Baltimore Catechism Traumas

Perhaps even more scarring and jarring than the Baltimore Catechism itself are the Christian zealots who critique it

A friend was cataloguing for me the traumas inflicted on her by the Baltimore Catechism and offered this entry as one example:

Jesus Effin Christ! - if I may take the Lord's name in vain.

Wait. Was that a sin? Did my milk bottle just grow some spots?

Let’s consult the Baltimore Catechism:

Q. 231: Is it a sin to take God's name in vain?

A.: It is a sin to take God's name in vain; ordinarily, it is a venial sin. To take God's name in vain is a mortal sin when it is done out of deliberate contempt for God, or when serious scandal may be given.

So, I’m now on notice: as this particular sin applies to this Substack, it's a mortal sin I am committing. I'm also willing to take the risk that that’s bullshit.

I digress. Let us return to the matter-at-hand: our impure milk bottles. Or, as I should speak only for myself, let’s talk about my now confirmed-to-be-spotted milk bottle.

I wasn't traumatized as a child by this idea that I was basically diseased dairy product because I didn't even crack the spine of the Baltimore Catechism that I was issued in preparation for the sacrament of Confirmation. I passed the qualifying test all the same without receiving any milk bottle wisdom. I like to think I wielded enough healthy skepticism at the time to have shrugged it off. Sadly, I am certain many pupils under its tone-deaf tutelage had no such internal filter to protect them from this nonsense.

Who decided to use milk bottles as a visual aid and then complete the metaphor by using spots in the milk? For that matter, who decided that an empty milk bottle is pitch black? Did milk used to be spotted at certain times? What are the spots doing in this diagram? Are they bacteria? Bugs? Do they grow independent of additional sin? Wouldn’t the raging fire provide sterilization of the spots, returning our bottles to a state of purity that exempts us from suffering eternal turmoil within the underworld?

Unless I am missing something, this half-baked metaphor is prima facie evidence of the author's sloth - a deadly sin itself, iirc.

How lazy of them to start with a milk bottle metaphor, realize that it doesn't work (on so many levels), yet press on with their broken analogy all the same by invoking an image of spotted milk - a thing that doesn't exist - to make the analogy "relatable" to children?

And then there's the whole thing where the souls of newborn infants are equivalent to the souls of pirates, pillagers, plunderers and pedophiles. Where does that come up in the New Testament? And what kind of depraved soul chooses to tell this to children - and pretend that any of their child-sins (almost all of which are basically transgressions against decorum) are any concern of God?

Is it a mortal or venial sin to subject children to the Baltimore Catechism?

My understanding of mortal and venial sin - and the moral Calculus one must work out on account of there being these two classes of sin - came from a joke I read in the Sunday bulletin, which was the ancient, in-pew distraction of choice before God saved us with the gift of hand-held electronic devices. I was no more than 10 at the time, but as best I can recall, the joke went more or less like so:

Every year, in late Spring, a French Canadian fur trapper flew his Piper Cub 100 miles across the tundra [incidentally, this joke is where I learned the word “tundra” so I can guarantee that much of this retelling is accurate] to the nearest Roman Catholic Church to make his Holy Confession. This time he entered the confessional and said, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one year since my last confession.” “One full year?” exclaimed the priest. “Why do you wait a full year to make your holy confession?” [The church expects you to do this weekly, even though it is highly inconvenient and extremely discomforting to do so - at least for those who don’t lie during their confession, which, on further reflection, is how they knew I was perpetually due for my next confession by no later than the following week.] The trapper replied, “Well, father, it’s too costly for me to fly here to confess my venial sins and it’s too dangerous for me to fly here to confess my mortal sins.”

Though it wasn’t the most useful of the many important life lessons I gleaned from this joke, I assure you, my friends, that punchline, in one nutshell, perfectly encapsulates the relevance of making a distinction between venial and mortal sin.

You may disagree but it beats milk bottles.

Not as if this isn't horrid enough, but it got worse when I later stumbled on a message board of Protestant theologians who picked apart the Roman Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins as being unprincipled.

They did their own cause no favors.

One commenter noted, "All sin is mortal sin....all sin deserves and ends in death."

Oh, well, that’s not helpful.

NOT. AT. ALL. You’re telling children that? It’s not only abusive of its own right. It also tees up all sorts of red flag behavior for predators to place children under such pressure and expectations that win the approval of adults and authority figures in their lives.

Another commenter brought in the concept of Grace being the basis for allowing for a distinction between types of sin, and not making them all equally reprehensible - but then dropped in this bitter, if not petty-as-fuck, observation: "Grace is still unmerited because 'you' didn't earn it, someone else did." Wait. What? They’ll only allow transactional forms of divine grace? Is it even grace if earning it is a prerequisite to receiving it? Who knows anymore?

Tragically, the more I read from people trying to place some order or logic to the metaphysical or supernatural consequences of sin, the more those spotted milk bottles looked like products of the voice of sanity and the handiwork of reasonability.