Posted on 06/07/2008 3:13:57 PM PDT by NYer
ROME (CNS) -- The seven deadly sins are still key to understanding and healing the social and personal ills plaguing humanity today, said an influential Jesuit journal.
The capital vices of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are not outdated and have not been made irrelevant by psychotherapy or other mental health counseling, La Civilta Cattolica said.
The journal cited a survey commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. that found most people surveyed felt the list of deadly sins defined in the Middle Ages no longer applied to modern-day life and should be updated.
The survey, released in 2005, said most respondents were more concerned about actions that could hurt other people and listed "cruelty, adultery, bigotry, dishonesty, hypocrisy, greed and selfishness" as the worst sins the world is facing today. Greed was the only traditional vice that respondents included on the list of so-called "new sins."
The Civilta article, written by Jesuit Father Giovanni Cucci, highlighted seven headlines from The New York Times illustrating how the seven deadly sins are still alive and well. The Rome-based biweekly journal is reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State before publication.
The headlines demonstrated greed as shown by a U.S. senator under federal investigation for corruption; the gluttony of millions of Americans whose deteriorating health was rooted in overeating, drinking, smoking and drugs; and sloth as shown by gang members who raped and fatally stabbed a woman 132 times because the assailants were bored.
The original seven sins do make up the nature of everyday passions, it said, and therefore it is worthwhile to reflect and elaborate on them further. Vices and virtues "sum up our whole existence -- who we are and want to be"; everyone can recognize a piece of themselves in them, the article said.
The seven capital virtues of faith, hope, love, prudence, fortitude, justice and temperance help the individual realize his or her purpose in life: to know and be in communion with God, it said.
The opposing vices distance people from their purpose in life and bring about "the moral, mental and physical destruction" of the person, it said.
The human condition entails facing this "insuppressible tension between the ideal and limitations, between vice and virtue, which make life human," it said.
It said the work of Sigmund Freud and the advent of psychotherapy did not usher in an end to the need for moral norms. In fact, the foundation of "psychology and psychoanalysis is extraordinarily similar to classic morality: indulging in vice leads to the disappearance of pleasure," it said.
"An ethical and spiritual approach" in therapy gives a patient "concrete hope for living life differently" and gives meaning to one's actions, it said.
The journal said the renowned Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote that the root of most psychological problems is spiritual or religious in nature. Jung found that "the religious question always emerges in counseling or even becomes the key motivation that pushed the person to seek help," it said.
The journal said reflecting on vice is not pessimistic but hopeful because it presupposes a "great faith in the freedom and goodness of humankind," which is able to recognize good and act on it.
Your snide remark wasn’t even germaine to the conversation.
Pride is at the top of my list too.
**Yes and most are committed by the priesthood.**
Do you have a source for such a statement as fact?? Or are you merely stating your assumption?
Hmmmm.
I thought it was always the mother. I've been in counseling a couple of times and have had friends do the same thing. I don't know anyone who brought up their religion. Mom, on the other hand...
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. When the media came down hard and fast on the Catholic Church, it was the greatest blessing. It forced the Catholic Church to address a horrific crime. Those priests who were found guilty, were removed from the priesthood and, in certain instances, incarcerated. As a result, the Catholic Church has implemented a comprehensive program to prevent this from ever happening again. This includes background checks on ALL who come in contact with children.
Meanwhile, sexual abuse of minors continues unabated in the schools, camps and non-Catholic denominations.
The figures released to The Associated Press offer a glimpse into what has long been an extremely difficult phenomenon to pin down — the frequency of sex abuse in Protestant congregations.
Religious groups and victims' supporters have been keenly interested in the figure ever since the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis hit five years ago. The church has revealed that there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950.
Protestant numbers have been harder to come by and are sketchier because the denominations are less centralized than the Catholic church; indeed, many congregations are independent, which makes reporting even more difficult.
Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse a Year
If you are seriously concerned about ministers "diddling with small children", I suggest you organize a crusade against the Protestant, Jewish and Muslim clerics. Actions speak louder than words.
Locally, (middle Tennessee)there is a news story every other week about a Public School teacher molesting a kid...but no one attacks the public school system like they did the few Catholic perv priests!
It's no different here in NY or in any other state. The msm treat it as if it were any other local news story. Where is the public outrage?
Soliton, when you are finished with your crusade against the non-Catholic protestant, Jewish and Muslim clerics, perhaps you can tackle the Public School System. At least they have a central office, in Washington DC.
The difference is that child molesting priests were protected by the Church. That’s why the Church has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
That is a very feeble argument. Who is protecting the protestant ministers? No one because there is no one in charge. The Catholic Church has taken action. When will you take action against the child molesting protestant ministers, teachers, camp counselors?
Thanks for admitting your argument is feeble. There is no protestant problem, because gays nprefer the Catholic system.
“Benedict XVI recently tied the Octopus Dei leash on the Jesuits at the Vatican by giving them some dog-food of praise — Matteo Ricci, Robert de Nobili, etc. — but what was not said — which we expose here is that — Benedict XVI had covered-up for the Jesuits for more than 30 years since the papacy of John Paul II are the Jesuit pedophile priests, especially one that molested an ENTIRE Alaskan village boys!”
http://jp2army.blogspot.com/2008/03/jesuit-in-alaska.html
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