'Generational Curses'

Dear N.,

Thank you for your vital question about 'generational curses,' which we briefly discussed last night. It is an essential question for one who deals with very serious tragedies and problems in one's own life or one's own family and I am very edified that you have raised it. The person who told you your daughter's illness and condition are the product of some 'generational curse' should be held liable for theological and moral malpractice. There is absolutely no such thing as a supernatural 'curse' or 'hex' passed down from one person to another through a genetic and familial line.

Our Lord Jesus Christ definitively and explicitly rejects this notion in the Gospel according to Saint John chapter 9:

1: And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2: And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3: Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

The Apostles were tempted to believe the man born blind was the victim of a generational curse, his condition being a consequence of his own sin or that of his parents. The Lord Jesus directly dismisses this false notion and states that illness and suffering, which all human beings now bear as a result of Original Sin, are the means by which the Incarnate Lord will work his gifts of healing and grace, spiritual and physical. Whatever the Old Testament may say about 'generational curses' is once and for all corrected and reinterpreted by Our Blessed Saviour - Jesus Christ now uses suffering, for those who are united Him, as an instrument and a means of sanctification and transformation, union with and conformity to His saving Cross and Passion. Colossians 1.24 and 2 Corinthians 12 beckon for a careful reading in this regard.

It is true that Satan can use his servants, practitioners of witchcraft and the occult, to cast objective evil onto other human beings in the form of curses and hexes, a concern familiar to exorcists, but this is an entirely different area of moral theology and does not apply to your personal situation. The only sense in which we encounter 'generational curses' is in the all-too-common cycles of pain and despair that result from abusive behaviour. Families may hand-down to the next generation such problems as drug abuse, alcoholism, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse, but again, these are problems of immorality caused by repeated and ingrained behaviours which are learned from generation to generation within a family unit. Such tragedies, real as they are, are not 'generational curses' in a supernatural sense.

The concept of 'generational curses' is popular in fundamentalist, evangelical and charismatic protestant circles but is in no way espoused or taught by the Catholic Religion. Please proceed to ignore what that person told you, for he is utterly mistaken and misguided, and does great harm to souls by uttering such nonsense. The best thing we can do for your little girl is to pray for her intensely, to love her with all our might, and to trust in our merciful and good Lord, Who will minister healing to her in His own perfect and right manner. It should be pointed out that 'generational curses' are an abhorrent denial of the grace of the Sacraments and of the efficacy of the regeneration of Baptism and the restorative power of Penance.