User:Lildoginacoat/Sloth (deadly sin)

Catholicism
In his Summa Theologica, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as "sorrow about spiritual good" and as "facetiousness of the mind which neglects to begin good... [it] is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses men as to draw him away entirely from good deeds." According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "acedia or sloth goes so far to refuse joy from God and is repelled by goodness."

Sloth ignores the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Ghost (wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord); such disregard slows spiritual progress towards life —- to neglect manifold duties of charity towards the neighbour, and animosity towards God.

Unlike the other capital sins,[citation needed] in which the sinner commits immoral acts,[citation needed] sloth is a sin of omission of desire and/or performance. It may arise from any of the other capital vices; for example, a son may omit his duty to his father through anger. While the state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin [dubious], the habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself except under certain circumstances.

Dante Alighieri contemplates the nature of sloth as a capital vice in Canto XVIII of Purgatorio. Dante encounters the slothful on the fourth terrace of purgatory, where his guide explains that sloth can be seen as the effect of an insufficient amount of love. Paradoxically, the slothful work to purge themselves of this vice through continuous running.