Posted on 03/10/2008 8:02:51 AM PDT by jdm
As a practicing Catholic, I try to keep up with the latest from the Home Office in the Vatican, but more often than not, I find myself wondering if they know not what they do. For instance, today we hear from officials that they have added to the list of sins Catholics must consider, including “ecological sins”. In the same breath but without a hint of irony, the same officials bemoan the decreasing participation in the rite of reconciliation, or what used to be called confession:
Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of “new” sins such as causing environmental blight. …
Girotti, in an interview headlined “New Forms of Social Sin,” also listed “ecological” offences as modern evils. …
Girotti, who is number two in the Vatican “Apostolic Penitentiary,” which deals with matter of conscience, also listed drug trafficking and social and economic injustices as modern sins.
But Girotti also bemoaned that fewer and fewer Catholics go to confession at all.
During Mass, Catholics will ask for forgiveness for their sins, for “what I have done, and what I have failed to do.” We call these sins of commission and sins of omission. Until today, I had never heard of sins of emission.
Unlike many Catholics, I still participate in the rite of reconciliation. I find it remarkably focusing, a way to zero in on the notion of accountability. Many argue that Christians need no intermediary to find forgiveness from God, and I’d say I agree with that — but truthfully, do most people think about accounting for their sins at all without some kind of structure that demands it? In preparing for the confessional, which I do find uncomfortable and off-putting, I have to consciously consider my sins of commission and omission and decide on the level of honesty I’m willing to provide — not to the priest, but to myself.
It’s an exercise I find challenging, unpleasant, but necessary on at least an occasional basis. A hazy and private “My bad!” to God every once in a while doesn’t force me into that level of introspection. With a priest, I know that the actual verbalization of these issues will go no farther, and he acts as a mechanism between penitent and God to ensure that process occurs at all.
However, the addition of sins based on political correctness demeans the process. If pollution is a sin, do I have to give up driving a car? Lighting my house? Burning wood in the fireplace? Or is there a level at which sin arises; if so, will the Vatican provide the formulas? It’s silly, because excessive consumption is already covered by gluttony. This looks like a desperate attempt at temporal relevancy when the Church should be concerned about eternal truths. It’s like watching your parents try to rap.
If the Vatican wonders why Catholics feel that reconciliation has become less relevant, perhaps it’s because the Church tries to impose faddish notions of sin on its members. If the Vatican doesn’t take sin and repentance seriously, why should Catholics?
The Catholic Church has NOT added to the list of sins that should be considered at reconciliation.
The article linked to in the article has nothing to do with the matter. The article-writer either doesn’t understand how the Church works or intends to deliberately mislead.
Ping to read later
“Added to”? Hardly.
“Sins” is in quotes.
The author is being disingenuous. The article does not say that pollution has been added as a sin. The article says the the gravest new sin is genetic engineering.
The more we understand the good that we ought to have done and the bad that we have done, the more we realize how much we need a savior.
The way it was presented this morning on Fox news, was that the church added 7 more mortal sins to the original mortal sins. I didn’t get to hear the whole thing though.
Funny, I thought I’d open this thread and find a pic of BJ Clinton...go figure.
I read it on Boortz and went looking for a better source.
All the reports seem to more or less come from one article in a Vatican paper.
My curiousity was piqued by “accumulation of excessive wealth” being named in a couple of the articles. Um, who decides?
I would really like to read what was really said word for word.
Somehow I’m not buying this as reported.
Your little rant is much ado about nothing. If it isn’t Catholic doctrine, and the stuff you just listed isn’t, then it doesn’t mean squat. Now, go back to the confessional and confess to the priest your un-thinking, anti-Catholic gossip, for gossip really is a sin.
I’m trying to figure out how something van be a mortal sin today, but not yesterday.
Maybe rich people get a special grandfathered deal.
I thought “sins of emission” meant something else.
I heard this on Fox this morning too, and it sounded plausible to me, although significantly more left wing than the usual Deadly Sins.
If it is something that somebody in Rome made up and SAID was deadly sin, that is another story. But that is not the way it was presented.
I think it is spin.
The seven deadly sins are still the same. (And these all fall within them:
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Of course, but this list is not official: it's a traditional mnemonic.
I think it’s fair to say that Salvation’s list is partial, but not complete.
That is, she is right that her list is a list of “official sins”.
But you are right to say that there exists no *complete* list of official sins.
This is because our definition of sin is not merely an objective definition (although there are objectively evil acts), but also involves a subjective component, our “free consent” and “knowledge thereof” (the last two make an objectively evil act done a mortal sin). Thus, there’s no way to list all mortal sins (and thus, by extension, all venial sins), since for each person, there exists a different “list’, based on their knowledge and free consent.
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