I know this is kind of “yesterday’s news” now, but I didn’t have time to blog about it then, so I’m doing it now.
The Pope has created more Deadly Sins. Apparently seven is no longer sufficient, and people, particularly Catholics, need yet more opportunities for guilt.
For those of you who haven’t read a news report about this yet, here’s the one I’m referring to…
Seven not enough: Pope adds to deadly sins
There used to be just seven, but the list of sins that could threaten your mortal soul just got a whole lot longer.
The Vatican has overhauled its list of mortal sins, adding several more to cope with the age of globalisation.
The new sins take aim at those who undermine society in far reaching ways, including by taking or dealing in drugs, polluting the environment, and engaging in “manipulative” genetic science, The Times of London reports.
Also new to the list are paedophilia, abortion, and social injustices that cause poverty or “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few”.
They join the long-standing evils of lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride as mortal sins – the gravest kind, which threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession or penitence.
The church’s revised position came as the Pope lamented the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularised world,” and falling rates of Roman Catholics going to confession, The Times reported.
Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body which oversees confessions and plenary indulgences, said after a week-long Lenten seminar for priests that surveys showed 60 per cent of Catholics in Italy no longer went to confession.
He said priests must take account of “new sins which had appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalisation”.
“Whereas sin in the past was thought of as being an individual matter, it now had social resonance,” he was quoted by The Times as saying.
“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who is not a Christian, I think this is absolutely ridiculous, and a blatant display of hypocrisy on the part of the church! On one hand, it is said that the Bible is non-negotiable, and it is unacceptable to try to alter “God’s word” to suit the times in which we live. This is often used as justification for condemning homosexuality as an abomination and frowning upon pre-marital sex.
This would be fair enough, if the leaders of the Catholic church did not then go and add to “God’s word” by adding to the list of mortal sins! I think it seems a bit too convenient that things are negotiable when it comes to creating new grounds for enforcing guilt upon people, but not negotiable when “God says it’s a sin” provides an excuse to condemn and discriminate against people who lead lifestyles with which you do not agree.
Yup. That’s my opinion. What do you think?
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I agree. It’s interesting which aspects of this different people choose to criticise!
I laughed when I saw the news report about this last night. Very few people take the Catholic church seriously because they are the most hypocritical group of people ever. For them to say that paedophilia and homosexuality is a sin is like someone who is riding a bike saying that riding a bike is a sin.
If God really existed, he would have written these new sins himself.
This makes me lmao, seriously. No wonder I don’t follow religion..
Interesting…I like the “but also by ruining the environment.” People have been doing that for thousands of years. And right now, so long as we have a car, we’re ruining the environment in one way. I believe that the Church would be more specific though, so I’m not so sure what I’m to believe in this article. Nevertheless, I think sticking with the seven sins would be better. They don’t change much with time.
Re: ‘altering God’s word’ – they’ve been doing it for years! They decided that the bit about slavery was wrong (as they absolutely should have) but other bits get to stay exactly as they are, unquestioned. Why not a few more pieces of hypocritical religion-driven legislation? Some of the new ‘Deadly sins’ are completely justifiable, for example the one about excessive wealth (although this may be the most hypocritical one of all – Hello Pot!) and the one about not polluting the Earth (incidentally, many fundamental Christians believe that any measures to ’save the planet’ are unnecessary because Doomsday is coming soon and they’re all going to heaven and the rest of us are going to hell, so we don’t need the earth, thankfully the Catholic church hasn’t jumped on this bandwagon).
However, most of them are just the Catholic church imposing their values on the rest of us yet again; they can call it modernising or whatever, the anti-abortion and anti-genetic science ones makes them as old-fogey and discriminatory as ever. I find it interesting that when people in NZ state their argument against the anti-smacking law, it’s that the governement is telling them how to run their lives, when most of them are also anti-abortion, anti-civil union, etc, ie, telling people how to run their lives. This is exactly what the Catholic church is doing, they’re just doing it under the guise of ‘God’s word’.
On a slightly lighter note, I’d like to know more about this pre-martial sex you mentioned – Is that when you have a quick shag before you head off into battle?
All I can say is that we’re all going to hell in a hand basket. Even lil old atheist me
jaw-dropping Wow! Look at all the smilies! star gnome turtle Omg! flyingspagheti ! I like.
Yay! I’m glad that someone sees it as I do!
Well sorta. I’m a Christian, but I’m the sort that gets yelled at by chucrh leaders because I simply follow what the bible says and not the stupid rules they try to make up. Anyways, the Catholic church erks me because they so easily have the power to tell all their followers what the can and can’t do. “I am the pope! Hear me Roar!” Yeah, well the bible doesn’t say anything about all those stupid rules, and anyone who actually read the bible and believed it wouldn’t be Catholic anymore! lol
Okay, so maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but I still think it’s the truth.
But then again, I like hearing what other people have to say about what I think is the truth! ^_^
No offense to anyone but I actually LOL-ed when I saw that article somewhere on the net. I agree with you 110% on it being ridiculous. Oh what is the world coming too!! :hissyfit:
Okay wow, well that is ridiculous – I can’t believe that this is even accepted in society. I’m not religious one bit but I still think it’s ridiculous to add more. If the words of God are so perfect etc, why are simple humans adding all the extra rules? Silly silly silly I’d say!
I’m a Catholic and they;ve been changing god’s word for years. It’s nothing new for me as a Catholic to hear. Imo, the new sins are basically just the original sins in every day language. I have no opinion on it either way for or against because I’m so used to the church changing things.
[...] Also, Holly raises the point that, well, you can read it yourself here. [...]
I’m Catholic but no longer a strong Catholic and its things like this that make me loose that extra inch of faith only because I don’t want the guilt hanging over my head. I aim to live morally and the way I see best hopefully regretting nothing in the end and the new sin about the environment would make it difficult. I forget to recycle. I forget to reuse. We should try to make the environment and society we live in better but they’ve been changing God’s word, like Christine, said way too much. One day they will stop but for now they keep changing it and changing it.
I agree… they only tend to “add to God’s word” and it’s been like that for the last couple of decads. That’s why I don’t believe in a pope… not very much anyways…