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Question

Hello.

I’m the one who told you he had been reading Saint Gregory’s Moralia. 

I’ve heard a priest on the bishops’ TV channel who described the Act of Contrition as a “terrible prayer”, “a prayer that is by no means Christian, because God cannot be offended and, most of all, because God does not chastise anyone. Jesus has come to reveal another kind of God: a Father”. 

My question is: is this a punishment sent from God? I allude to the fact that we have characters (priests?) like this one who pontificate on TV (what is more, on the Italian bishops’ TV channel – which, thank God, nobody watches, but that’s another story), spreading heresies far and wide and with impunity. Be genuine (it is clear that it is a punishment from God, I just wanted to… tempt you, maybe… who knows!). 

By the way, do you like the shoes worn by this so-called priest in this video? I think they are Hogan shoes, but I’m not an expert in this field. 

The priest’s answer

Dear,

  1. I am sorry about what that priest said on the bishops’ TV channel, namely that sin is not an offense given to God.  It is true that whoever sins harms him/herself, but at the same time s/he does two more things: s/he continues to crucify Jesus and causes damage to the mystical body of Christ that is the Church. 
  2. Sin harms whoever commits it: I have repeated this many times on this website, reminding first and foremost what the Sacred Scripture says: “he who strays […] sins against his own life” (Sir 19:4). Furthermore, this is what John Paul II affirms in Reconciliatio et paenitentia: “”[Sin] is therefore a suicidal act” (RP 15). Clearly, we are talking about mortal sin. I have also remembered what Saint Augustine said: “death is the effect of the curse, and all sin is cursed” (Contra Faustum, 14,4), which means that sin is a kind of curse that one puts on oneself. Finally, I have mentioned that Saint Thomas quotes this statement and makes it his own (Summa theologiae, III, 46,4, ad 3). 
  3. Let me report John Paul II’s entire quotation: “As a rupture with God, sin is an act of disobedience by a creature who rejects, at least implicitly, the very one from whom he came and who sustains him in life. It is therefore a suicidal act. Since by sinning man refuses to submit to God, his internal balance is also destroyed and it is precisely within himself that contradictions and conflicts arise. Wounded in this way, man almost inevitably causes damage to the fabric of his relationship with others and with the created world. This is an objective law and an objective reality, verified in so many ways in the human psyche and in the spiritual life as well as in society, where it is easy to see the signs and effects of internal disorder” (RP 15).
  4. It is so because by sinning man causes damage to himself (“his internal balance is also destroyed and it is precisely within himself that contradictions and conflicts arise”), he inflicts a punishment on himself. Punishment is intrinsic to the act that one commits. We use an anthropomorphic, yet true, language, when we say: “I detest all my sins because of thy just punishments”.
  5. But it is also true that sin gives offence to God. Are not Jesus’s passion and death the gravest offence caused to Him?  And Jesus is God made flesh, is He not? The Epistle to the Hebrews says: “[Those who] have fallen away […] are recrucifying the Son of God for themselves and holding him up to contempt”. Contempt is an offence, is it not?
  6. Let us take as an example a quite widespread sin: blasphemy. Is not insulting God an offence to Him? Besides, the very word “blasphemy” derives from the Greek “blapto”, which means “to slap”. What is slapping if not a way to humiliate another person? 
  7. Of course, sins, even all the sins of the world put together, do not reduce divine perfection at all. This notwithstanding, they cause offense to God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “Sin is an offense against God: ‘Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight’. Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become ‘like gods’, knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus ‘love of oneself even to contempt of God’. In this proud self-exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation” (CCC art. 1850).
  8. Therefore, here is the Church’s doctrine about sin. Sin is an offense against God, a disobedience, a revolt, contempt of God. 
  9. The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes on: “It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal – so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly” (CCC 1851).
  10. If we position ourselves in front of the Crucified Jesus we immediately see what sin is: it is murderous hatred, shunning, mockery, cowardice, cruelty, betrayal, denial, flight. And what is all this: a praise or an offense to God?
  11. Not to mention what the Lord has stated concerning the Last Judgement, when it will be said to the damned: “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me” (Matt 25:45). This means that every offense caused to our neighbour is an offense given to the Lord. 
  12. Finally, besides harming Jesus’s physical body (the cross) and causing damage to whoever commits it, sin always causes an offense against society and against the Church. In Reconciliatio et Paenitentia John Paul II affirms: “each individual’s sin in some way affects others. This is the other aspect of that solidarity which on the religious level is developed in the profound and magnificent mystery of the communion of saints, thanks to which it has been possible to say that “every soul that rises above itself, raises up the world.” To this law of ascent there unfortunately corresponds the law of descent. Consequently one can speak of a communion of sin, whereby a soul that lowers itself through sin drags down with itself the church and, in some way, the whole world. In other words, there is no sin, not even the most intimate and secret one, the most strictly individual one, that exclusively concerns the person committing it. With greater or lesser violence, with greater or lesser harm, every sin has repercussions on the entire ecclesial body and the whole human family” (RP 16).
  13. Sin, therefore, always implies a threefold offense: against God, against s/he who commits it and against the community. As such,  it does not cause damage to God Himself, but only to the sinner and to society. Despite this, it is still an offense against God, His wisdom and His love. 
  14. This is my reply.  You might say: my question was whether or not that priest is a punishment sent from God because of the “heresies” that he propagates with impunity on the bishops’ TV. You also ask other questions I do not answer because I am less of an expert than you are; but maybe they do not need to be answered.  
  15. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to correct what has been said on the TV channel of the Italian Episcopal Conference. One regrets that maybe nobody takes care of correcting and repairing the damage caused to so many people, who end up being confused and damaged. 

I wish you all the best, I remember you to the Lord in prayer and I bless you.

Father Angelo

Translated by Alessandra N

Proofread by Tom