The Catholic Church does address the matter of sinning due to embarrassment or shame, and this is something that is termed “sins out of fear of human respect,” or just “human respect.” The saints and moral theologians have written about it quite clearly.
So what does the Church teach?
When someone sins or omits a good action, it falls under the sin known as “human respect,” which means putting fear of others’ opinions above the fear and love of God. It’s when we fail to do what is right or say what is true because we’re worried about being judged, mocked, or disliked by other people.
So here are some practical examples of what I’m talking about…
We skip grace before meals in public because we don’t want to draw attention or seem too religious.
We stay silent when our coworkers mock the Church because we’re afraid of being judged, labeled, or left out.
We attend immoral celebrations like same-sex “weddings” because we fear offending people, maybe our own family, more than offending God.
We dress immodestly to fit in because we want to be admired and accepted, even if it costs us our purity.
We use crude or blasphemous language in conversation because we want to be part of the group, not the uptight one.
We avoid correcting loved ones who are in serious sin because we’re afraid of being rejected or causing tension, even when their souls are at stake.
We put off going to confession because we’re embarrassed someone might see us in line or we fear admitting what we’ve done, even to the priest.
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We hide our Catholic faith when it’s inconvenient. We take off our scapular or avoid talking about Church teaching and stay quiet when moral truth is under attack.
We compromise our vote or values to avoid conflict, supporting evil policies or candidates because we don’t want to lose friends or be called names.
In the Holy Bible Jesus Himself says, “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory” (Luke 9:26).
He also says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28).
St. Thomas Aquinas, discussing the virtue of fortitude in his Summa Theologica, says it belongs to fortitude to curb fear and not to allow one’s soul to be disturbed by it.
And St. Alphonsus Liguori gave a whole sermon on human respect. In it he highlights the danger of conforming to expectations from friends, parents, relatives, peers, classmates, colleagues, and spouses at the expense of one’s faith. He says that many individuals “kill their own soul by losing the grace of God through human respect and to please worldly friends.”
But even more than that, he says this: “Oh, how many souls has human respect, that great enemy of our salvation, sent to hell?”
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