Pope Francis Calls Sex Outside Marriage ‘Not the Most Serious Sin’

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Pope Francis, amid the ousting of a French archbishop who allegedly broke the Catholic Church’s celibacy rule, has said that sex outside of marriage “is not the most serious sin.”

Per the Independent, the Pope held a question and answer session with reporters on Monday and was asked about the resignation of Michel Aupetit, the Archbishop of Paris, who stepped down this month after a French publication alleged that he had engaged in a sexual affair with an unnamed woman. In his role at the church, Aupetit was expected to follow clerical celibacy and abstain from sex.

“Sins of the flesh are not the most serious,” said Pope Francis on Monday. Still, he accepted the Archbishop’s offer of resignation, but maintained that he did so to avoid further “gossip” around Aupetit. “It was a failing on his part, a failing against the sixth commandment, but not a total one,” added the Pope. “We’re all sinners. When the gossip grows and grows and removes someone’s good name, he cannot govern. This is an injustice. That’s why I accepted the resignation of Aupetit: not on the altar of truth but on the altar of hypocrisy.”

Complex

Another eyebrow-raising statement from Pope Frank, assuming this isn't another poor translation or something that will be later "clarified" or retracted.

[Blue3]

It's very true, what's the controversy?

Murder is much worse.

[John Dule]

Making it up as they go along (as usual).

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Of course it's not the most serious sin. When has anybody of consequence ever claimed that it is?

The point he's making here is pretty, let's say, pre-#MeToo, and I really don't agree with it, but I get where he's coming from--he's pointing out that Aupetit didn't force himself on anybody and isn't accused of having done anything with minors. An octogenarian Peronist living in Italy not being exactly up-to-the-minute on perceptions of workplace love affairs is not news, and neither is a Catholic prelate teaching the entirely orthodox and traditional position that sexual sins or sexual vices are not in and of themselves uniquely severe.

[Big Abraham]

Making it up as they go along (as usual).

How is this making it up as they go along? The belief that there is a "hierarchy of sins" goes back to before the time of Christ and premarital sex was always towards the bottom of that hierarchy when compared to the sins in OT times that commanded the death penalty.

[afleitch]

Making it up as they go along (as usual).

How is this making it up as they go along? The belief that there is a "hierarchy of sins" goes back to before the time of Christ and premarital sex was always towards the bottom of that hierarchy when compared to the sins in OT times that commanded the death penalty.

I mean, there's a problem when my marriage is seen as a 'regression', but a straight affair by a priest potentially providing pastoral care, is effectively waived away.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The most serious sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit IIRC, the only one that can't be forgiven.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

To be clear, it's not so much the substance of what he said but rather the optics and how this will be interpreted by conservative Catholics who are already critical of Francis.

I've seen enough of a pattern from the beginning of his reign to believe there's probably a lot about the Church Francis would be happy to change, but the powers that be wouldn't allow it. Either way, I expect his eventual successor to downplay some of what Francis has been saying the past several years. Hopefully the Vatican will surprise again, though.

[TJ in Oregon]

I do think there is something of a problem with how Catholics (in the US at least) talk about sexual sin different than other classes of sins in a way that elevates them to extra super-de-duper mortal sins. I don't think it's helpful towards bringing about the repentance and conversion of those who commit them.

Because we live in dumb world, I'm sure this will be blast all over as "Pope says adultery ok now", which is unfortunate. 

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I do think there is something of a problem with how Catholics (in the US at least) talk about sexual sin different than other classes of sins in a way that elevates them to extra super-de-duper mortal sins. I don't think it's helpful towards bringing about the repentance and conversion of those who commit them.

Yes, lots of Catholics do very much act as if sexual sin is a special kind of evil despite the complete lack of any orthodox or traditional theology remotely supporting that position. I'm not surprised that someone primarily familiar with that "style" of Catholic sociopolitical engagement, and completely unfamiliar with actual Catholic theology, would conclude Francis is saying something novel here. Unfortunately, that group includes quite a number of Catholics.

To be clear, it's not so much the substance of what he said but rather the optics and how this will be interpreted by conservative Catholics who are already critical of Francis.

I've seen enough of a pattern from the beginning of his reign to believe there's probably a lot about the Church Francis would be happy to change, but the powers that be wouldn't allow it. Either way, I expect his eventual successor to downplay some of what Francis has been saying the past several years. Hopefully the Vatican will surprise again, though.

Both conservatives within the Church and progressives/liberals outside it have a habit of representing Francis as more liberal than he actually is, each for their own reasons. His successor will probably be more careful to avoid giving that impression, but with each passing consistory the window for a conclave to produce someone who would go all the way back to Benedict-style contra mundum theology and messaging grows narrower (especially since just within the past year or two the most prominent and most widely respected heavy-duty conservative papabile, Cardinal Sarah, has drifted to the far edge of the global Church's current Overton window; then again heavy-duty progressives like Cardinal Marx keep discrediting or sabotaging themselves too...).

[TheReckoning]

   While I get that this was a bad look for the priest who resigned, breaking a celibacy vow should not lead to someone having to give up their religious services to others.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Didn't Dante rank lust as the lesser of the deadly sins? I don't necessarily agree myself, but this is certainly nothing new and would only be surprising to the perpetually sex-obsessed Americans.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Didn't Dante rank lust as the lesser of the deadly sins? I don't necessarily agree myself, but this is certainly nothing new and would only be surprising to the perpetually sex-obsessed Americans.

Yes, the Dantescan ranking is lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride, in ascending order of severity.

[TheReckoning]

Didn't Dante rank lust as the lesser of the deadly sins? I don't necessarily agree myself, but this is certainly nothing new and would only be surprising to the perpetually sex-obsessed Americans.

Yes, the Dantescan ranking is lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride, in ascending order of severity.

Isn’t treachery last, after pride?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Didn't Dante rank lust as the lesser of the deadly sins? I don't necessarily agree myself, but this is certainly nothing new and would only be surprising to the perpetually sex-obsessed Americans.

Yes, the Dantescan ranking is lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride, in ascending order of severity.

Isn’t treachery last, after pride?

Betrayers are in the deepest circle, yes--the sea of ice surrounding Satan, with Cassius, Brutus, and Judas Iscariot perpetually chewed up in the big guy's three mouths--but since the number of circles doesn't match the number of deadly sins/cardinal vices (nine versus seven), the correspondence between circles and sins gets more abstract and mix-and-match as the Inferno goes on. Technically from the sixth circle (heresy) onward the setup is of Dante's own invention.

[Blue3]

Dante's work is also fiction, not a chapter of the Bible.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Dante's work is also fiction, not a chapter of the Bible.

The 7 deadly sins aren't in the Bible either, you know.

If you think the Bible is supposed to clearly and definitively settle every religious question, you really don't understand Catholicism.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Because we live in dumb world, I'm sure this will be blast all over as "Pope says adultery ok now", which is unfortunate. 

     This is the one thing that worries me about this story. While it is definitely true that sexual sins are not the worst sins one could commit, there are certain folks representing a few different causes who would gladly interpret this as meaning that sexual sins aren't bad. Being charitable to Pope Francis he probably did not intend that understanding at all, but that could easily be warped into the intended meaning in the eyes of the general public.

[John Dule]

Dante's work is also fiction, not a chapter of the Bible.

Must... resist... urge...

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Dante's work is also fiction, not a chapter of the Bible.

Dante has had an undeniable influence on the way Christians in general and Catholics in particular understand different sins and how they relate to one another, even though his preferred vehicle for expressing his views on that subject was narrative poetry rather than discursive theological argument. There's a Benedict XV encyclical expressly stating that the Commedia is a valid resource for religious education if it's understood on its own terms.

Dante's work is also fiction, not a chapter of the Bible.

Must... resist... urge...

Even from a thoroughgoingly antireligious perspective, much of the Bible is lyric poetry, legal theory, or heavily embellished court history rather than fiction per se.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Because we live in dumb world, I'm sure this will be blast all over as "Pope says adultery ok now", which is unfortunate. 

     This is the one thing that worries me about this story. While it is definitely true that sexual sins are not the worst sins one could commit, there are certain folks representing a few different causes who would gladly interpret this as meaning that sexual sins aren't bad. Being charitable to Pope Francis he probably did not intend that understanding at all, but that could easily be warped into the intended meaning in the eyes of the general public.

This would be a valid concern if there wasn't an equally pervasive tendency on the right to act like sexual sin is the only kind of sin worth worrying about, at the expense of all the far more serious sins rooted in greed or pride that they regularly condone.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Because we live in dumb world, I'm sure this will be blast all over as "Pope says adultery ok now", which is unfortunate. 

     This is the one thing that worries me about this story. While it is definitely true that sexual sins are not the worst sins one could commit, there are certain folks representing a few different causes who would gladly interpret this as meaning that sexual sins aren't bad. Being charitable to Pope Francis he probably did not intend that understanding at all, but that could easily be warped into the intended meaning in the eyes of the general public.

This would be a valid concern if there wasn't an equally pervasive tendency on the right to act like sexual sin is the only kind of sin worth worrying about, at the expense of all the far more serious sins rooted in greed or pride that they regularly condone.

No, it's a valid concern anyway, in the same way that lynching was a valid concern despite being the object of the OG whataboutery. Someone with PiT's political loyalties and low overall opinion of Pope Francis might not be the best messenger here, but it's difficult to deny that the secular press has a habit of exaggerating Francis's liberalism to advance its own "liberal default worldview".

[Associate Justice PiT]

Because we live in dumb world, I'm sure this will be blast all over as "Pope says adultery ok now", which is unfortunate. 

     This is the one thing that worries me about this story. While it is definitely true that sexual sins are not the worst sins one could commit, there are certain folks representing a few different causes who would gladly interpret this as meaning that sexual sins aren't bad. Being charitable to Pope Francis he probably did not intend that understanding at all, but that could easily be warped into the intended meaning in the eyes of the general public.

This would be a valid concern if there wasn't an equally pervasive tendency on the right to act like sexual sin is the only kind of sin worth worrying about, at the expense of all the far more serious sins rooted in greed or pride that they regularly condone.

No, it's a valid concern anyway, in the same way that lynching was a valid concern despite being the object of the OG whataboutery. Someone with PiT's political loyalties and low overall opinion of Pope Francis might not be the best messenger here, but it's difficult to deny that the secular press has a habit of exaggerating Francis's liberalism to advance its own "liberal default worldview".

     In the interests of disclosure, I'd also mention that this sort of stuff bothers me because of a tendency by many to see the Orthodox as "Catholic but Greek", and as such they impute Pope Francis's statements that are construed as progressive onto us despite him having absolutely no standing within our ecclesiastical hierarchy. I am reminded of a poster on here (who I will not name, to spare the embarrassment) predicting that not only the Catholics but the Orthodox would be marrying same-sex couples within 30 years. Such a risible prediction is only made possible because certain people assume that we are just like Catholics. While the ecclesiastical structure and the traditional adherents of our respective churches differ substantially (to the point that the complaint that "trads believe only sexual sins are real sins!" is mostly irrelevant to Orthodox), there are plenty of people in both churches who do not pay close attention and who are prone to believing that the liberalization is real.

[Blue3]

Dante's work is also fiction, not a chapter of the Bible.

The 7 deadly sins aren't in the Bible either, you know.

If you think the Bible is supposed to clearly and definitively settle every religious question, you really don't understand Catholicism.

Lol. I don't believe in biblical inerrancy, you're barking up the wrong tree.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Because we live in dumb world, I'm sure this will be blast all over as "Pope says adultery ok now", which is unfortunate. 

     This is the one thing that worries me about this story. While it is definitely true that sexual sins are not the worst sins one could commit, there are certain folks representing a few different causes who would gladly interpret this as meaning that sexual sins aren't bad. Being charitable to Pope Francis he probably did not intend that understanding at all, but that could easily be warped into the intended meaning in the eyes of the general public.

This would be a valid concern if there wasn't an equally pervasive tendency on the right to act like sexual sin is the only kind of sin worth worrying about, at the expense of all the far more serious sins rooted in greed or pride that they regularly condone.

No, it's a valid concern anyway, in the same way that lynching was a valid concern despite being the object of the OG whataboutery. Someone with PiT's political loyalties and low overall opinion of Pope Francis might not be the best messenger here, but it's difficult to deny that the secular press has a habit of exaggerating Francis's liberalism to advance its own "liberal default worldview".

     In the interests of disclosure, I'd also mention that this sort of stuff bothers me because of a tendency by many to see the Orthodox as "Catholic but Greek", and as such they impute Pope Francis's statements that are construed as progressive onto us despite him having absolutely no standing within our ecclesiastical hierarchy. I am reminded of a poster on here (who I will not name, to spare the embarrassment) predicting that not only the Catholics but the Orthodox would be marrying same-sex couples within 30 years. Such a risible prediction is only made possible because certain people assume that we are just like Catholics. While the ecclesiastical structure and the traditional adherents of our respective churches differ substantially (to the point that the complaint that "trads believe only sexual sins are real sins!" is mostly irrelevant to Orthodox), there are plenty of people in both churches who do not pay close attention and who are prone to believing that the liberalization is real.

I don't believe for a second that either the Catholics or the Orthodox will be recognizing same-sex couples in 30 years, of course. And if the latter did, I'm perfectly aware that this has nothing to do with what the Pope says (and fwiw, it's not like we should expect every Pope after Francis to keep talking like he does, although I'd certainly hope future Popes will continue to look down on the reactionary heresies that have festered in places like America for years).

I just think that saying "the Pope shouldn't say this thing that is clearly true, and that he has a very good reason for saying given that some people within his Church are acting like it isn't, because some people outside his Church will willfully misinterpret it" strikes me as seriously backwards in terms of priorities. Like, I'm sorry that other people are taking something the Pope is saying and using it to make dumb points about your Church, but I think the crypto-Evangelical rot that's actually festering within the Catholic Church is a far more pressing issue for him to be concerned with and tailor his rherotic around.

And on a side note, Nathan, I understand the point you were making, but using f**king lynchings as your parallel is an unnecessary rhetorical escalation and just plain gross. You're better than this.