Questions and Answers
How can I combat scrupulosity?
In this answer, I will consider the causes of scruples, their object, and their remedies.
Causes of scruples
The scrupulous soul has the habit of judging thoughts and actions to be mortally sinful that are often no sin at all. When he is told by friends or a priest that he is not correct in his judgment, he often refuses to believe them. As such, scrupulosity comes from poor practical judgment and stubbornness.
Scrupulous souls often manifest a lack of trust. If they have not had a good relationship with their father growing up, or their father was tyrannical, then they can tend to form their impressions about God from their impressions about their father. They will see God as overly exacting, as expecting them to remember every sin, as damning to hell those who do not observe the smallest details of the moral law, and as waiting for an opportunity to condemn us, rather than being anxious to show us mercy.
Typically, those who are scrupulous find the examination of their conscience to be a torture. They agonize over their thoughts, words, or actions in a particular area of morality, going back over them again and again. In order to be done finally with the examination and to be “safe,” they will jump to the conclusion that they have committed a mortal sin.
Often, the action they are judging to be worthy of damnation is perfectly normal or even unavoidable. As such, they create for themselves a code of morality that is impossible to follow. This can lead them to despair of their salvation, lose all taste for prayer, and abandon religious practice.
The object of scruples
Each scrupulous person typically has one particular area of morality that he is obsessed about. It might be, for example, impurity, blasphemous words that come into the mind, or proper reverence to the Blessed Sacrament. For whatever reason, the soul has become hyper-sensitive to that area of morality and is always in fear of losing the grace of God by a sin in that area.
Fr. Dermot Casey, in his book on scruples, remarks that “the person has only to desire the thing or proceed to that particular action, and a chain of doubts and fears crowd into his mind…Outside the subject matter of their scruples, they can often judge with prudence and common sense and can give good advice to others, and they may be able to do so with regard to the very subject-matter of their scruples.”1 When it concerns their own case, however, their judgment is off-balance.
Fr. Casey remarks as well that there is a key distinction between temptations and scruples. Temptations attack the citadel of the soul at its weak point, while the breeding ground of scruples is its strong point. These obsessing thoughts are seen as temptations or a sign of a sinful propensity, when in reality a scrupulous person is rarely at fault or even really tempted on the point of his scruples. He is not attracted by the sin of his scruples and is so focused upon it that it is unlikely that he will fall into it.
Remedies for scruples
The famous moral theologian Fr. Dominic Prümmer gives the following remedies for scruples:
We could add to this list a true devotion to Mary which, as St. Louis de Montfort explains, enables the soul to be trustful and so get rid of scruples.3
A scrupulous soul should choose a specific confessor—the one he admires and trusts the most—and follow his advice blindly. The confessor will typically listen to an explanation of the “sins” and their history once, and then will forbid any renewed justifications for the false judgments. He may limit the number of sins that can be confessed in the particular area of morality or forbid their confession at all.
The main goal is to correct the judgment of the penitent. The confessor will begin the process by laying down rules for the penitent’s examination of conscience:
“These rules are absolute, without any exceptions or additions…There is no more chance of the scrupulous person taking a sin to be a lawful act, than there is of the miser mistaking a burglar for a friend calling in for a chat…
The purpose of these rules is to eliminate the torturous prolongation of the examination and shut off the path to false reasonings.
Even the most scrupulous of penitents must be left with sufficient freedom of judgment to determine a certain mortal sin. The confessor must demand that he not confess doubtful mortal sins and that he continue to receive Communion when he is in doubt.
At the time of a “scruple attack,” the scrupulous person must seek not to engage with the scruples, remembering that the thing to be feared is the scruples themselves, not the sin that is being obsessed about. He must try to distract his mind, get or stay busy with some engrossing activity, and maintain himself in calm and peace, as far as possible. After the attack is over, he must not review his behavior or his thoughts during that time, to try to discover if he committed a sin. Rather, he must try to move on and forget the episode, without being troubled, as far as possible. This is how the real battle against scruples is fought. But it requires humility and docility on the part of the scrupulous soul, because his judgment will be insisting that he would be wrong not to pay attention to his scruples, or that he has probably committed a mortal sin in such or such a situation. Only a will to obey one’s confessor above one’s own judgment will save the scrupulous soul from this trap.
Over time, to the degree that these efforts are successful, the number of attacks will decrease, as well as their length; the soul will find it easier to listen and obey his confessor; and he will more easily restore himself to peace or allow himself to be reassured by his confessor. When these signs are present on a regular basis, the confessor will judge the soul to be definitively cured of his scruples.
Endnotes
1 Dermot Casey, Dealing with Scruples: A Guide for Directors of Souls (Fort Collins, Colorado: Roman Catholic Books, 1948, 2000), pp. 19, 20, 21.
2 Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis, vol. I, n. 322.
3 Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, par. 107.
4 Casey, p. 54.
Current Issue
