Organization: The American University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Date:         Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:23:33 EST
From:         Jim McIntosh <JIM@AMERICAN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Nature of List--Fossil
              17 Nov 1992 12:06:48 GMT from <stabosz@CHOPIN.UDEL.EDU>

On Tue, 17 Nov 1992 12:06:48 GMT Rae Stabosz said:
>                                                     I am not quite
>as optimistic as you are about no need for catechism, and I find in your
>notions of sin, as you have expressed them on-line, what I am used to
>encountering on the liberal end of things, a more relative notion of
>sin than I think is appropriate, both to my experience of human frailty
>and to my reading of Church teaching.

I find this list to be a great gift, Rae, both because it brings me in
contact with people with whom I would usually not have the opportunity to
discuss things, but also because it keeps challenging me to think. Over
the last couple of days I have been reflecting on the nature of sin, and
why I feel the way I do.

I do strongly feel that each person needs to work out for themselves what
is sin for them. This needs to be done continually, and in a spirit of
prayer and study. Certainly we need to be open to the teachings of the
Church, but in the final analysis the determination of what is sin is
between each of us and God.

My problem with a checklist of sins is that many of the things I would
consider sins (for me) do not appear on the list. I've occasionally seen
guides in the back of churches, and, not to brag, but except for a couple
of catch-all sins like lust and envy, I can't find many sins on these
checklists which apply to me. I mean I don't kill, cheat or steal, and I
rarely get angry. I go to mass every chance I get, and pray the office
religiously. I'm really a very boring person. And yet, at the same time,
when I read the Sermon on the Mount, the response to the Rich Young Man,
and Matthew 25, I know I am a great sinner. At times my sins overwhelm
me. I am constantly frustrated at my inability to respond to God's call.

When I was a senior in high school I had a "conversion experience" that
changed my life forever. My soul was touched by God in a way that
transformed me. When it happened, after the moment had passed, I started
crying. I was shedding tears of grief over all the ways I had offended
God. Those offenses, though, were not "lying two times and disobeying my
mother three times", but was rather for leaving God out of my life. That
is a sin, years later, I am still trying to avoid minute by minute.

I believe in corporate sins. God, in times past, has judged whole peoples
by their actions as a group. As we talk now, this country has armed ships
cruising the waters between Florida and Haiti. The sole purpose of these
ships is to stop people, who are starving to death, from coming here and
begging us for food out of our garbage. I am a member of this society, so
I am guilty. As much as I don't speak out daily against this outrage I am
personally liable.

Other people may not consider these things sins. For them the constant
and seemingly unstopable slaughter of abortion may be a weight they feel
on their shoulders... both as a member of a society which allows such a
thing and individually for not doing all they can to stop it. Others may
see the haunted faces of the homeless or the AIDS patient and feel
similar guilt. Or maybe it's the rape of Mother Earth, or the threat of
total destruction we hold over the world by maintaining nuclear arms.

>                                       In particular, among my own
>teenages and their friends, the prevailing attitude I find is one of
>"anything goes", "if it feels good do it", and quite frankly they seem
>to be lost.  This is, of course, an indictment of sorts of my own
>raising of them.  Which makes it perhaps not transferable to the
>universal situation.  But I raised them with what I learned, in the
>post-Vatican II Church: situation ethics; relatively few hard and fast
>lines (okay, they knew that murder was wrong); a general trust in
>God and the Church, and a great freedom of conscience.

I would agree that my approach to sin would not work with the immature,
either the physically immature or the spiritually immature. The young
need firm rules. ("No! Don't touch that stove!") Certainly a catechism or
checklist would be helpful for them. When a person reaches adolescence,
however, they should rightly starting questioning rules ("If I run with
this stick, will I really put someone's eye out?"). They need to decide
for themselves what rules are valid and which rules are no longer
necessary. They need to discover new rules to govern their new
environment. This is natural. An adult who is stuck with only the rules
given to them by their parents, and who has no capacity to evaluate those
rules or generate their own standards of conduct would be sadly lacking
something important in their life.

Jim McIntosh, SFO (jim@american.edu)
The American University
Washington DC 20016-8019 USA
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic