Imagine this: you have spent the day trudging along, each step driving a small, sharp stone deeper into your foot. Again and again, you turn to your tweezers, determined to remove the stone, only to embed it further beneath your skin. Such is the lamentable predicament of those who suffer from scrupulosity—a phenomenon in which morally neutral thoughts or actions are perceived as sinful and judged to be graver than they really are. Left to their own devices, scrupulous people are like blind men groping in the dark for the light of moral certainty. However, with the guidance of a trained spiritual director or counselor, the light of God’s mercy can be encountered, restoring peace to the soul.
Despite the awkward possibility of crashing into the person in front of me, I kept my eyes fixed deliberately on the floor. It was a weekday Mass during my senior year at Catholic University of America, and I was in the communion line. Looking up may have resulted in multiple sinful scenarios. I could have accidentally judged the clothes of the person in front of me and sinned against charity. Lustfully, I might have spied someone that attracted my eye. As I saw it, the only truly moral response to these temptations was to keep “custody of the eyes” and look down. However, even following these self-imposed rules did not dispel my nagging doubts: “I might glace at the priest as he places the host on my tongue,” I mused, “Then who knows what impressions might flicker across my mind?” This consideration was too much of a terror to tolerate, even in forethought. Turning, I clumsily pushed my way in the opposite direction, jostling several students in my wake, and hastened back to my dorm room. There I found the comfort of my bed, my solitary companion in the midst of these fearful fantasies, and cried into its pillows.
Unbeknownst to me, I had been suffering from scrupulosity, a condition in which the mind thwarts itself through over analysis. Through a misinterpretation of the true teachings of the Catholic Church, scrupulosity causes the soul to perceive sin in morally neutral situations. In a scrupulous soul, reason, which, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains, was created by God to benevolently guide the intellect to truth, loses its grip on the reins. Instead, the emotion of fear rules, leading the mind down twisted paths that no “rational” person would tread. The mercy and kindness of God are eclipsed by prideful certainty of one’s reprehensible behavior and no amount of reassurance, even from trusted confidants, can give anything more than temporary relief.
The religious obsessions and compulsions of scrupulosity may seem ridiculous to an outsider. However, for the approximately 180,000 people in the United States who suffer from it, they are very real indeed. There are different degrees of scrupulosity, and it tends to manifest in two distinct ways: developmental and emotional.
“For the most part, developmental scrupulosity can be traced to a specific time… during which the person became excessively focused on sin and its consequences,” explains Fr. Thomas Santa, a Redemptorist priest, in his book Understanding Scrupulosity.
“More often than not, people with developmental scrupulosity [also called a ‘tender conscience’] can experience relief, if not a complete ‘cure,’ with the help of a kind and patient [spiritual director].”
Emotional scrupulosity, however, does not have as favorable a prognosis. Often labeled by the secular world as having “religious OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder),” these souls experience persistent intrusive thoughts, images, or impulses. They also experience compulsions, feeling an overwhelming need to carry out repetitive religious actions to find certainty or relief. For these individuals, the combination of a trusted spiritual director and a professional Catholic mental counselor are the most effective solution.
For souls who do not suffer from these straits, a quick reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s explanation of mortal sin, (paragraphs 1859 and 1862) can suffice to dispel any misconceptions.
“Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent.”
“It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act.”
“It implies a consent sufficiently deliberate.”
However, for the scrupulous soul, these clarifying statements fail to alleviate anxiety. Examining their consciences, they will doubt that their knowledge and consent was limited. Overanalyzing to the point of paralyzing themselves, most situations in question will be presumed to be of a mortally sinful nature. The validity of past confessions will also be scrutinized, producing a compulsion to repeat them. This leads them to return again and again to the confessional, often daily, in a futile attempt to purify themselves.
Where does the mercy of Jesus fit into the scrupulous mentality? There is no room for His sacrifice because the soul is vainly attempting to justify itself. To be healed, the scrupulous soul must take the risk of stepping out onto the waters of uncertainty. He must grasp the hand of God amid the waves, no longer looking down at his distorted perception of sin, but only at Jesus. He must relinquish his warped understanding and put out his net in faith and trust.
St. Alphonsus Liguori learned this hard truth through a lifetime of wrestling with his own obsessively distorted thoughts.
“He worried about the past, he feared committing sin, he was anxious, never satisfied,” explained the editor of the Scrupulous Anonymous Newsletter in a 2022 article about St. Alphonsus.
St. Alphonsus would seek advice and clarity, but his fears would only be relieved momentarily. The doubting disease of scrupulosity would again take over and all previous reassurance would prove futile. His scruples centered on his sexuality, the perfect fulfilment of his priestly obligations (such as the recitation of the Divine Office), and the purification of the vessels during Holy Mass. He also worried about accidently swallowing water, thus breaking the fast required before reception of the Blessed Sacrament. Through years of trial and error, he discovered that complete obedience to his directors was the only way for him to break free from the cycle of his doubts. His spiritual director, Fr. Pagano, devised a scruple proof program for St. Alphonsus to follow. Later, St. Alphonsus translated what he had learned into the Praxis Confessarii, in English, Guide for Confessors.
“The [spiritual director] must convince people with scrupulosity that it’s always safe before God to obey… where there is no sure sin,” wrote St. Alphonsus.
“Scrupulosity exposes [these penitents] to the danger of losing not only their peace of mind, their devotion, and their progress in virtue, but even their sanity, and above all, their soul.”
He goes on to explain that the chief goal of the spiritual director must be to show that God is not a harsh judge that weighs heavily the small details of our lives. Rather, He is a merciful Father who desires our trust in him. We must do what we can and then, with confidence in the sufficiency of Jesus’ sacrifice of atonement, leave the particulars to God’s mercy.
The word scrupulosity is derived from its Latin predecessor, scrupulus, which literally means “a small sharp stone.” The word aptly conveys the afflictions of persistent moral doubts that pierce into the soul’s flesh like a razor-edged stone. However, through the guidance of a trusted spiritual director, the stone’s course of penetration can be intentionally reversed, allowing faith and trust in the mercy of God to prevail and purifying the soul to the glory of God. Faith does not depend upon complete understanding; rather, faith seeks understanding. As a wise spiritual director once advised me during my own struggle with scrupulosity, “When in doubt, throw it out!”
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For more on the topic of scrupulosity, read “Overcoming Scrupulosity,” “Scrupulosity: The Devil’s Sinister Shell Game,” and “Scrupulosity and Prayer.”
Image: Unsplash
