The Catholic Catechism Gives Scandal
The Catechism requires a rewrite. Read what it teaches about Scandal:
2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil.The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.
2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing.
2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion. Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to "social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible." This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger, or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values.
2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!"
And then read what it teaches about Jesus and Scandal:
587 If the Law and the Jerusalem Temple could be occasions of opposition to Jesus by Israel's religious authorities, his role in the redemption of sins, the divine work par excellence, was the true stumbling-block for them.
588 Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by eating with tax collectors and sinners as familiarly as with themselves. Against those among them "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others", Jesus affirmed: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He went further by proclaiming before the Pharisees that, since sin is universal, those who pretend not to need salvation are blind to themselves.
589 Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God's own attitude toward them. He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet.But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities of Israel on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God's equal, or is speaking the truth and his person really does make present and reveal God's name.
The Catechism teaches that it is always wrong to give scandal while at the same time teaching that Jesus gave scandal.
Of course the Catholic Church does not believe that Jesus sinned but, objectively, it has erred by emphasizing that Jesus GAVE scandal (twice) rather than that it was the case that Jews took scandal.
The entries on scandal must be expanded to include an explication of the specific types of scandal – direct and indirect…(and entry 2287 teaches even indirect scandal is evil)
Or – far better
Rewrite the entries about Jesus “giving scandal”: to make it crystal clear it was the Jews who took scandal.
Jesus was not about giving scandal. Matt 17:26 But that we may not scandalize them…
Matt 15:12 Then came his disciples, and said to him: Dost thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?
My Rheims Testament notes: It must be observed here, that Christ was not the direct cause of scandal to the Jews, for such scandal would not be allowable; he only caused it indirectly, because it was his doctrine, at which, through their own perversity, they took scandal.
The Catechism entries on this subject must be rewritten. ABS has thought this way since 1997 when he first read these entries.
When it comes to Jesus and Scandal, The Catholic Catechism scandalises ABS.