Occasion of sin
[2][3][1] The obligation to avoid near occasions of sin can be traced back to the evangelical counsel formulated in the first Epistle of Saint Peter warning to "keep watch" as "the devil goes about seeking whom he may devour."
5.8) On the opposite side, another spiritual tradition of confronting the devil's temptation can be traced back to Jesus going to the desert "to be tempted" (Luke 4:1–13; Matthew 4:1–11).
"Tempting the devil" went as far as to develop the practise of syneisaktism for which Robert of Arbrissel, itinerant preacher, and founder of Fontevraud Abbey in the 11th century, was most notorious.
Beyond detailing the importance of the cardinal virtue of prudence in his Summa Theologiae, Saint Thomas Aquinas has been seen as a model in fleeing the near occasions of sin since the 13th century.
For the famous episode of him fleeing the women sent to him by his brothers and given a chastity chord by angels, he was said to have fled these worldly temptations, "fuggendo le occasioni", like men run away from serpents and scorpions.
[4] The formula of "avoiding occasions of sin" is first found in Latin in the writings of Bernardino of Siena for whom it is the best of all counsels, and as it were "the foundation of religion": “Inter consilia Christi unum celeberrimum, et quasi religionis fundamentum est, fugere peccatorum occasiones.”[5] In the 14th century, Matthew of Kraków makes it clear that a confession is fully made only when the occasions and causes of sins are also mentioned: “Similiter de plenitudine confessionis est dicere non solum circumstantias praedictas vel similes, sed etiam occasiones et causas peccatorum, propter quas incurristi ipsa peccata; videlicet quia neglexisti ea vitare, sicut potuisti et scivisti..” The development of Christian hamartiology and the necessity to commit to avoidance of near occasions of sin is illustrated in Christian iconography around the 15th century, by the legend surrounding the Cristo de la Mano Tendida ("Christ with an extended hand") in the parrochial church of San Xoán de Furelos on the Camino de Santiago.
[7] Alphonsus Liguori, as he expanded on the moral aspects of confessions in the 18th century, is the one who provided the universal Church with the most systematic doctrine of the proximate occasion of sin.
[10] The doctrine of occasions of sin was still expanded upon by some preachers in the wake of the Second Vatican Council such as don Giuseppe Tomaselli in the 1960s[11] while to many it may now sound "corny and outdated".
In 2018, Bishop Thomas Joseph Tobin caused a mediatic roar by leaving Twitter and calling it an "occasion of sin",[14] even though, according to the Catholic prelate, "the secular world might not be familiar with the concept".
A proximate occasion is one in which men of like calibre for the most part fall into mortal sin, or one in which experience points to the same result from the special weakness of a particular person.
For example, while it is not a general opinion, some traditional Catholic congregations such as the Society of Saint Pius X oppose the presence of television in the household, teaching that it is an occasion of sin.
