes it can be Garabandal. The CCC and Church tradition does not see this statement as an absolute. You would be correct if speaking of angels - but not humans outside of Eden. Was Oedipus (lets presume he was a Christian to keep it simple) for example committing incest or the marriage act? And if the former was it in any way imputable? If it was not imputable then it is not incompatible with God's Holiness by all accounts. However it was still incest and still grave matter and still disordered. But not sinful in the true sense of that word - most would simply call it a non imputable transgression.
If an offence occurs than it is an offence and even pagans can see when they have offended someone. Most children over the age of 4 and those intellectually disabled know right from wrong, it dosen't take an Einstein How grave is a different matter. In Hebrews we read that since Jesus entered the world and accomplished our redemption, we no longer need the law! because right and wrong will be written on our hearts!, and for all those who have heard the good news of Christs death and resurrection, no matter if they adhere to it or not, it is now written on their hearts and they do know right from wrong.
That's the problem with your theological position BH. It can justify even pederasty, bestiality, homosexuality and pedophilia. They can be classed as not 'sinful in the true sense of the word' but as non imputable transgressions.
When Jesus said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" it tells us that ignorance mitigates their sin: for=because. So Jesus is using ignorance as grounds for forgiveness but not as an excuse for sin nor does it exonerate the gulity. The charge stands. The guilty verdict stands. The offence is forgiven and the sentence considers the circumstances in which the offense was committed. His words tell us they have still sinned despite their ignorance otherwise they would not need forgiveness. There is mystery here that is too deep for me so if my thoughts are wrong please correct me.
G you are confusing two different orders of disordered activity. God is offended only by evils in the human heart - which are normally expressed by the body (and sometimes only in the mind). Evils in the order of the body only are not offensive to God, they are therefore not rightly called personal sins. Sometimes we act unthinkingly or in total ignorance or under compulsion. In those cases the human heart is minimally involved even though the body may do things that externally look like grave sins. Think of an oil tanker with the engines on and another one with the engines suddenly cut off. The ships still keep moving together and look the same - yet "nobody is home" as it were in one of them. Some alleged "sins" are like that. Because the human heart is not fully engaged (or not even there at all sometimes) they are not true sins, just "material sins" or "transgressions" or "non imputable sins". Yes we may call both "sins" in colloquial religious talk but moral theologians would not. Only one is true sin. In Catholic Moral Theology 101 we distinguish between "human acts" and "the acts of a man" (eg sleep walking) for the same reason. Or as Jesus put it, it is not what comes out of the anus that defiles a man but what comes out of the mouth. For what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. What comes from the anus only comes from the body. (Cf Mt 15:17-20). (Excuse the graphic précis but that is what the Gospel is saying in polite terms) Obviously pederasty, bestiality, homosexuality and pedophilia are still grave matter and serious disorders. That does NOT mean every single actual case is also a personal mortal sin that kills sanctifying grace in the soul of the perpetrator. The transgression may not be imputable for a variety of reasons. Noone is suggesting such perpetrators should not be locked up in either a jail or a hospital. But being locked out of heaven...that's a different matter that is not for us to judge. To deny this is heresy.
Joe I am not fully sure about this one. Yes some form of forgiveness is required and some form of guilt is present. But it is only the order of the body not of the heart. God looks to the heart and sins of the heart are not just quantitatively worse but qualitatively worse. If the heart is not involved then its not "sin" in its deepest sense.
