A book titled The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sin as “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods.”
But in the Catholic faith, there are two measures of sin that determine its severity. A venial sin is considered a lesser offense that requires only personal confession between the penitent and God. Catholics believe that mortal sin is sin of a grave matter with certain conditions fulfilled which require confession with a priest.
Although this is true, Catholics are encouraged to go to confession often even if they only have venial sins to help keep the conscience strong and the propensity for unintentional offenses lower. Catholic Moral Theology teaches that regular confession gives believers grace to recognize faults with greater ease and become more likely to avoid occasions of sin.
What Determines a Venial Sin?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that sin and virtue are compared to the works of the flesh and the works of the spirit. The works of the flesh are considered obvious and include “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like,” according to Galatians 5:19-21.
Venial sin is less serious in nature than a mortal sin and its conditions can be met when someone doesn’t observe the standard of moral law, but the matter or intent is not of a serious nature.
However, Catholics believe that even venial sin weakens charity in the Christian and creates a disordered attraction for worldly pleasures. As a result, this slows the believer’s progress in the attainment of virtue and in the practice of what is called moral good. This is why even venial sin must be considered and confessed in prayer and the Sacrament of Penance in order to prevent the Catholic from becoming more prone to more serious occasions of sin.
What Determines a Mortal Sin?
According to The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a sin can only be mortal when three conditions are met. Those conditions cannot be met unless they involve grave matter, committed with full knowledge of the gravity of the matter and what is termed deliberate consent.
Grave matter can be defined by inquiring into the Ten Commandments with the prohibitions including that of murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, defrauding another and the dishonoring of mother and father.
In Catholic Moral Theology, unintentional ignorance diminishes the fault but the Magisterium teaches that the moral law is written in the conscience of every human being.
Although for an act to be deemed mortal, it requires full knowledge, complete consent and it presupposes knowledge of the sin before its commission.
The practice of the virtues is necessary in learning to avoid venial and mortal sin. The virtues are broken down into the Cardinal Virtues and the Theological Virtues. These are discussed in great detail in Moral Theology.
Sources:
- A Catholic Dictionary, by William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, M.A.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church.
- Moral Theology, by Reverend Heribert Jone and Reverend Urban Adelman.
- The Three Ages of the Interior Life, by Father Reginald Garrigou Lagrange.
