Sin-sational list getting longer?
Any whisper coming from the Vatican about any particular subject might as well be shouted from the rooftops. If the communique gets twisted or misinterpreted, there can be all sorts of reports made on the issue before it all gets sorted out.
Such was the case when a Vatican official recently gave his opinion about ”new sins of the modern era” to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
All of a sudden there were reports that the Vatican had published a new list of the seven deadly sins of modern times that included such things as economic inequality and genetic manipulation.
Soon, however, a wire report turned up, saying that an interview with Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, (the Vatican body which oversees confessions and plenary indulgences) was misinterepreted in the media as an official Vatican update to the seven deadly sins laid out by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century.
Too late — conversations and stories about the so-called new list of sins were already taking place.
For a quick update, the mortal sins known as the Seven Deadly Sins are gluttony, sloth, anger, envy, pride, avarice and lust.
Girotti, in the newspaper interview, said he could see sinful attitudes in relation to individual and social rights. Making his list of new sins to watch out for are drug use, which he said “debilitates the psyche and darkens the intelligence”; abortion; pedophila; environmental pollution; social injustice causing the rich to become richer and the poor to become poorer; and genetic science manipulation.
Whether or not these were meant to be “updates” or additions to list of sins that threaten the soul, one thing is clear: The list of sins always captures folks’ attention.
I’ve asked myself what sins I would add to the list, along with justifiable punishments. In a study I did last year for a blog series on the Seven Deadly Sins, I found that the original list had an accompanying list of horrible punishments to go along with them.
For instance, if you were guilty of gluttony, you would be forced to eat rats, snakes, spiders and toads. If you were guilty of wrath, you would be torn apart limb from limb (ouch!).
What would you list as a sin that is not already one of the seven deadly? Take it a little further: What punishment would you mete out for the sin that you added on the list?
Let me know, by sending an e-mail to chinton@oklahoman.com or send a note by regular mail to Carla Hinton, P.O. Box 25125, Oklahoma City, OK 73125.
