The NEW Seven Deadly Sins

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What are you thinking? What is sin? What does it matter?

Did you hear about the papal decree that updates the list of Seven Deadly Sins? A few years back I caught a blurb about the new list of Seven Social Sins. As a follow up to my last post, I dug a little bit and this is what I found:

Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body that oversees confessions and plenary indulgences, said priests must take account of “new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalization”. He suggested the old wildly popular original seven deadly sins were largely individualistic. And in the modern world, modern sins have a much bigger social impact.



I struggled to find THE DEFINITIVE LIST and have found a number of different lists. To the best of my abilities I have boiled them down to this:

1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control
2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty

Some seem like there are duplicates or a couple that are very similar, but we have to have SEVEN! What is the bottom line, who is on the hot-seat? According to Bishop Girotti these people are treading thin ice:
Pushing Drugs (and Drug Abusers)
Abortionists
Obscenely Rich
Environmental polluters
Manipulative genetic scientists

As Girotti points out: “You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos.”

NOW JUST HOLD ON THERE! Just because there is a list, doesn’t mean that everything on that list belongs...even if some things do. There is no such thing as guilt by association here. Like all things there is right and there is wrong; and there is what people think is right and wrong; and there is what people are telling you is right or wrong based on manipulation; or how they want you to act or react. Each item on a “list” must be evaluated on its own merit.

Birth control is a sin? Really? Stem cell research? Rather a “slippery slope”. Excessive wealth? I guess it depends on whether or not that wealth is hoarded or used to fund programs that help the marginalized. Drug abuse? In all cases? We have a better understanding now a-days. I always thought of addicts as victims. Pushers are one thing, addicts another. Polluting? Seriously, who is innocent of this one?

What is sin? What does it matter?

You can say that killing, stealing, coveting and smoking are sins. But just because smoking is on the same list as some really nasty behaviors, does not make it a sin. Smoking is stupid, I will grant you that. It has been proven extremely likely to cause grave illness (read as: Smoking kills). You could make the argument that the tobacco industry is a sin by harming relationships between neighbors (but that is a major sidebar).

The point being, if it is simply on a list of other “sins” that does not make an individual’s act of smoking a sin...unless it causes that person to turn away from God. Then it is a sin. Turning toward God is relationship. That is what God intends, for us to be in relationship; with God with one another. That is why Christ came to this world so we wouldn’t have to go around worrying about lists. For that he (among other reasons) was killed.

The final victory, however, is in the resurrection. God’s resurrection of Christ opens the door for all. There is no “Go directly to Hell” card in this world. It is time we stop contriving lists of right and wrong for the purposes of scaring people into “behaving”. Yes, there is right behavior and wrong behavior. We do need civil law to ensure the safety and protection of ourselves and our neighbors. Our religious codes may have had that intent; but to tell a teen-age boy he is destined for Hell because he fantasizes about a classmate or teacher is wrong. Violating someone by acting on the behavior is another matter. We must be careful about our motives. Laws and lists developed to protect our neighbor whether religious or civil are useful; but not if eternal damnation is threatened for every action. Yes, I know that there are plenty of verses that can be used (or abused) to justify supporting this...but that is not the overarching message God gives us through Christ. The message was about forgiveness and the inclusion of all humanity.

There is nothing more powerful than God’s love. Nothing. And reconciliation which is meant for all. That means all.