Vatican Announces Seven New Deadly Sins
This is interesting:
Vatican City (AHN) - In an attempt to give moral and ethical behavior more significance to current times, the Vatican has recently announced seven new deadly sins, published in an issue of the L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper.
The revision of the list comes after 1,500 years, with Vatican officials explaining that the new items address a global "secular" society bent on the concerns in the age of globalization. The sins are said to be an address to the "decreasing sense of sin" in the modern world.
"The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one," said Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary. "In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins."
Mgr Girotti named the new mortal sins [ED.: The press makes this mistake all the time, confusing the 7 deadly sins with mortal sins.] to be (1) genetic modification; (2) human experimentations, (3) polluting the environment; (4) social injustice; (5) causing poverty; (6) financial gluttony; and (7) taking drugs.
The sins were added, according to the Telegraph, to the original seven, which Mgr Girotti described has having "rather individualistic dimenion(s)."
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Labels: Catholic Social Teaching, Vatican
posted by Pro Ecclesia 8:17 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
Tell me this is a joke!
First the ten commandments of traffic, now the 7 Deadly Green Sins.
Who is it at the Vatican that is so determined to undermine its credibilty?
C'mon, guys, it isn't April 1st yet!
(5) causing poverty
I actually don't have a problem with anything on the list, but this seems kind of vague. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against causing poverty - but then again, I'm not sure how I would do that in the first place.
I'm totally against causing poverty - but then again, I'm not sure how I would do that in the first place.
Oh, that's easy. Just be in favour of socialism and against free markets and free trade.
I saw this earlier and didn't post it on my blog because I am perplexed that something like this would be changed.
So the 7 Deadly sins have not been changed but the 7 mortal sins have? I didn't know we had a set number of 'mortal' sins.
I'm confused a bit.
This is a joke right?
Tito asked:
So the 7 Deadly sins have not been changed but the 7 mortal sins have? I didn't know we had a set number of 'mortal' sins.
From the article:
The sins were added, according to the Telegraph, to the original seven, which Mgr Girotti described has having "rather individualistic dimenion(s)."
If this is accurate, we now have 14 deadly sins rather than 7.
If this is accurate, we now have 14 deadly sins rather than 7.
Well, at the very least, this will be the perfect excuse to make a sequel to the Morgan Freeman/Brad Pitt movie, Seven.
This seems fishy to me, because the source keeps changing. First they claim it was announced in L'Osservatore Romano, then they're citing "The Telegraph" and then they're citing "The Times." Well, which is it?
And if the Telegraph and the Times are the London newspapers of those names, well, the track record of the British press in covering Catholic matters is horrendous. They tend to take something innocuous and sensationalize the living daylights out of it.
That said, there is actually a Gianfranco Girotti working in the Apostolic Penitentiary, so there may be a germ of truth in there someplace.
Is it impious of me to say that every time one of these little social/environmental announcements comes out from Msgr. x at the Vatican, I want to snatch a knot in said Monsignor?
I mean, seriously, don't some of these guys have real work to do? I think that there are real opportunities for the Pope to save mucho dinero by trimming the fat off his headcount.
[ED.: The press makes this mistake all the time, confusing the 7 deadly sins with mortal sins.]
Seems everyone, including 'good' Catholics are making this mistake. Could you explain the difference succinctly? I am going t have to face a lot of questions and jokes about this, at work and at home. My Protestant husband's response was very appropriate I think. He said, "Can you imagine. Good people struggle every day to avoid the 7 deadly sins, and as humans we fall short. Now we have seven more to deal content with!"
My question is this, how does increasing the number of deadly sins address the real challenge of a decrease in the sense of sin in the world and especially among Catholics? Since so many have bought into the latest religious fad of environmentalism, does the Vatican believe we will lure people to confession for having tossed a soda can and then while there, coerce them into a full examination of conscience? Come on! So many people,including Catholics agonize over global warming but demure from confrontation over abortion and even vote for pro-choice candidates. Maybe that priest who had the green confessions was right after all!
At least the first two are counter cultural, but how are they not individual? Since when did 'thou shalt not kill' become personal and not social? Will entire countries be guilty of a deadly sin? Are individual citizens guilty, regardless of their part in it? Who decides when financial success becomes financial gluttony? Or that some entity causes poverty? Do we cut off relations with Mexico since their government clearly causes poverty and their politicians are clearly financial gluttons? The more I think about these, the more ridiculous they become.
It is times like this, I am glad that deep inside I know the Church is far more than her earthly parts. I just wish she wouldn't force me to have to explain it all the time ;-)
It's not often I turn to America for the straight story from the Vatican, but after googling around a bit I found this:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=9A0A606B-5056-8960-327C219014498879
Their editorial blog claims that a fairly straightforward discussion of the social aspects of sin got turned into "seven new deadly sins" entirely by the British media. Take that for what you will...
The mainstream British media got something wrong about what someone in the Vatican said? C'mon. That can't be true. Just ask John Allen.
Thanks guys for explaining it.
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