Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
What is “Scandal”?

What is “Scandal”?

Last updated on: May 28, 2022 at 9:38 pm by Jennifer Fitz

What is “Scandal”? 2022-05-28T21:38:43-05:00 Jennifer Fitz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

If you haven’t seen it already, Gloria Purvis has an excellent interview with Archbishop Cordileone about the situation with Nancy Pelosi and Holy Communion:

If you are interested in understanding the situation, I recommend watching the whole thing. Here are the related podcast link and text of the interview. I have not heard and read those, but I found the quality of the YouTube interview sufficient that I’m comfortable pointing you to the alternate media.

It’s important to know what definition we’re referring to when we are using a word that has more than one possible meaning. This is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about the sin of “scandal”:

Respect for the Dignity of Persons

Respect for the souls of others: scandal

2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. the person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.

2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”85 Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep’s clothing.86

2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion.

Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to “social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible.”87 This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger,88 or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values.

2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. “Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!”89

We don’t use the word scandal this way in ordinary speech. We call a “scandal” any incident where people are caught behaving badly in an unacceptable way, and we have a complex set of unspoken rules about which bad behavior crosses the line, when, how, and for whom. In this usage, the question of leading others into sin is largely ignored. We might say a politician’s adulterous affair was “scandalous” even if the effect of that particular incident was to discourage adultery in others running for office, perhaps out of fear of political ruin if they get caught.

We also speak of someone “being scandalized” to mean that the bad behavior was shocking or surprising. It might be used humorously, or tongue-in-cheek, either with sarcasm (no one was actually shocked, we are too jaded to be shocked anymore) or condescension (anyone who gets upset about such behavior is an old-fashioned prude).

None of this is what the word means when we are speaking of “the sin of scandal” in moral theology. Here, such as in the case of Ms. Pelosi and the archbishop, the question of “scandal” is this: Is her behavior leading others into sin?

Pause for a moment while we object: But don’t we all lead others into sin?

Pretty much, yes. Anytime we don’t take seriously some aspect of the faith, we are likely setting a bad example for others. We risk scandalizing others, in the technical sense of the term, by sins that we know are wrong and try to avoid — sins we take to confession — if we aren’t assiduous in letting others know we know it’s wrong and are working on amending our ways. Apologizing is a help here.

We are yet more likely to scandalize others by sins that we don’t believe are wrong. Cultural or personal bias can blind us to the gravity of our actions. Lack of formation can cause us to simply be ignorant of some aspect of the faith. And most easily: We may have a general understanding of an ideal of the faith, but a poor grasp of how and to what extent that ideal should affect our actions.

Again in this case, humility is a great help. In matters of prudential judgment, it’s reasonable to say: I might be wrong. I am trying to do the right thing, but there are many factors at play, and it’s possible I’ve chosen poorly. Likewise, there might be times when a given sin is highly debated, and we might find ourselves saying I honestly do not know whether ______ is a sin, and if so, whether it is always a sin or only in certain contexts.

Of course we seek to improve our understanding of right and wrong. But since we are works in progress, we can humbly acknowledge that we don’t always even know what we should be doing, let alone have the self-control and fortitude to do as we ought.

***

It would be very difficult to make a case that Ms. Pelosi, and President Biden in the same way, are not leading others into sin by their persistent, vocal, active work in favor of abortion. We know far too many people who can say with a straight face “I’m Catholic but . . ..” We can see by studying years of their respective records advocating for abortion (not just against some single instance of legislation that might be ostensibly pro-life and yet have significant flaws making it an unwise law) that this is not merely a question of prudential judgement — of being uncertain whether a given law is truly a helpful law — but a matter of willfully promoting abortion.

So scandal is definitely at play.

And of course, as many have pointed out, there are no shortage of other leaders out there who also give scandal by their persistence in advocating for some evil or another.

It should be pointed out that no amount of other people committing the sin of scandal thereby eliminates mine, or yours, or Biden’s, or Pelosi’s scandalous behavior.

In any case, no matter how much your own bishop is failing to correct you for your scandalous public sins, the Pelosi case is rather cut and dried. The Catholic faith (and common sense generally) is unequivocal about the seriousness of intentionally killing innocent human beings. One should not go around extolling one’s Catholic faith while also promoting murder as a viable life choice.

If you’ve been doing that lately, consider getting yourself to confession, and then letting the fact of your change of heart be known to those around you.

Photo: The Berggasthaus Aescher Wildkirchli, photo via Wikimedia, CC 3.0.

Previous Post

May 21, 2022

"Fear" and "Scared" Make Lousy Rhetorical Weapons

Next Post

July 8, 2022 Sparking Clutter

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Catechesis Catholic Q&A Chastity Church Craziness Come See Me Talk Disability & Chronic Illness Economics Evangelization Facepalm Forgiveness Good Things History Homeschooling Human Rights It's All Catholic Listen to Me Survey Series Liturgical Living Marriage Modesty Not Satire. But almost. Rant-o-Rama Sacred Art & Music Satire South Carolina Spark Clutter Stick that Corner Suffering Thinking Topics Writing Stuff

Select a Month September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 January 2026 December 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 November 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 May 2019 April 2019 February 2019 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who is the Good Shepherd in Jesus' teaching?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Moses Jesus Peter