318 VICES

YOUCAT Lesson 318

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

318  What are vices?

Vices are negative habits that deaden and dull the conscience, incline a person to evil, and habitually prepare him for sin.  [1865-1867]

Aristotle on vice: “And so both virtue and vice are in our power.  For when the deed is in our power, so is the omission, and when we can say No, we can also say Yes.”  Aristotle (382-322 B.C., along with Plato, the greatest philosopher in antiquity) …..318

Human vices are found in connection with the capital sins of pride, avarice, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth (or acedia, spiritual boredom).

1865-1867

V. THE PROLIFERATION OF SIN

1865 Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called "capital" because they engender other sins, other vices.( Compare St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, 31,45:Patrologia Latina 76,621A.)¹³⁸  They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia. –CCC

1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are "sins that cry to heaven": the blood of Abel,( Compare Genesis 4:10.)¹³⁹ the sin of the Sodomites,( Compare Genesis 18:20; Gen 19:13.)¹⁴⁰ the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,( Compare Exodus 3:7-10.)¹⁴¹ the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,( Compare Exodus 22:20-22.)¹⁴² injustice to the wage earner.( Compare Deuteronomy24:14-15; James 5:4.)¹⁴³