From A Catechism For Adults, page 27. "Sin is any thought, word, desire, action or neglect forbidden by the Law of God. To be guilty of sin, I must realize that I am breaking God's Law and I must freely choose to do it.
There are two kinds of sin, mortal sin, which is a big sin and venial sin, which is a small sin. (I John 5:16 is cited, but the Douay Bible footnote on that verse says, `The difference cannot be the same as betwixt sins that are called mortal and venial, for it says you can't pray for mortal sin, or sin unto death.')
"Some mortal sins are: refusing to accept all of God's teaching, never praying, telling serious lies, not going to Mass on Sundays or Holydays of Obligation, getting very drunk, killing an unborn child in the womb , all sins of sex, stealing something expensive. Mortal sin kills the grace in my soul. If I die with a mortal sin on my
soul, I will be sent to Hell forever. Venial sins: telling small lies, being impatient, ordinary anger, stealing something cheap, speaking or thinking unkindly of others, getting slightly drunk. If I do something wrong but through no fault of my own do not know that it is wrong, I am not guilty of sin. For example, I can eat meat on Friday, forgetting, through no fault of my own, that it is Friday. In such a case, I am not guilty of sin."
From Why Attend Sunday Mass? by John O'Brien, p. 1. "Take their attendance at Mass on Sunday. They are obliged under pain of mortal sin to attend."
From A Catechism For Adults, page 28. "If I do something wrong but am not certain whether it is a mortal or a venial sin, I commit a mortal sin because I show myself willing to offend God seriously. For example, I do not know whether it is a mortal or venial sin to eat too much. I am guilty of mortal sin if I go ahead and eat too much even if later on I find out that it is only a venial sin."
POST VATICAN II
From St. Peter's Catechism, p. 21. "Scripture says that mortal sin is like crucifying Christ again and holding Him up to contempt (Hebrews 6:6). To make a sin mortal three conditions are necessary: Grave matter, sufficient knowledge and full consent. Venial sin is a sin in which one of the three conditions for mortal sin is absent."
CHRISTIAN COMMENT
From Roman Catholicism by Lorraine Boettner "The Roman Catholic Church divides all sin into two classes, making an important and elaborate distinction between so-called `mortal' and `venial' sins. Mortal, sin is described as "any great offense against the law of God, and is so called because it is deadly, killing the soul and subjecting it to eternal punishment. Even after a penitent has received pardon a large but unknown amount of punishment remains to be expiated in purgatory.
"Venial sins, on the other hand, are `small and pardonable offenses against God, or our neighbor.' Technically, venial sins need not be confessed since they are comparatively light and can be expiated by good works, prayer, extreme unction, purgatory, etc. But the priests are not to be outdone by this technicality. The terms are quite elastic, and permit considerable leeway on the part of those who want to probe more deeply into the affairs of the penitent. It is generally advised that it is safer to
confess supposed venial sins also, since the priest alone is able to judge accurately which are mortal and which are venial. The Baltimore Catechism (written, of course, by priests) says: `When we have committed no mortal sins since our last confession, we should confess our venial sins or some sin told in a previous confession for which we are again sorry, in order that the priest may give us absolution' (page 329). What chance has a poor sinner against such a system as that?
"There is no agreement among the priests as to which sins are mortal and which are venial. But they all proceed on the assumption that such a distinction does exist. What is venial according to one may be mortal according to another. If the pope were infallible in matters of faith and practice, as claimed by the Roman Church, he should be able to settle this important matter by accurately cataloging those sins which are mortal distinguished from those which are venial. But such a list no pope has ever been able to produce. Instead what they have is an elaborate system of compromise which is designed to promote the authority of the church and to give a considerable amount of leeway to the priest as to what seems expedient in individual cases.
"Among mortal sins, however, are those committed in breaking the ten commandments, together with the so-called `seven deadly sins'; pride, covetousness, lechery (lust, lewdness), anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. Included are practically all sexual offences, whether in thought, word or deed, and a long list of transgressions down to attending a Protestant church, reading a Protestant Bible, or missing mass on Sunday without a good excuse (which means that considerably more than half of the claimed Roman Catholic membership throughout the world is constantly in mortal
sin). Sometimes violations of the rules of the church are treated as mortal sins, while transgressions of the commandments of God are treated as venial sins. All mortal sins must be confessed to the priest in detail or they cannot be forgiven. The theory is that the priest must have all the facts in order to know how to deal with the case and what penance to assign. The real reason, of course, is to place the penitent more fully in the hands of the priest.
"But the Bible makes no such distinction between mortal and venial sins. There is in fact no such thing as venial sin. All sin is mortal. It is true that some sins are worse than others. But it is also true that all sins, if not forgiven, bring death to the soul, with greater or lesser punishments as they may deserve. The Bible simply says, `The wages of sin is death' (Romans 6:23) and there Paul was not speaking of any particular kind of sin, but all sin. Ezekiel says, `The soul that sinneth, it shall die' (18:4). When James said, `For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble at one point, he is become guilty of all' (2:10), he meant, not that the person who commits one sin is guilty of all other kinds of sin, but that even one sin unrepented shuts a person out of heaven and subjects him to punishment, just as surely as one puncture of the eyeball subjects a person to blindness, or as one misstep by a mountain climber plunges him to
destruction in the canyon below. In the light of these statements, the distinction between mortal and venial sins is shown to be arbitrary and absurd.
CATHOLIC JOURNALS
From Columbia, May 1990. In an article The Forgiveness of our Sins by the late Archbishop John Whealon, he says, "The New Testament gives a distinction between a mortal and a venial sin." However, he never cites chapter and verse.
SECULAR JOURNALS
From Rocky Mountain News, 11/16/92. "The church identifies new sins. Thou shalt not evade taxes, thou shalt not fiddle with the company books, thou shalt not engage in genetic manipulation, thou shalt not drive while drunk.
"These are some modern applications of the Ten Commandments found in the Roman Catholic Church's new Universal Catechism...
"The catechism restates traditional sin such as killing, adultery and idolatry, but also brings the church up to date with temptations of the modern world...
Prostitution and suicide remain sins, but the new catechism acknowledges that people may be driven to them by desperation or particularly cruel social circumstances."
