Is It OK for Catholics to Get Tattoos?

'THE MERRY CATHOLIC' -- Our Father who (body) art in Heaven...

When I was a teenager, I decided one day to see how many more gray hairs I could give to my mother, so I announced that I was going to get a tattoo. She immediately replied, “Catholics can’t get tattoos. It’s a sin and you’ll go to Hell!”

At the time, I had no intention of getting a tattoo, for the same reasons I have no intention of getting one today, a half-century later: I’m not a big fan of painful procedures; I don’t want to spend a lot of money; and I don’t want to make a rash decision and be stuck with it for the rest of my life. Well, actually, that third reason was not a factor for me when I was a teen, since I did all kinds of dumb and impulsive things without giving any thought to the long term consequences.

In the mid-1970s, tattoos were not mainstream, as they are today. Back then, pretty much only sailors and bikers had tattoos. When I offered my comment to dear ol’ Mom, I expected her to say something like, “Why? Are you in the Navy?” or, “When did you join Hells Angels?”

But her comment about Catholics not being allowed to get tattoos surprised me. I had never heard of that before. Some of my uncles were in the Navy during World War II and they had tattoos, so maybe there was a “Tattoos are OK if you almost got killed by a kamikaze plane” clause in the Church’s Code of Canon Law.

I haven’t thought about tattoos and Catholics for a long time, but recently I noticed some young adults at Mass who look like, well, like most young adults look nowadays. That is to say, they were adorned with an expansive tapestry of ink art all over their arms, hands, necks, and legs.

I wondered if the Church still insisted that tattoos are sinful. So, I did a little research. I discovered that over the years people have cited a verse from the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament: “Do not lacerate your bodies for the dead, and do not tattoo yourselves. I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:28).

Here’s a helpful explanation from the “Journey in the Word” website: “In ancient pagan cultures, it was common to cut oneself as part of mourning rituals to honor or appease the dead. God forbids this because such practices were associated with idolatry, superstition, and self-harm, which went against Israel’s identity as God’s holy people. Similar to the cutting, tattoos in this context were often religious or ritualistic, tied to idol worship or death cults. The issue wasn’t body art itself but its association with pagan religious practices.”

The Catholic Answers website had this to say about Leviticus 19:28: “But this verse….is a part of the ceremonial law that was binding upon the Jewish people but not binding upon Christians (except for when it coincides with the moral law).”

It turns out the Catholic Church has never declared that tattoos are forbidden. However, countless Catholic mothers apparently took it upon themselves to declare that tattoos are sinful and if one of their kids gets one it’s a guaranteed one-way ticket to Hell.

The Catholic Answers site offered some common sense guidelines:

“If you decide to get a tattoo, consider the following: 1. The images should not be immoral, such as sexually explicit, Satanic, or in any way opposed to the truths and teachings of Christianity. 2. Be prudent. While ‘Mom’ is probably a safe bet, tattooing your current girlfriend’s name on your arm probably isn’t. 3. Consider the arguments against tattooing (there’s bound to be a good website out there devoted to that). Just because the Church doesn’t prohibit getting one doesn’t mean that you should. Consider the following question: Would you put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari?”

As someone who came of age during the “Era of Cultural Insanity” — the 10-year period that spanned from Woodstock through disco — I was encouraged to engage in many rather foolish activities. But getting tattoos was not one of them. However, now that I’ve learned the Church does not officially prohibit tattoos, you know what I’m thinking, don’t you?

That’s right, images of the Sistine Chapel ceiling would look cool tattooed across my chest. I think I’ll give it a try, as long as there is no pain involved and it doesn’t cost anything.

(These “Merry Catholic” essays are featured on WJMJ, 88.9 FM, the radio station for the Archdiocese of Hartford, CT.)

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