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What does the Church say about tattoos?

Q: by Adib Mady on June 30, 2011 - 6:51 am.

What does the Church say about tattoos?

A: by OneCatholicQuestions on June 30, 2011 - 6:54 am.

Official Church teaching has, to date, neither condemned nor condoned the practice of being tattooed. It has, however, given moral guidelines one must consider when making a decision, indicating when a tattoo would definitely be a moral evil.

- If the nature, location or type of tattoo mutilates the body, impairs a body function or organ, or poses a health risk (infection, etc.), it is a moral evil in light of the Fifth Commandment, which not only commands respect for human life, but also requires one to uphold their personal dignity and bodily integrity (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2258 ff, 2288, 2297)

- If the person has a bad intention, such as rebellion, disobedience to legitimate authority or causing scandal, the act of being tattooed would become a moral evil by virtue of intention (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1752)

- If the content (image, explicit message) of the tattoo is immoral or a cause of scandal, the act becomes a moral evil.

- If the location chosen for the tattoo is immoral or a cause of scandal, the act becomes a moral evil.

In conclusion, the act of tattooing itself has not been morally defined as either licit or illicit in itself. Its moral quality is determined by the intention, circumstances and nature of the act, and whether or not it will be a cause of scandal. Historically, tattoos have been used in various ways, causing them to have a different reputation or significance in various societies. In some societies, for example, tattooing is a tradition symbolizing coming of age. All young adults are expected to get a tattoo as a sign that they are mature, fully participating members of society. In such a case, tattooing, unless it poses a health risk or mutilation, is not a moral evil. In other societies, however, tattoos were initially associated with prisoners, criminals, or rebels, and later with gangs. In such societies, being tattooed sends a message of scandal or rebellion through association, and is therefore more likely to become a moral evil by virtue of scandal, if not by immoral content itself. Due to the variety of uses for tattoos, and the different messages it could send in different societies, the act of tattooing itself has been neither condoned nor condemned; each person must consider the moral quality of their own decision based on the criteria discussed above.

#tattoos #Teachings #Church #Catholic #Catholic Church #Church Teachungs #Moral #body #health #evil #moral evil #human #human life #life #dignity #integrity #Catechism #immoral #image

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If God gives us grace to accept grace, where is the free will? We don’t have any choice to accept or reject prevenient grace (like we do for regular grace). Therefore, how can we do anything good by our own, conscious choosing when we depend on prevenient grace to do good (aka accept God’s grace)?

Q: by JP on July 1, 2011 - 2:40 am.

When we sin it is our own fault and when we do good it is through God’s grace. God’s grace, which he gives us, is the inclination towards that good action. We have the ablility to accept that grace or to reject it, and thus have free will. But, in order to accept God’s grace, we need another grace called “prevenient grace.” This grace is given to us and it allows us to accept the grace that will lead towards a good action. But if God gives us grace to accept grace, where is the free will? We don’t have any choice to accept or reject prevenient grace (like we do for regular grace). Therefore, how can we do anything good by our own, conscious choosing when we depend on prevenient grace to do good (aka accept God’s grace)?

A: by OneCatholicQuestions on July 1, 2011 - 11:41 pm.

Let’s begin with the definition of freedom. Going back to Aristotle, and, more recently, St. Thomas Aquinas among others, freedom is the ability to choose the good. This implies either choosing a good instead of evil, or choosing the greater of two goods. If a person is unable to choose the good, either due to force, ignorance, or lack of capacity, they are not free. When we accept a grace God gives us, or choose to do a good action, we are choosing the good. If we were incapable of choosing the good, we wouldn’t be free. Prevenient grace is a term first used by St. Augustine to refer to a particular type of grace: an unmerited grace that precedes all others, enabling us to accept other graces and perform other good deeds. In other words, it makes us capable of choosing the good. As a result, it does not impair our free will; it is actually what makes us free. Without prevenient grace, we would be incapable of responding to God’s actual graces or choosing the good, and therefore wouldn’t be free to choose good over evil. This can be explained philosophically and theologically.

Philosophy

Begin with creation. God created us with a certain nature, and for a certain “end” or goal – to love and be with him forever by freely choosing what is good. If he did not give us the capacity to choose what is good and accept his graces, we would be incapable of reaching our final end. This does not mean that prevenient grace, which gives us the ability to accept God’s actual graces curtails our freedom. Rather, it gives us the potential of being who God intended us to be. We then have the choice to fulfill that potential and make it a reality or not. Therefore, in spite of the presence of prevenient grace, we can choose to reject God’s graces, and to choose evil, or a lesser good; therefore, we are fully free, and can do good of our own free choosing. It is true that we therefore ultimately need God in order to accept his grace, but God is our creator, and in the end, we can do nothing without him because he has given us all we are, all of our faculties, and all of our capacities. Take breathing as an analogy. We breathe, but we are capable of breathing not because of us, but because God created us with the ability to breathe. That doesn’t take away from our participation and action of breathing. Likewise, God, through prevenient grace, gives us the ability to choose the good and accept his other graces – that doesn’t take away from us freely choosing the good, meriting grace, or accepting God’s grace freely. It does mean that, ultimately, as creatures and children of God, all our abilities, including freedom, come from him; but they are, nonetheless, our abilities to freely use as we choose. For more information on how prevenient grace (also called operating grace) relates to freedom, read Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, Frederick E. Crowe, and Robert M. Doran.

Theology

The Council of Trent explained prevenient grace theologically, in terms of salvation (cf. Trent, 6th Session, Chapter 5). St. Anselm, from the 11th Century, explained that original sin created an impasse between God and man because man had committed an infinite fault, but was incapable of making infinite reparation. Salvation, then, had to come from man, since the fault was man’s, but also had to come from God, since only God could make infinite reparation. Jesus Christ, as God and man, was able to make restitution on behalf of man, and to make infinite, perfect restitution since he was God. This is a simplified explanation; for more information, read In Cur Deus Homo, the treatise written by St. Anselm about salvation. Since man was cut off from God by original sin, he needed God’s grace to repair his relationship with the Lord and enable him to freely choose salvation by freely responding to the grace of God. Thus, according to Trent, prevenient grace is rooted in the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ and enables us to be reunited to God in this world and the next by freely accepting and cooperating with God’s grace. Due to our inability to make infinite restitution for the infinite fault committed through original sin, the prevenient grace brought through Jesus is incapable of being merited by us; however, it is this grace that enables us to further merit and respond to other graces. Again, we see theologically, that prevenient grace does not restrict our freedom, but gives us our freedom by rendering us capable of choosing the good. Whether or not we do so is up to our own freedom.

Scripture

While the term prevenient grace is not used in Scripture, the concept arises. In Jeremiah 1:5, for example, God spoke of “consecrating” us (a grace) before we were even born; this clearly refers to a previously received grace that we had no way of meriting. Another example is in Jn 6:44, when Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.” Again, this refers to God’s initiative in giving us grace, and salvation as coming from Jesus. These passages do not contradict the numerous passages that emphasize our participation in grace, freedom, and merit; rather, they explain the existence of the prevenient grace that we must freely act upon when accepting and cooperating with actual graces.

#Sin #Fault #Good #God #Grace #Free Will #Prevenient Grace #Choice #Aristotle #St. Thomas Aquinas

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Does everyone have prevenient grace? Does one have prevenient all the time (during their whole life)? Are they given it at baptism? Can they lose it?

Q: by JP on July 3, 2011 - 9:01 am.

Thanks for the great answer! I have a few follow up questions.. Does everyone have prevenient grace? Does one have prevenient all the time (during their whole life)? Are they given it at baptism? Can they lose it?

A: by OneCatholicQuestions on July 4, 2011 - 9:56 pm.

God does give prevenient grace to all. Man’s origin is God; his end is also God. God created all men to come to himself, to experience his love, to live in him (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #294). God’s creation was perfect; he therefore created all of us with the possibility of reaching our end – returning to him. This implies that all of us are given prevenient grace, the ability to accept and respond to God’s other graces and choose the good should we will to do so. While God’s creation is perfect, the Catechism explains that the creation we experience is not complete; it is a journey that God has set us upon (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #302). The outcome, or reaching the plenitude of creation, lies in our reach, but requires our free consent.

Prevenient grace is not bestowed strictly through baptism. For a non-baptized person to feel the need for God, move toward, and enter into the faith, he is already choosing a good, responding to the grace of conversion, and therefore utilizing prevenient grace.

God offers his prevenient grace freely, fully and always, to all people. In this sense, it is present their whole life. However, this does not mean that someone is always capable of responding to grace. First of all, we can look at an analogy St. Thomas Aquinas gives in relation to salvation, that can also apply to prevenient grace. Think of the sun. It shines its rays equally on all creation. It does not follow that all creation receives the same amount of sun. In a bunch of grapes, for example, some remain small because they turned away from the sun; this does not imply that the sun is bestowing fewer rays on them, but simply that they are hidden from those rays. Should they be turned, they would see and receive the rays that have been shining all along. Prevenient grace is similar. God offers it always, constantly, and for all people, so all people can find him. However, people who hide themselves from him, or turn themselves in a different direction do not see or act upon his grace, even though he is offering it. Therefore, people have the freedom not to act on prevenient grace, even though God is giving it. Although they cannot “lose” it, since God will always offer it, they can condition their will to habitually turn against it, and if one does this consistently and deliberately, it becomes less and less likely that they will later be able to change and accept God’s grace. It is not impossible, but would take a greater amount of merit, either from themselves, or won for them through the intercession of another. This touches on a different aspect of the Catholic faith, called vicarious atonement and intercession, by which someone other than the receiver of the grace can merit the grace won. Vicarious atonement is the teaching that Jesus suffered in our place, and therefore he won merit for all of us. Since our own sufferings and sacrifices can be united to Christ’s, completing what is lacking in the Passion of Christ (cf. Colossians 1:24), our own merits can then be distributed to others. Intercession also allows one to pray and beg graces not for themselves only, but also for the good of others (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2634-2636).

In conclusion, God’s grace will always be there, but one must use his freedom to cooperate with it, or it will become more and more difficult for him to do so.

#Prevenient Grace #Grace #Baptism #God #Catechism #Catholic #Catholic Church #Church #Faith #Freedom

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Is it serious sin , if doing the operation of womb (womb has been remove : advice by Dr. ) b’cause of uterine fibroid/uterine cyst ?

Q: Nancy Fran on September 1, 2011 - 3:18 am.

Is it serious sin , if doing the operation of womb (womb has been remove : advice by Dr. ) b’cause of uterine fibroid/uterine cyst ?

A: by OneCatholicQuestions on September 1, 2011 - 11:14 am.

The morality of the act in question would be determined by the principle of double effect, first described by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (II-II Q. 64, Art. 7), and used by the Church to determine the moral legitimacy of acts that have two different effects, one of which is intended, and the other which is not, but necessarily accompanies the first. For the principle of double effect to justify an action, the following criteria must be met:

- The intended act must be good. - The person doing the act must intend the good effect and not intend the bad effect, even if it is foreseen. - The good effect must be carried out through morally permissible means. - The good effect must be equal or greater than the bad effect that would also result. - The act must be necessary – i.e. the only way to obtain the good effect intended.

For a more in depth explanation on the principle of double effect, click here.

Applying the principle of double effect to the act you propose shows that the good effect would be the life and health of the woman that has the ovarian cyst. The unintended effect would be the resulting infertility. The act would be carried out through morally permissible means (surgical intervention), in order to obtain the desired good. As a result, the remaining question would be whether there are alternative solutions that would save the life of the woman without resulting in infertility. Assuming that removal of the womb is necessary for the woman’s health, the act of removing the womb would be morally permissible.

#Sin #Womb #Woman #removal #Remove #Uterine #Fibroid #Cyst #Morality #Moral #Double Effect #St. Thomas Aquinas #Summa Theologica #Church #Good #surgical #infertility #Health #Permissible

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by Nancy Fran on September 1, 2011 - 12:48 pm.

Thank you so much , b’cause I feel relief now . I belief God know all our intention b’cause no one can hide from God. Peace be to you & may Godbless you .