Bulletin Q&A Article, published 5-28-23:
Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He carries the guilt of his sin without end. (ref. Mk. 3:29) Please explain.
This is the question about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the “unforgivable sin”, which is also mentioned in Mt. 12:31 and Lk. 12:10. The Catechism gives us the short answer to this question: “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss” (CCC #1864).
The Catechism also references the following words from Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem. “Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable? How should this blasphemy be understood? St. Thomas Aquinas replies that it is a question of a sin that is ‘unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the elements through which the forgiveness of sin takes place.’ … ‘blasphemy’ does not properly consist in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to man through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross. … whoever rejects the Spirit and the Blood remains in ‘dead works,’ in sin. And the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists precisely in the radical refusal to accept … forgiveness, of which he is the intimate giver and which presupposes the genuine conversion which he brings about in the conscience. If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this ‘non-forgiveness’ is linked, as to its cause, to ‘non-repentance,’ in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one’s conversion, and consequently the remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one’s life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one’s self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins” (DeV #46).
Essentially, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable only because that person will not be disposed to ask for forgiveness.