Without Scruple

Old Oligarch has an excellent post up on the subject of scrupulosity. SoDakMonk comments from personal experience.

It seemed at first somewhat odd, in our libertine and dissenting age, to think of scruple as a serious problem. But O.O. does a good job, I think, of showing the link between scrupulosity and dissent:

Enthusiastic dissenters often make themselves blind to the sole remedy for the scrupulous, since strict following of a legitimate, trustworthy authority is tainted with "paternalism," slavish obedience to "the hierarchy," etc. etc. in their minds. Therefore, the best remedy for the scrupulous in their opinion is to just "get over" the small details in the moral law and "live & love" however seems best. Of course, this advice is at best useless for the scrupulous. Elsewhere Ciarrocchi mentions a study which demonstrates that the best way to reinforce obsessive patterns of behavior is to tell the OCD patient to try not to think about those behaviors for a while. He inevitably fails, and when his former ways of thinking return, they do so with a vengeance. So too then, when one tells a scrupulous person to just "live and love."

[...]

The diametrical opposition of scrupulosity and dissent also explain why your typical liberal confessor accuses you of being scrupulous when you are merely obeying the letter of the law in small matters, such as the Eucharistic fast, or if you appear in confession "too frequently," which for many means more than once a month. To a profligate, chastity seems prudish. To a drunk, moderation in drink seems abstemtious. To a dissenter, obedience in small matters seems scrupulous.

Especially for those of use who lack wisdom, treading the line between being scrupulous and being dangerously cavalier about sin is a difficult one. In an age that laughs at the existence of sin, it's all too easy to say, "Eh, no big deal," at small sins; but it's also easy to swing too far in the opposite direction, and to assume that everything's a mortal sin.

Enough from me, read the whole thing.

(And if his stuff about Martin Luther gets your Irish up, check out this post at Pontifications: "The curse of Protestantism is division.")