What has Become of Sin? (Part 3 of 4) by Father Paul A. Duffner, O.P. Social Sin In the strict sense, sin is a personal act, a free and deliberate act on the part of an individual, and not of a group or community. The individual may be influenced by various external factors that might lessen to some extent his freedom and therefore his responsibility; but the Holy Father points out: The human person is free. The truth cannot be disregarded in order to place the blame for individuals’ sins on external factors such as structures, systems, or other people ... There is nothing so personal and untransferable in each individual as merit for virtue and responsibility for sin. Yet, at the same time, we can speak of social sin in the sense that practically every sin has social consequences, not only in relation to human society in which we live, but also and especially in relation to the supernatural society of which we are members - the Mystical Body of Christ. Every act of virtue helps to build up the Body of Christ, and every sin is in some way detrimental to it. Speaking of this, the Holy Father said: By virtue of a human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual’s sin in some way affects others ... 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 harm, every sin has repercussions on the en- ecclesial body and the whole human family. In this sense every sin can be considered a social sin. Yet, the Holy Father points out that while all should be conscious of the social consequences of their acts, the concept of social sin is sometimes applied today in a way that distorts the truth and leads to a watering down of personal sin, with the recognition only of social guilt and responsibility: According to this usage, he said, which can readily be seen to derive from non-Christian ideologies and systems . . practically every sin is a social sin, in the sense that blame for it is to be placed not so much on the moral conscience of the individual, but rasher on some vague entity or anonymous collectivity, such as the situation, the system, society, structures or institutions. When the Church condemns social sins, she is condemning the personal sins of those who cause or support the evil situation or exploit it. The Bishops Report The Pastoral Research Committee of the National Catholic Council of Bishops recently made a study of why the use of the sacrament of penance has so declined. The results of their study indicated that the most important factors for the disuse of the sacrament are: 1) a less dominant sense of sin; 2) a lack of clarity about the true nature of sin; 3) confusion about what is morally right or wrong; 4) disagreement with the Church’s moral teaching. We will dwell a bit on the second above-mentioned factor.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 19:24:36 +0000
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