[Source: Boing Boing ...]
In the sixth century, Pope Gregory handed down a list of “seven cardinal vices.” Now the Vatican has issued an additional seven “social sins.”
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,” said [Bishop Gianfranco] Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions.The seven social sins are:
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
The original deadly sins:
1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Gluttony
4. Lust
5. Anger
6. Greed
7. Sloth
One of the best comments for this posting was by Takuan
AH those crazy kids at the world’s largest real estate operation! How about the child raping huh? Or the targeting of the poor for recruits and the increasing of the ranks of the poor by opposing family planning? All those vatican art treasures gathering dust when they could be sold for food for the hungry. Aboriginal people everywhere still badly wounded from having the native beat out of them. All those nuns,monks and priests with blighted lives from having their natural sexuality crushed in the name of subjugation to church power. Gay people everywhere, murdered by church sanction and still being made to fight for basic human rights. Cultural treasures lost to the bonfires of the church in South America, The Inquisition, the retarding of science, the wilfull delay of medical advances, the overweening hypocrisy , the brutality, the greed, the ignorance……
How dare they show their faces much less preach about “sin”?
Well said!
Come now, I’m sure if we sat down and had a chat we’d agree on a great many things.
The Catholic Church was once a blood brother in the warmongering, corrupt triad of anglo-eurasian armies with armed monks, the incestuous monarchies and state religion commanded by the city state that became the Vatican and the home of the Pope, the nation state of the Catholic Church. Before the Henry the Eighth sexually motivated break, it battled with the Muslims for control of the Holy Land, winning some battles but ultimately losing the war.
The holy land remained outside of the control of Catholic, Protestant or Jewish authority until the controversial creation of Israel in 1948. I support the right of Israel to exist, acknowledging all of the injustices committed by all sides in that arena from the beginning and in so much of human history. Show me a place anywhere in the world inhabited by human beings, give me a little time and if there is written or oral history to be researched, I will show you a lot of injustice committed in human actions against other humans that will revolt you.
In more modern times the Catholic Church has renounced violence, becoming significantly but not completely pacifist, a goal I support and admire. The Church asserts its transnational rights on the basis of it’s agenda of searching and supporting human dignity first, at least it does so in the US where it can get away with it. It denounces the sovereign rights of the United States to have and enforce immigration laws on the basis that humans are not always accorded the dignity god wants them to have. Today the Pope’s TV surrogates emphasized that his agenda is not nation based, rather that his agenda transcends nations and is based on the search for human dignity. To be sure to distance himself from Bush, he refused a state dinner with the President. I might consider doing that same thing but for different reasons.
Today the Pope says he is deeply ashamed of the sexual abuse committed in America (or is it just exposed in America?) and wanted to assure everyone that it will never happen again in the Catholic Church. I give him credit for such a clear statement. But why no apology?
So many questions bubbling up, but one seems to be particularly jangling given the Pope’s view that the US does not have a right to protect its borders by enforcing its laws due to human considerations which should come before all.
Why then does the Catholic Church hide behind and exploit various US laws and procedures to try to evade or minimize it’s exposure of the than embarrassing sexual abuse of children, which was overlooked by Bishops who retain their positions.
What about that element of human dignity the Catholic Church now hypocritically ignores, even TODAY while the Pope was speaking, to take advantage of US regulations that protect the Church due to the passage of time? Why does it use some laws and feel it has the right to work against other laws. Why not look beyond US laws as it does with immigration laws, to enhance human dignity and accept responsibility for those whose rights have expired because their human dignity was seriously taken away so long ago?
When will the Church make amends to those many who kept silent so long that US laws now protect the Catholic church from prosecution?
Not being an insider, I do not know, but here is an outside clue: The Catholic Church has so far been forced to dispense 2 billion dollars in legal settlements. Yes, they want this embarrassing event to stop, stop the bleeding of their coffers. Hang the dignity of a person who kept quiet too long and has lived for decades with who knows what kind of shame, embarrassment and psychological disruptions.
So the first persons loss of dignity decades ago seems not to be equal in the eyes of the Churck to the loss of dignity experienced by mostly hardworking family men trying to make money to support their family who happens to be a citizen of another country is held accountable for breaking that law. What is the real difference in these two different circumstances of human dignity?
The first deserves for the Church to compensate him and the second is part of a fine group of people who are inclined to give the Church money.
Pay money or get money? A transnational agenda for sure.
The Catholic Church, despite stated good intentions and vast improvements from the embarrassing inquisitions and so on, continues to give hypocrisy a bad name.