Why did the Vatican come out with 7 new mortal sins?

This question was asked and the way the question was worded inferred that not only was their questions about these new sins but also questioning the authority of the Church to just add new sins out of the blue. I say this because part of the question was, "It was God who gave us the original 7 mortal sins in the bible. Why did the Vatican think they should be able to create more?"

I will cover each of these individually because there are misunderstandings on each of these questions. First, the Vatican did not publish these 7 sins. Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary at the Vatican (the person in charge with reconciliation in the Church) brought up these sins in an interview. The media made it sound like these 'new' sins were proclaimed from the mouth of the pope. The reality is that they were taken out of aqninterview the bishop gave to the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, by an Italian reporter who saw a way to make a 'headline story' from the comments.

The second issue is that the 7 mortal sins were not definitively spelled out in the bible. While they are certainly all sins and do appear in the bible, they are not listed as the '7 deadly sins' nor are they even listed all at one time in the same book of scripture. The 7 deadly sins as we know them actually were not listed as such until in the 6th century by Pope Gregory the Great and were popularized in the Middle Ages by Dante in "The Inferno."

If one examines these 7 'new' sins they will see that they are not 7 new deadly sins rather examples of the existing 7 deadly sins. The 7 deadly sins are: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. Now, look at the sins listed by the bishop: Bioethical violations such as birth control, morally dubious experiments such as stem cell research, drug abuse, polluting the environment, contributing to widening divide between rich and poor, excessive wealth & creating poverty. It is immediately recognizable that while the 7 deadly sins are a list of sins the list the bishop gives are examples of sins. The 7 deadly sins are very broad. The sins stated by the bishop are very specific. For example, the sin of gluttony could be excess food, alcohol, television, sex or a number of other things. Drug abuse, however, is very specific and defines a particular means of committing a sin.

Lastly, if you look at these 7 social sins, which is what the Vatican is titling them, they are examples of the 7 deadly sins. For example, excess wealth is a sin agains both gluttony, avarice and pride. Polluting the environment is a sin against sloth.

Being concerned over the Vatican's authority to be able to come out with a list of modern sins seems to go beyond these sins. It seems to be a sign of questioning the Vatican's authority to interfere in our modern world and our lives. That, however, sounds like a topic for a later blog entry. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 06:05 | link | comments (1) |
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