Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian English Spanish Portuguese

Dear Father Angelo,
Praise be Jesus Christ.

I would like to turn your attention to two issues related to sin and grace. Please, follow my reasoning.
We know that grace dwells in everyone and particularly operates in those who are compliant with it.

Therefore the one who sins excludes grace and the one who mortally sins gets completely out of it and also loses the state of grace.
However, it is also true that the Church teaches us that, due to immaturity and unconsciousness, the guilt for the sin decreases to almost zero, as in children.

Therefore, in this case even if a child or an unconscious person commits a gravely immoral act, it is not possible to attribute any guilt for such sin.
So, I will ask: in the event that the guilt for an immoral act is minimal or absent due to unconsciousness, does not the sinner lose the state of grace or does he lose it anyway?

Besides, I will ask you: in the case that a man commits a sin (grave matter), for example adultery, but without being totally conscious of the gravity of the sin or he is too immature to realise it, in this particular case, though the sin is immoral and mortal, would it not be so due to his ignorance or would it be equally so with the result of losing the state of grace?

Moreover, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states with regard to masturbation: “To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability” (CCC 2352).
It is said here that the culpability for such a grave sin can be minimized in some situations.

Now I wonder: if it is so, then it is wrong to say that a sin is mortal or venial, because it depends on the person who commits it and on his intentions. For me, for example, to commit masturbation would be a mortal sin, for another it would be a venial sin due to immaturity.

So I think, tell me if I’m wrong, that no immoral act is in itself mortal or venial, but it becomes so because of the person who performs it and the situation. If committing impure acts is in itself a grossly immoral and disorderly act and as such it is a mortal sin for which you lose your state of grace, then I don’t understand why the guilt is reduced for some and therefore grace is not withdrawn from them.

If an act, even immoral, in order to become a mortal sin must have as a prerequisite the total awareness of the person who commits it, (CCC 1859), then no immoral act is in itself a mortal or venial sin, but becomes so according to the sinner.

So committing impure acts is immoral but it is not certain that it is a mortal sin, because if an unconscious person commits them, then this sin is not considered mortal, but only venial.

Likewise, committing murder is a grave act, but it is not necessarily a mortal sin, for example if it is committed by a man who had no intention while driving a car, right or wrong?

I thank you and admire you.
Kind and affectionate greetings,

Paolo 


Priest’s answer 

Dear Paolo,
1. To commit a grave or mortal sin it is necessary that three conditions are always present: the grave matter, the full awareness of the mind and the deliberate consent of the will. 

2. If the matter is grave, but the one performing that act is not fully aware of what he is doing or does not have sufficient control over himself, the sin remains grave from an objective point of view, but may be less imputable or completely innocent from a subjective point of view.

3. Of course, the disposition of the subject is always decisive in verifying the responsibility of the act. However, the expression you hypothesized: “a sin is mortal or venial, because it depends on the person who commits it and on his intentions” is not correct because it does not highlight the first element, the gravity of the matter. 

4. However, the following formulation seems more correct to me: from an objective point of view it is a grave sin, while from a subjective point of view there may be a decrease in responsibility.
For example: if a child of four or five years of age blasphemes, what he said is blasphemy, the subject of which is always grave. From a subjective point of view, on the other hand, the child is guiltless because he lacks full awareness of the mind and dominion over the will. 

5. You present the case of adultery and say: “if one is not fully aware of the seriousness of the sin or is too immature to understand”… I don’t know if such cases can occur because there are some actions that immediately, as soon as the mind wakes up (therefore children who have not yet reached the use of reason are excluded), it perceives the moral principles of action by itself and understands without particular reasoning whether an action is good or bad.
Such, for example, is murder. And it seems to me that something like this can also be said of adultery. Only a serious mental deficit can diminish or completely eliminate the moral responsibility of those who carry out such an action.

6. About homicide you say: “committing homicide is a grave act, but it is not necessarily a mortal sin, for example if the man who commits it had no intention while driving a car”. To be more precise, I would say: committing a murder is always objectively a grave sin. For subjective responsibility it will be necessary to evaluate the dispositions of the subject (full awareness of the mind and deliberate consent of the will) and the circumstances.

7. Regarding a specific question you asked me: if one objectively commits a grave sin but subjectively there are elements that diminish one’s moral responsibility, one does not lose the state of grace.

I bless you, I wish you all good and assure you of my remembrance in prayer. 
Father Angelo