The Sin of the Century is the “Loss of the Sense of Sin”

Pope Pious XI saw it back in the early 1900s.  And Pope St. John Paul II saw it still in 1985 – the loss of the sense of sin was becoming more and more widespread.

For centuries, most Catholics understood that actions or thoughts contrary to right reason, God’s truth, and right conscience are sins.  Such actions or thoughts could imperil one’s soul.

In more recent times, however, many seem to have forgotten what sin is.  Or perhaps sin has been so downplayed since Vatican II that sin is not something about which too many are very concerned.

A More Pastoral Church

Pope St. John XXIII stated in his opening address prior to Vatican II that “In our time . . . the Bride of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy rather than severity. 

“. . . the Catholic Church, by raising through this Ecumenical Council the torch of religious truth, wants to show herself to be a kind mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and kindness for the children separated from her.”

So following Vatican II, God’s love and mercy took center stage.  For many bishops and priests, being pastoral – focusing on God’s love and mercy –  was ‘in’ and talking about sin was ‘out.’

And, just as an aside, even the “New Mass” became pastoral.  It was no longer a bloodless re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice for us.  Instead, it had become a community celebration of Christ’s victory over death.  The altar was no longer an altar, it was a banquet table, and all are welcome at the table.

Now before I go any further, my intent here is not to criticize Vatican II.  But there is a line in Dignitatis Humanae that has not been all that helpful in bringing people to Christ.

Poorly Formed Consciences

Dignitatis Humanae (#3. Par. 4) said, ” In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience . . . ” The rest of the sentence said, “in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life.”  But it is the first part of the sentence that seems to have resonated.

Cue the priest who heard my Confession in the mid-1970s.   As a brand new husband I asked him if it would be okay to use artificial birth control for just a couple years, till we got on our feet financially.  He told me I should follow my conscience.

Many years later, again in the Confessional, with a wiser priest and a more developed conscience, I confessed to having used artificial contraception.  I also explained I was following my conscience, as I had been instructed to do by a priest.  The priest let out an audible sigh.  Then he remarked that a lot of priests are going to have to answer at their particular judgement for misleading their sheep.

The point being here is that far too many people have poorly formed consciences and they are content to stroll through life letting their desires control their actions.   And at least some clerics have been complicit in promoting sinful actions.

The devil has always been really good at convincing people that wants and desires are more important than right reason and God’s truth.  Now even the Church seemed to be saying let your poorly formed conscience be your guide.

Sin “Developed”

Catholic teaching on conscience and sin developed in the years following Vatican II, and sin took on some nuances.

Pope St. John Paul II addressed these nuances in his Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Reconciliation and Penance), following the Sixth General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, in 1984.  In addition to venial and mortal sin, there were now social sins.  And the term ‘grave matter’ now edged out the words ‘mortal sin.’

But in this exhortation Pope St. John Paul II also spotlighted the problem of the loss of the sense of sin.  And he linked it to the conscience problem.

In the section entitled, appropriately enough, The Loss of the Sense of Sin, he examined the link between sin and conscience. He noted that frequently,  throughout history, “for more or less lengthy periods . . . the moral conscience of many people becomes seriously clouded.”  This clouding results in a “numbness or ‘deadening’ of conscience.”

He also pointed out that, “When the conscience is weakened the sense of God is also obscured, and as a result, with the loss of this decisive inner point of reference, the sense of sin is lost. This explains why my predecessor Pius XI, one day declared, in words that have almost become proverbial, that “the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin” [Emphasis added].

Loss of the Sense of Sin

One could argue that the loss of the sense of sin has always been a problem throughout the world.  As Robert Burns wrote “Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands!” But the loss of the sense of sin seems to have picked up steam in the last 125 years.  The devil wasn’t content just pushing greed hate, war, and killing, so he turned his attention to a more basic human desire.

As foretold by Sister Lucia of Fatima, the devil began attacking the Sacrament of Matrimony and pushing the sin of lust.  As a teenager in the 1960s, I saw it firsthand.

Google the question “where did the saying ‘if it feels good do it’ come from,” and the AI Overview has an answer.  It “became widely associated with the cultural shifts of the 1960s and 70s, particularly the hippie movement. It became a slogan reflecting a rejection of traditional social norms and an embrace of personal pleasure and freedom.”

Sexual intercourse had become a pleasurable recreational activity.  It was no longer one of the fruits of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

The AI Overview also states, “However, [the saying has] also been interpreted as a simplified and potentially hedonistic approach to life, with some commentators on Psychology Today noting its potential for anarchy and ribaldry.”

Fortunately, saner heads have held anarchy mostly held in check, but ribaldry exploded.   Ribaldry (indecent language and/or behavior) took off in 60s and 70s and never looked back.  Today, bad behavior and profanity is all too common everywhere.

The “F” word, once a word used mainly by crude and crass people, is now  commonplace.  Even members of what was once called the fairer sex seem quite comfortable using this word in casual conversation with other women and even in mixed company.

This links to another lie the devil spread – that women and men are totally equal in every way.  I’ve expressed my thoughts on feminism elsewhere, so I won’t belabor this, but the second wave of feminism in the 60s did more harm than good.  Feminism replaced femininity.  Many women started becoming just as crude and coarse as many men.  And many women are now choosing careers over child rearing and family.  The devil was undoubtedly quite pleased about this.

Sin Picks up Steam

The sin of adultery picked up steam, and no-fault divorce quickly followed.  The divorce rate in the 1960s was around 9.2 divorces per 1,000 married women. By the late 1970s, it had more than doubled to 22.6 per 1,000 married women.  Now we have television shows like “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” [emphasis added] overtly saying divorce and remarriage is now the norm.

As Google’s AI Overview tells it, “In essence, the 1960s and 1970s were a period of significant change in American family structure, with divorce rates rising sharply and societal views on marriage evolving” [Emphasis added].

Divorce rates have since decreased, but so has the marriage rate.  Cohabitation is one reason for this.  Why bother getting married when you can just live together?  Of course, living together means living in sin, but so what?   Society no longer looked upon lust as a sin anymore.  Man had overruled God.

Pride trumped God’s truth and lust had become love.  And if a pregnancy did  occur as the result of loving someone (i.e., lust), no problem.  Abortion (i.e., legalized murder now called reproductive rights) was the solution.  If the devil is capable of joy, he was probably ecstatic when abortion was legalized.

And of course, if lust is love then “love is love,” as the LGBTQ crowd so loudly proclaims. So why not allow same-sex ‘marriage?’  What could be wrong with two males or two females loving  one another (i.e., disordered lust) sexually?

The Church has always taught that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered. Even so, society suddenly began celebrating same-sex ‘marriage’ as something entirely normal.  The devil may be jumping for joy over this aberration of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

Losing the Sense of Sin

“Why has this happened in our time?” asked Pope St. John Paul II in 1985.  He then gave four reasons, all of which smack of man thinking he is smarter than God.

The first reason is secularism, which “advocates a humanism totally without God.”

The logo of the American Humanist Association says it all: “Good Without a God.”  Human beings are capable of deciding what is good and bad.  No need for God.

The second reason is “the errors made in evaluating certain findings of the human sciences. Thus on the basis of certain affirmations of psychology, concern to avoid creating feelings of guilt or to place limits on freedom leads to a refusal ever to admit any shortcoming.”

One of these human sciences is psychiatry.  The American Psychiatric Association (APA) had already removed homosexuality from its “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” in 1973.  According to this august body, homosexuality was no longer “a mental illness nor a sickness.”  Is it any wonder the APA now advocates for supporting people with gender dysphoria?

God created each of us male and female (Genesis 1:27).  But the APA says if you don’t like the way God made you, no problem!  You can change your sex.  This is the “human sciences” overriding God’s Truths.

The third reason is “a system of ethics . . . which relativizes the moral norm, denying its absolute and unconditional value, and as a consequence denying that there can be intrinsically illicit acts independent of the circumstances in which they are performed by the subject.”

Relativism, specifically ethical relativism, says, “there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society.”  So every member of society gets to define what is moral and what is immoral.  God’s truths are no longer needed.

And lastly, “the sense of sin disappears when . . . it is wrongly identified with a morbid feeling of guilt or with the mere transgression of legal norms and precepts.”

Heaven forbid that anyone should feel a sense of guilt, especially since so many  are victims of social injustice.

Some Clerics Share the Blame

Pope St. John Paul II also wrote that, “Even in the field of the thought and life of the church certain trends inevitably favor the decline of the sense of sin.”

He noted that, “some are inclined to replace exaggerated attitudes of the past with other exaggerations: From seeing sin everywhere they pass to not recognizing it anywhere; from too much emphasis on the fear of eternal punishment they pass to preaching a love of God that excludes any punishment deserved by sin; from severity in trying to correct erroneous consciences they pass to a kind of respect for conscience which excludes the duty of telling the truth.”

He asked, too, “And should it not be added that the confusion caused in the consciences of many of the faithful by differences of opinions and teachings in theology, preaching, catechesis and spiritual direction on serious and delicate questions of Christian morals ends by diminishing the true sense of sin almost to the point of eliminating it altogether?”

Pope St. John Paul II did not directly call out theologians, priests, and bishops here.  However his remark about “preaching a love of God that excludes any punishment deserved by sin,” is one that has applied to far too many priests and bishops for far too long.

Good, Sound Preaching

Many priests and bishops today seem to think that being a good Catholic boils down to loving your neighbor.  It’s almost as if love of neighbor is now the prime directive – it’s proof that you love God.  And there’s no need to worry about personal sin anymore because God is merciful.

So today the seven deadly sins (Sloth, Envy, Greed, Vainglory [Pride], Gluttony, Lust, Anger) are no longer that deadly.  And the sins Jesus warns us about in Mark 7:21-22, “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly,” (and which St. Paul expounds on in Galatians 5:19-21), just don’t get talked about in homilies.

We do hear, on occasion, that greed is bad and so is anger and envy.  And once in while we may hear a homily warning us about the sin of pride.  But sloth, (putting the temporal above spiritual, or as Saint Thomas Aquinas calls it the “sin against the Sabbath”) is not a popular topic for homilies.  And lust is an absolute non-starter.

However, lust is, and has been, a major problem – especially for men.  But even Pope Francis remarked that preachers should not be so concerned about sins “below the belt.”  It’s easier, safer, and more pastoral, to tell people to love their neighbor or not be so concerned about earthly possessions.

Many priests and bishops today can also be criticized for preaching “love of our planet,” emphasizing the good of ecology while ignoring the bad of personal sin.  Thanks to Pope Francis and Laudato Si’ priests can now even celebrate Mass “for the care of creation.”

Watered Down Catholicism = A Suffering Church

Today far too many Catholics have succumbed to modernism and have become practitioners of Moral Therapeutic Deism.  The many “pastoral” priests and bishops out there must accept a large share of the blame for this. But being tolerant, loving your neighbor, caring for the poor and immigrants, and taking care of the planet, does not counter the deadly effects of personal sin.

A recent study said, “the Church is losing 9 out of 10 cradle Catholics, and most are becoming religiously unaffiliated.”  Joe Heschmeyer doubts the accuracy of this statistic.  But there can be little doubt that far too many Catholics have abandoned both their Faith and Catholic teaching.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker hit the nail squarely on the head 10 years ago.  He wrote, “People are leaving religion in droves because it’s not religion anymore.

“It’s become a charity with meetings on Sundays, and the problem is modernism.

“Modernism is the idea that the supernatural is out of date and unbelievable. The “de-mythologizers” tried to weed out all the miracles and supernatural elements from the gospels. For the last hundred years their influence has gained in seminaries and pulpits across the world” [Emphasis added].

Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI tried to right the ship.  Sadly, the Church started turning again to port during Pope Francis’ pontificate.  The post-Vatican II confusion was re-introduced and perhaps even intensified.  My prayer, since May 8, is that Pope Leo XIV will correct the heading the Church is on.

Being pastoral, preaching tolerance, and being welcoming is all fine and good, but more charitable correction of sinful actions is needed from our clerics.  Jesus is our role model in this regard.  He was pastoral but He also knew when to apply anger, righteous indignation, and correction.  And correction is needed more than ever right now.