Venial and Mortal Sin

Mortal sin utterly destroys the order which directs the soul by reason and God’s law; it inflicts on the soul damage that is naturally irreparable. Venial sin is a disorder, but not a destructive one.

By their genus, or general essential class, some sins are mortal and some are venial.

Venial sin may dispose the sinner to commit mortal sin,not by its nature (for it is generically different from mortal sin)but by its consequences in the soul. For venial sin may accustomthe soul to disorder. Or, by its own disorder, venial sin may remove from the soul some special barrier which kept out mortal sin.

A venial sin cannot grow into a mortal sin. But,inasmuch as it can dispose to mortal sin, it may be followed by mortal sin, and by mortal sin in its own field. Thus a person whopilfers a trifling sum may, when opportunity offers, be ready to steal a great amount. But this is not a case of a little sin becoming a big sin. The big sin is an entirely new act of the sinner’s will. Both the big and the little sin offend against justice, but they are not in the same essential class of sins against justice, for one is mortal and the other venial sin. These sins may look the same, and one may be inclined to think that they differ, not in generic kind, but only in degree. This is an error. Jabbing a man with a pin, even repeatedly, is never the same thing as running a sword through the man’s heart. The sword thrust isnot merely an enlarged pin puncture. Between annoying a man with apin and killing a man with a sword, there is more than a difference of degree. There is an essential difference in the kind of deed done.

Therefore, no circumstance can turn a venial sin into a mortal sin. For when a circumstance “changes the nature of asin,” it is more than a circumstance; it is a new sin added to, or amalgamated with, the sin of which it is called a circumstance. A theft from a church is said to be a sin of injustice with a circumstance of place which changes its nature and makes it a sacrilege. But the theft is still a theft; that fact isnot changed when it becomes a sacrilegious theft. We have not here the case of a theft being turned into a sacrilege, but of a theft having the nature of sacrilege added to its own nature as theft. The “change” induced by a circumstance is the change of something simple into something complex because of the addition or annexation of an entirely new sin to the unchanged old sin.

Nor can a mortal sin become a venial sin. Of course, asin which is mortal in its kind may be venial in its performance. This happens when the sinner does not fully advert to the grievouscharacter of his act, or when he does not give his full consent tothe sin. But such a sin, as committed, is simply a venial sin. Itis not a mortal sin reduced to venial status.