Should the Circumstances Under Which Catholics Can Take Communion be Expanded?

Open Heart

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I think we should be in a state of grace (no mortal sins) to receive communion. HOWEVER, I think the church should reduce its list of mortal sins. There are just a lot of things that I think should be considered venial sins -- i just don't think you are going to go to hell if you miss a Mass and die if you haven't gone to confession yet. Or if you touch one time. Or if you have divorced and civilly remarried because you don't have the means to obtain an annulment. I can think of oodles of things that are currently classified as mortal sins that I just don't think should be on that list. Mortal sins should ONLY be those things we are sure will send us to hell if we die without confession, rather than go to purgatory.
 
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mark46

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I think we should be in a state of grace (no mortal sins) to receive communion. HOWEVER, I think the church should reduce its list of mortal sins. There are just a lot of things that I think should be considered venial sins -- i just don't think you are going to go to hell if you miss a Mass and die if you haven't gone to confession yet. Or if you touch one time. Or if you have divorced and civilly remarried because you don't have the means to obtain an annulment. I can think of oodles of things that are currently classified as mortal sins that I just don't think should be on that list. Mortal sins should ONLY be those things we are sure will send us to hell if we die without confession, rather than go to purgatory.

Dare I ask?

Q1) What sins do you view as severe enough to send us to hell if we do have not gone to the sacrament of confession?

Q2) Some have spoken of confessing to God in our evening prayers (a fine idea). What sins do you view as severe enough to send us to hell if we have not confessed them at all, not even in our personal prayers?
 
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Fish and Bread

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if your spouse is unfaithful and divorces you, or is abusive and you have to leave, then live a life of chastity

Yikes. If this is the Gospel, why do we say that the Gospel means "good news"? That's not good news to me. If I were a Greco-Roman pagan hearing that, I'd probably have stuck with offering incense to Zeus.
 
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Open Heart

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Dare I ask?

Q1) What sins do you view as severe enough to send us to hell if we do have not gone to the sacrament of confession?

Q2) Some have spoken of confessing to God in our evening prayers (a fine idea). What sins do you view as severe enough to send us to hell if we have not confessed them at all, not even in our personal prayers?
Q1 Sins that cause great harm: murder, adultery, molesting a kid, stealing the life savings from the elderly, you get the picture. These are the sorts of things that immediately sever our relationship with God.

Q2 Since this is something that non-Catholics do, I think it best that they answer.
 
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mark46

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Q1 Sins that cause great harm: murder, adultery, molesting a kid, stealing the life savings from the elderly, you get the picture. These are the sorts of things that immediately sever our relationship with God.

Q2 Since this is something that non-Catholics do, I think it best that they answer.

Really?

How do the rest of you feel?
Do you also think that only non-Catholics confess to God in their evening prayers? I thought that most of prayed the Our Father or Jesus Prayer regularly.
 
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Rhamiel

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Yikes. If this is the Gospel, why do we say that the Gospel means "good news"? That's not good news to me. If I were a Greco-Roman pagan hearing that, I'd probably have stuck with offering incense to Zeus.

you DO know that this life is short and that heaven is forever?
you seem to focus a lot on worldly concerns "what? I can not get married again, wow I would stay pagan"
forgiveness of sins and friendship with God is more important then a second marriage

people seem to forget this
 
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Open Heart

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Really?

How do the rest of you feel?
Do you also think that only non-Catholics confess to God in their evening prayers? I thought that most of prayed the Our Father or Jesus Prayer regularly.
I confess to God frequently, but I follow it up with sacramental confession. Maybe I'm dumb, but I just assume other Catholics do likewise.
 
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Fish and Bread

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you DO know that this life is short and that heaven is forever?
you seem to focus a lot on worldly concerns "what? I can not get married again, wow I would stay pagan"
forgiveness of sins and friendship with God is more important then a second marriage
people seem to forget this

I've never liked the "carrot-stick in the afterlife" model of religion. It seems like conversations sometimes go like this:

"Here's some good news, you can't do stuff you want to do!"
"That doesn't sound like good news at all."
"Well, if you don't not do it, you're going straight to hell."
"Okay, now that just sounds like really bad news."

As a hypothetical, I picture myself as God and say, "Would I, a lowly finite human with ethical faults, as we all have, do something as horrible as sentence people to be tortured by being burned alive in hell for all eternity?" and I have to say that, no, I wouldn't. Even when it comes to my worst enemies or the worst people who've ever lived, like Hitler, I at the very most would favor some sort of lesser finite punishment and then either purify them and bring them to heaven or, if they didn't want that, offer them their own sort of limbo like state free of physical pain where they could live in a fake world of their choosing kind of like a Star Trek holodeck. And if I couldn't do either of those things, I'd let them just die when they die here on earth and not be revived rather than let them fall into hell to be tortured for all eternity. Of course, in this hypothetical, being God, I'm supposed to be omnipotent, so I don't see why within the hypothetical I would even have restrictions. I don't see why God would have restrictions- if he's got restrictions, he's not omnipotent.

So, with this model of a God who revived dead people just to torture them or allow them to be tortured for all eternity in hell for perceived transgressions in finite lifetimes that can be as simple as "obstinately" rejecting God (but leading a good life) or stubbornly refusing to go to mass, I just think, whoa, that God is less ethically advanced than me. Why would I worship that being?

Moreover, if God wants to send me to hell and that's where I'm supposed to be, that is where I will be. All these qualities we call nurture and nature, and perhaps the eternal soul, ultimately are things that God has made or allowed to happen, and I think they cumulatively play out like a script and dictate who we were, who we are, and who will be become. He knew it before we were formed. So, it is what it is. If I'm going to hell, I'm going to hell.

I guess I just have to hope that God is more loving, merciful, and ethically advanced than he's often made out to be.

In any event, the whole second marriage thing is *really* hypothetical for me, almost as much so as the hypothetical putting myself in the shoes of God. ;) I spent a decade trying very hard to find a first wife and couldn't, and had to eventually tone it down when I found my options really drying up (Not that I had a lot of options before, I had to work very hard to find dates and girlfriends- very hard) and my personality being more formed and thus more particular about who I thought would be a good fit. I'm still theoretically open to whatever might present itself, but I'd be very surprised if I wound up with a first marriage, let alone a second. But I'd like to think if I were someone else, someone who did get married, and then had his wife cheated on him, walk out, civilly divorce, and marry another man, that if a second love of my life came along, I could marry her if she was willing. I don't see myself as ever being in that situation, but I try to think of what is fair and just for others, and I think they should have a chance to pursue happiness and have companionship.
 
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Fish and Bread

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I confess to God frequently, but I follow it up with sacramental confession. Maybe I'm dumb, but I just assume other Catholics do likewise.

What you do is how I was thought it was supposed to go in 10 years of Catholic school, growing up in a Catholic family, and so on and so forth. You confess your venial sins to God directly and they are forgiven (Some encourage people to confess venial sins in a confessional also, but that's optional). If you have any mortal sins, you're supposed to seek out the sacrament of reconciliation, but if you can't get there immediately, you're supposed to confess directly to God and then confess again in the confessional when you can get there so the priest can absolve you in the name of God (Skipping the first half of the sentence if you happen to have the opportunity to head straight to a confessional right after you commit the sin). The idea is that if you commit a mortal sin and confess to God and have the firm intent to amend your life *and* confess it in the sacrament of reconciliation, and you happen to get hit by a bus and die before Saturday rolls around, God will probably accept that as good enough, probably.

That's the official stance as best I understand it. Any qualms I may have with it non-withstanding. :) I'm just trying to relay what I understand the "book" to be on this subject.
 
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Open Heart

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I guess I just have to hope that God is more loving, merciful, and ethically advanced than he's often made out to be.
I also hope that God will be more forgiving, that hell will perhaps simply be the death of the soul, or that it will be impermanent, or perhaps there will be no afterlife at all. But I can't know these things, and there is always the chance that it will be exactly what the Church says. I don't want to take that chance, do you?
 
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mark46

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I confess to God frequently, but I follow it up with sacramental confession. Maybe I'm dumb, but I just assume other Catholics do likewise.

I apologize if I sounded disrespectful.

I thought that this was the case, but that is not how I read your post.

OF COURSE, we should all confess to God frequently.
 
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mark46

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What you do is how I was thought it was supposed to go in 10 years of Catholic school, growing up in a Catholic family, and so on and so forth. You confess your venial sins to God directly and they are forgiven (Some encourage people to confess venial sins in a confessional also, but that's optional). If you have any mortal sins, you're supposed to seek out the sacrament of reconciliation, but if you can't get there immediately, you're supposed to confess directly to God and then confess again in the confessional when you can get there so the priest can absolve you in the name of God (Skipping the first half of the sentence if you happen to have the opportunity to head straight to a confessional right after you commit the sin). The idea is that if you commit a mortal sin and confess to God and have the firm intent to amend your life *and* confess it in the sacrament of reconciliation, and you happen to get hit by a bus and die before Saturday rolls around, God will probably accept that as good enough, probably.

That's the official stance as best I understand it. Any qualms I may have with it non-withstanding. :) I'm just trying to relay what I understand the "book" to be on this subject.

Surely you understand that there are many levels of understanding what the Church teaches. Folks are in differently places in their spiritual walk. The universal Church attempts to reach everyone where they are, as Saint Paul taught us to do.

For me, this type of discussion make little sense. I cannot reasonable discuss the faith with those who think that if I miss mass today, I will go directly to hell this night, unless I should happen to go to sacramental confession before I sleep. Those folks have a special sound proof room in heaven, so that this rest of us don't disturb them.

As you must understand, the Church has changed tremendously from the time when all non-Catholics (or almost all) went to hell, and that heaven will be filled with only those Catholics who have not committed a mortal sin since their last confession. The Church has changed, but many in the Church have not. Changes take a lot of time.

A breath of air came into the Church, and still folks reject the Church's understandings.

In te US, the so-called conservatives have common cause with many Protestants who accept the legalistic model and eternal torment for those who missed mass today. Even just a little reflection must tall you that this view is flawed.

The Church is the Family of God and a hospital for sinners. God does not kick folks out of his family for every sin they commit a sin, not even a major one.
 
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