You may have heard that the Vatican has issued a list of seven new deadly sins.
There they are listed as: "(1)genetic at modification; (2) human experimentations, (3) polluting the environment; (4) social injustice; (5) causing poverty; (6) financial gluttony; and (7) taking drugs."
That "taking drugs" is on the list really sticks in my craw.
First of all, what does that even mean? Tobacco and alcohol are drugs.
The praises of wine found in the Old Testament would then be an encouragement to sin. Even taking the Eucharist would be a sin. The monks who have made beer, wine, and liqueurs for centuries now face eternal perdition!
Or is this restricted to illegal drugs? Illegal where? Is smoking marijuana a sin in the United States but not in Holland? Is taking Qat okay when in Yemen?
Since when do the secular legislative bodies of the world determine which acts separate the soul from God?
What is it about drugs that might make them sinful? Is it the degree to which they affect normal perception and mental processes? This invokes a tremendous number of unresolved questions concerning the nature of perception. Perhaps certain drugs actually enhance our perception of reality; certainly the connection between drugs and spirituality has been a strong one from prehistoric times.
How do we define "normal" modes of perception? Mystical experiences are certainly not the norm; perhaps the works of the great Christian mystics like St. Theresa of Avila will now be classified as manuals of iniquity.
The drug-peddling activities of countless mediaeval monks should also come under scrutiny; many monasteries had a monopoly on the sale of gruit, an herbal mixture used for brewing beer which made the beer highly psychoactive.
This is idiotic.
The problem with the "new" sins, however, goes far deeper.
In this article a Vatican official claims that the original deadly sins "were largely individualistic: lust, wrath, gluttony, sloth, greed, pride, and envy. But in the modern world, modern sins have a much bigger social impact." Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti said much the same thing in the first article: "The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one..."
This line of thinking is pure modernist drivel. The "new sins" may reflect modern concerns, yet they are all traceable to the spiritual defects enumerated by the Church centuries ago.
Environmental pollution is due to inordinate desire for profit or to sheer laziness--avarice and sloth on the old list. Genetic experimentation and experiments on humans can be traced to avarice and pride. "Social injustice," "causing poverty," and "financial gluttony" can all be traced to avarice, wrath, gluttony, lust, pride, or again just plain sloth. "Taking drugs" doesn't even belong on the list.
"While the methods may change," the Nightline article concludes, "the sin remains the same."[emphasis mine]
So whence the "new" sins?
The Church has mistaken outer form for spiritual reality. I had entertained a modicum of hope for Western tradition when the Tridentine Mass was reestablished. But I can't deny the sound of Catholicism drawing its last feeble breaths.
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