Judgment

[IHOBB2002]

Hi everyone!

Is anyone very familiar with the in’s and out’s of judging others? I know it isn’t a good thing, but I’m having trouble distinguishing between judging an action and thus having a negative opinion of another and judging the person (assuming there is a difference). When does judgement become sinful? Is it ever able to be mortally sinful? 
Thank you!

IH

[Peace]

1 hour ago, IHOBB2002 said:

Hi everyone!

Is anyone very familiar with the in’s and out’s of judging others? I know it isn’t a good thing, but I’m having trouble distinguishing between judging an action and thus having a negative opinion of another and judging the person (assuming there is a difference). When does judgement become sinful? Is it ever able to be mortally sinful? 
Thank you!

IH

Too abstract. What did you do? Give us all the gory details so that we may, ahem, judge the situation.

[Ash Wednesday]

It's not wrong to judge an action. In fact I'd say that's just part of having a well-formed conscience and knowing right from wrong. But only God knows and can judge the state of someone's soul. For example, sometimes a person will say something about another person on the news like "there's a place in Hell waiting just for them!" and that is judging wrongly and presuming to know the state of someone's soul when that's only for God to know. It's ok to be concerned for someone's soul, but it's wrong to presume to actually know the state of that soul.

If you're finding yourself feeling contempt for someone, say a quick prayer for them. It helps a lot. 

Do you struggle with scruples? Because often someone with scruples struggles with the need for clarity. If you're struggling with knowing what is or isn't a mortal sin, it might be worth having a regular confessor if possible.

[Luigi]

We ALL judge, and we do it all the time. We must. We have to judge - pretty quickly - whether the person walking toward us on a dark street looks dangerous or safe. We judge the way the grocery clerk interacts with us. We judge who we will hire for a job. We judge whether or not we can trust our doctor's advice. And there's nothing wrong with any of that. 

The problem arises when we judge a person as completely negative based on one incident (or a few). That kind of absolute judgment implies that the person will never see the error of his ways, or change, or make amends. That's the basis of Cancel Culture - Person A did something bad (such as Thomas Jefferson owned slaves), therefore, everything about the person is bad (disregarding all of the good things that Jefferson did). The Catholic Church has always known that good people can do bad things; that's why we have an entire Sacrament that helps us reconcile and make amends. 

Another way to get in trouble with judging is to attribute motivations as part of our judgment when we don't really know the person's motivation. For instance, "She got pregnant even though she's not married because she has no morals" when it fact we don't know anything about the person's morals or the circumstances of her pregnancy. 

When people consistently do something wrong, we need to judge that, too. Will we continue associating with people who are getting involved with drugs? What should I think when my so-called friend spreads gossip about me again and again? We have to make some sort of judgment in situations like that or we leave ourselves open to lots of pain and other kinds of negative consequences. So we may have to make a judgment call and stop associating with Person B or Person C, but again, don't assume she is morally bankrupt, or that he can never change, or that you know what's causing either one to do the actions you judge to be bad/negative/deleterious. 

[IHOBB2002]

14 hours ago, Peace said:

Too abstract. What did you do? Give us all the gory details so that we may, ahem, judge the situation.

I am struggling with scrupulosity and have a difficult time judging scenarios to begin with. But in a nutshell—I’m working very hard to combat any temptations to lust/gossip. 
The other night I was at a work event, and one of my coworkers (who I already know to gossip frequently) spent much of the night cracking dirty jokes. I don’t remember what all was going through my head…I know my main focus was to avoid paying too close of attention to her jokes and distract myself from having impure thoughts. But I also know I was frowning upon the scenario and her actions. I believe it was even as specific as “she would be in mortal sin if she realized or was Catholic” and I thought a bit about how she likely is constantly in a state of mortal sin. I don’t think I dwelled on this for an extensive time period, but I definitely thought about it. I already don’t have a fantastic relationship with this coworker, but I know this won’t cause me to treat her differently.

What state of sin am I in, if any? At the time I wasn’t thinking “I know this is gravely sinful for me to judge/criticize her”, but I know judgement is wrong and I’m not sure if I judged her action and felt disgust at the situation or if I judge her.

[Guest]

When I was first ill with bipolar it was two homosexual men that welcomed me when all others had abandoned me.  Forty years ago mental illness was a disgrace and culturally something to be treated as disgraceful precisely the same as homosexuality back then.

These guys were very warm and accepting, encouraging human beings.  I did not agree with their homosexuality however.  I seemed to be able to see that their sexual preference was not the whole of them.  This was not at all hard to do because of their loving natures.  I could love the sinner but not the sin and the same went for me.  I too am a sinner who is loved to abandon, while my sin is not.  Jesus knows that my sins are not the whole of me.

I tend to think that the first step in learning to love the sinner but not the sin is to know oneself in exactly the same light - and the first step in that is to acknowledge without reserve that one is indeed a sinner and guilty of sin - to know and to beg for God's Mercy.  From that point (but not only of necessity) comes a great gift and that is that one is Loved to abandon by God despite one's nature and one's sins.

Something like that..........

[fides' Jack]

On 7/27/2021 at 7:39 PM, Ash Wednesday said:

It's not wrong to judge an action. In fact I'd say that's just part of having a well-formed conscience and knowing right from wrong. But only God knows and can judge the state of someone's soul. For example, sometimes a person will say something about another person on the news like "there's a place in Hell waiting just for them!" and that is judging wrongly and presuming to know the state of someone's soul when that's only for God to know. It's ok to be concerned for someone's soul, but it's wrong to presume to actually know the state of that soul.

If you're finding yourself feeling contempt for someone, say a quick prayer for them. It helps a lot. 

Do you struggle with scruples? Because often someone with scruples struggles with the need for clarity. If you're struggling with knowing what is or isn't a mortal sin, it might be worth having a regular confessor if possible.

Fantastic answer.

On 7/28/2021 at 6:14 AM, IHOBB2002 said:

I know this is gravely sinful for me to judge/criticize her

It's not gravely sinful to criticize someone, in most cases.  As Ash Wednesday pointed out, if you hold it in your opinion that someone is going to hell, or determine somehow that they are in a state of mortal sin, that's a type of judgment that is outside of our ability, and hence gravely sinful of ourselves.

But it's also gravely sinful to remain silent when it is our duty to speak.  I'm fairly certain we all fail in this regard.