Scruples

Isn't scruples a funny word? You have to screw your mouth into a moue to say it. It's almost
an onomatopoeia. The common definition of the word scruple is: "a doubt or hesitation that pricks the conscience about whether something is right or wrong." Am I good to go? Am I not good to go? We cannot decide. We purse our lips. We have a scruple -- or "rock in our shoe" -- which is the literal meaning of the word. We don't just purse our lips, we wince.

Etymologically, Scruple comes from the Latin word, scrupulus, which meant a literal “small, sharp stone.” In the days when Latin was the language of Rome, a soldier would often pick up a pebble in his sandal (or caligae) while marching. This would be pretty uncomfortable, as you can imagine, but being in marching formation, stopping to take a rock out of a shoe might get a soldier into more trouble than it was worth. Still, he might ponder as he limped along, that he'd also be in trouble if he went lame from the rock in his shoe... To stop and remove the scrupulus or to not stop and remove the scrupulus...  Decisions, decisions. 

This small, but widely recognized pebble in the daily life of a Roman soldier produced an aphorism (or saying) in ancient Rome: "people in power have no scruples." The high and mighty didn't get rocks in their shoes atop a horse or in a chariot -- and they were not going to have much sympathy for the scruple in the shoe of a mere foot soldier.

Over the centuries, the original meaning critiquing army leadership fell by the wayside, leaving behind only the word "scruple" which came to mean any hesitation about what is right and what is wrong. In the vernacular, scruple can take the place of the word "conscience" in a positive way. Cambridge Classic Dictionary defines it  as "a feeling that prevents you from doing something you think is morally wrong or makes you feel uncertain about doing it. A man without scruples has no conscience."

Understood this way, we certainly want to have scruples! And it's not necessarily a bad thing to be scrupulous in the secular sense, as scrupulous can mean being "exceptionally honest or detail oriented." It's not a bad thing to want a scrupulously clean operating room, for instance, or for an election official to have scruples... But there is no circumstance in which it would be a positive thing to suffer from scrupulosity.

In "Church-talk," scrupulosity is the fault that arises from having too many scruples. (Too much scruple?" 🤔) In other words, our consciences have gone haywire: we see sin in every bat of the eyelash; we lie awake worrying that we're gluttons because we have two pieces of toast when maybe we could have gotten away with one; we second-guess every move and every motive, fearing that we've crossed lines only we see. We've lost perspective. The Confessional needs a revolving door to satisfy the scrupulous soul. Not a good thing, as much as the over-scrupulous tell themselves they're trying to be good. The Church makes it clear that this kind of obsessive conscience is not pious. Scrupulosity is a big pointy "rock in the shoe" of the spiritual life. Here's the official definition of scruple found in the 1912 Catholic encyclopedia:

A scruple is an unfounded apprehension and consequently unwarranted fear that
something is a sin which, as a matter of fact, is not. It is not considered here so much as an isolated act, but rather as an habitual state of mind known to directors of souls as "a scrupulous conscience." St. Alphonsus describes it as a condition in which one influenced by trifling reasons, and without a solid foundation, is often afraid that sin lies where it really does not. This anxiety may be entertained not only with regard to what is to be done presently, but also with regard to what has been done. The idea sometimes obtaining, that scrupulosity is in itself a spiritual benefit of some sort, is, of course, a great error. 

The encyclopedia goes on to explain what is and is not actually scrupulosity, lists various symptoms and manifestations of this malady, and then suggests remedies, chief of which is:

...having reposed confidence in some confessor, to obey his decisions and commands entirely and absolutely. 

A good confessor will realize pretty quickly if a penitent has a tendency to scrupulosity and will prescribe steps to correct the problem -- which the penitent is gravely responsible to follow obediently and prayerfully. (This is a very fixable fault once the penitent is aware and wills to fix it!)

+PRAYER PAUSE+   This is where we stop for a minute to thank our Heavenly Father for providing us with the priesthood -- our doctors of the soul! Imagine navigating without the grace and wisdom of our trained professionals! Or, actually -- better than professionals: each is an Alter Christus -- another Christ: acting as, in, with, and by the power of Our Lord, Himself. We're so blessed in our holy and hard-working priests!

...Our priests who can tell us when the rock we think we have in our shoe -- is not a rock  -- and more to the point, can help a soul (with a scrupulosity habit) realize when the rock is not in the shoe, but in the head. (gglggl) Just kidding! 😉It's funny, but not funny. The devil tries to trip us up coming and going.  If the old Loser can't get us by influencing us to ignore sins, then he'll get us by influencing us to obsess about nonexistent sin. And if neither of those methods hits us in our weak spot, he'll get us to notice everyone else's sins (right past the mote in our own eyes) -- OR he'll convince us that all this concentration on sin is really nothing more than Religious Obsession, and Religion, therefore, is the fault -- and not sin. That bittter old loser's got a million tricks. It's up to us, with the eyes of grace and the help of God, to see through them! Another thing to try to remember to add to our prayer list every day: the grace to see our own faults -- and correct them;  the wisdom to utilize the Sacrament of Confession in doing so; and a sense of humor that helps us levitate out of the self-absorption that often leads to scrupulosity. 

Resources For Anyone Who Would Like to Investigate Further

 If you haven't read The Screwtape Letters, by C.S.Lewis, there is no better book for
getting an idea of how the devil works to destroy souls. Highly recommended! Tons of copies at Thriftbooks.

MIQ Center, the bookshop in Spokane at Mount St. Michaels carries a booklet called An Examination of Conscience for Adults (for under $5) formulated to help us form a "right conscience," to distinguish between venial and mortal sin, and to distinguish between what is and is not actually sinful. Find it here.

The nine "notes" on scrupulosity, from The Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius Loyola, who suffered from the temptation to scruples, himself, can be found, in short form here.

MIQ Center also carries a simple guide for those who have been away from the Sacrament of Penance for, perhaps, long enough that they fear it as an ordeal. This is not the same thing as scrupulosity, of course -- which, in many cases sends the penitent too often to the Confessional. Some souls suffer from feeling overwhelmed by too much to confess after an absence from the Sacrament; some folks are just nervousness about the process, in general.  Confession: A Little Book For the Reluctant is a nice encouragement and guide that might be helpful! Some of us (and I include myself in this camp!) struggle with the fault opposite of scrupulosity, which might be called laxity of conscience -- or lukewarmness, the tendency to overlook or downplay sins. Others haven't had the blessing of a thorough Catholic education or are new to the Faith (or reverts) who are just "fuzzy" about recognizing sin at all. Sadly, laxity is one of the rotten fruits of Modernism. We're surrounded by a culture in which "anything goes" and all judgment is evil -- except that which condemns goodness. Certainly, for any eyes that might ever stray over this post, this mindset is the extreme. Even in our sheltered domains, though, where we're trying to be good Catholics, we can get slack in our examinations of conscience! It's good to get a tune up, periodically!

For a good conscience "tune up," we're fortunate that the Internet Archive has a free copy of Particular Examine: How to Root Out Our Hidden Faults, by James F. McElhone, C.S.C.. First published in 1890, it appears to no longer be in print -- but, if you keep an eye out, you might be able to find it used. It's a good one to have in a Catholic library! 

**I'll add more here if I run across anything else that seems to belong in this list