Catholicism and the "firm purpose of amendment" for sin
In confession the Church forgives sin on the basis that you resolve never to sin again.
Terribly, if a Catholic gets sterilised he or she has to get the procedure reversed and promise sincerely to do that in order to get forgiveness.
The Church claims to be practically speaking the physical Jesus. As it is the eyes business what happens to the finger because we are one body it is in a sense the business of the Church what you do. Nothing is private. Amendment for sin is a non-private matter.
A Catholic source says, "The social nature of Penance is seen further in the
fact that the penitent recognizes the right of the Mystical Body to judge him,
since it is through the Mystical Body he is in relation with God. Forgiveness of
sin, then, is not just a matter between God and our individual souls. It is the
Church which has been injured by transgressions. Therefore, our sins are
not just our concern, they are the concern of the whole Church--the Church
Militant on earth and the Church Triumphant in heaven."
But surprisingly, it does not care if
There must also be a firm resolve to avoid all mortal sins for
the future, not merely any that may have been confessed,
but all others, or else there can be no 1 friendship with God,
whom we must love above all things. He cannot love God
above all things who is prepared to offend him mortally. The
purpose of amendment need not extend to all venial sins,
provided that at least there is the sincere intention of avoiding
some sin that is confessed, or at any rate of lessening the number
of smaller transgressions.
. The Council, then, seems to teach 1
that sorrow for sin because of the fear of hell, or its moral
turpitude, or on account of the punishment with which God
afflicts the sinner even in this life, will be sufficient for the
remission of sin in the sacrament of Penance, provided that it
destroys all affection for sin in the heart of the penitent and
converts him from sin to God. The slavish fear of hell, by
which a man refrains from sinful acts while preserving his
affection for them, is, of course, insufficient even with the help
of the sacrament to forgive sin and reconcile the sinner with
God. There is no harm, for example, in
saying, " I should like to eat meat on a Friday, unless the
Church forbade it "; and the same is true generally whenever
the condition, "if it were lawful," is annexed to a merely
positive prohibition. If this condition is annexed to a- desire
against the natural law, as " I should like to steal if it were
lawful," or " I should like to commit fornication if it were
not forbidden," the condition does not remove all the malice
of the vicious will, for the very tendency of the will toward
such objects is against right reason. Such conditional desires,
then, are sinful, unless they indicate a mere propensity towards
such sins without any voluntary affection of the will. In any
case, however, they are dangerous, and should not be indulged
or expressed.
Furthermore, inasmuch as one
who is deprived by sin of the grace of God cannot long resist
temptation and will fall again and again before long, the sinner
is obliged to rise from his sin in order to avoid repeated falls.
Of course it is better, and the sinner is to be urged, by all
means, to rise at once when he has had the misfortune to fall
into sin. He should never sleep while he is conscious of being
out of the friendship of God. Still he is not bound under pain
of committing a new sin to repent immediately after committing
sin. It will be sufficient if he repent at least when repentance
becomes necessary according to the doctrine which has just
been laid down.
