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Aug 18, 2023 · Scrupulosity produces feelings of doubt, guilt, and anxiety. It typically involves seeing mortal sin where there is only venial sin or obsessively focusing on possible or imaginary sins that may not be sinful at all.
- Kevin Vost
- Distinguish between Material and Formal Sin. The person prone to a scrupulous conscience will find this distinction tremendously refreshing.
- Distinguish between Neutral Thoughts and Sinful Thoughts. Scrupulosity often focuses on impure thoughts. An essential distinction is usually missing from the scrupulous person's thinking in this case: There is a difference between an impure thought entering the mind and the choice to dwell on that thought and take pleasure in it.
- Avoiding an Obsession with Confession. The sacrament of reconciliation is a tremendous gift, but it is easily misused. Ask any priest! While the secularized Catholic or the cafeteria Catholic ignores or psychologizes the sacrament, the scrupulous person obsesses on it.
- God's Grace Is Not Easily Dislodged. Perhaps the best antidote to scrupulosity is the awareness that God's grace is not easily dislodged by our sinful actions, much less by our smaller imperfections.
May 14, 2020 · Pat McCloskey, OFM. Ask a Franciscan. Q. I’m having a difference of opinion with a friend who says that scrupulosity is a sin. I say it is not. What does the Catholic Church teach on this? A. Genuine scrupulosity is not a free choice like preferring Snickers candy over Skittles.
- Acknowledge that you are scrupulous, that you frequently perform unusual rituals to “get right” with God, that you struggle to see moral truth clearly especially when it pertains to your own decision making.
- Seek the assistance of a good confessor — one who’s faithful to Catholic truth and whose judgments you trust. And stick with him. Don’t jump from confessor to confessor.
- Resolve to accept the judgments of your confessor or therapist over your own distorted standards. This is not a vow of obedience; it is simply a practical tool and can be stopped at any time.
- Observe the example of other good and healthy Christians. Take their examples as a reliable norm for yourself: What’s right for them will usually be right for you.
Jul 11, 2018 · Taken to the extreme, it can become an obsessive-compulsive disorder, also known as scrupulosity. A number of famous Catholics have written about or struggled with scrupulosity, including...
Sep 3, 2020 · Scrupulosity, to oversimplify, is moral perfectionism. To elaborate, it is confusion over what qualifies as mortal sin versus venial sin; every sin seems mortal (meaning that it cuts us off from God completely – we are no longer in a state of sanctifying grace and cannot be assured of our salvation if we were to die right then).
Oct 24, 2021 · Scrupulosity is the tendency to see God and His holy will through the lens of legalism. “Legalism” is not just being faithful to the Law of God, because that is a good thing. Legalism is a misinterpretation of God’s Law by which one tends to put more emphasis upon themselves than upon God.
