How Hard Is It to Commit a Mortal Sin?
Scripture speaks of two types of sin: “sin which is mortal” and “sin which is not mortal” (1 John 5:16-17). The latter of these, the Church calls venial (or pardonable) sin. So what it is that makes a sin mortal (or deadly)?
Three conditions must be met:
(1) it must be a “sin whose object is grave matter,”
(2) it must be committed with “full knowledge,” and
(3) it must be done with “deliberate consent.”
Otherwise, you’re looking at an action which, although still objectively wrong,* is either venially sinful or not sinful at all. But how likely is it that our sins will meet all three criteria?
According to some priests and theologians, nearly impossible. For instance, the late Fr. Jim Rude, S.J. wrote an essay in 2016 entitled “Mortal Sins Are Very Difficult to Commit,” in which he recalled his habit of going to confession every Saturday during his teenage years. Instead of recalling this pious practice (one explicitly encouraged by the Church) fondly, he lamented, “Those confessions were rather sad, for there were usually mortal sins mentioned, but looking back on it I believe that there were never any mortal sins,” reasoning that “I was only fifteen and had no clue what a mortal sin was.
