Sensational Sin

While searching for follow-up information on a previous post concerning the Southern Baptist Convention making a statement on climate change, I found several stories claiming that the Vatican had redefined or revised the list of the seven deadly sins.  The press was quick to pick up on pollution being part of the "new list."  I found the post below, from the Acton Institute, to be helpful--at least in its links to relevant material on the story.

“Recycle or go to Hell, warns Vatican”. “Vatican Increases List of Mortal Sins”, “Vatican lists ‘new sins’, including pollution”. These were three of the most sensationalist headlines in yesterday’s English-speaking press, picking up on an interview with a Vatican official published in L’Osservatore Romano on Sunday.

The official, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, is the second-in-command at the Apostolic Penitentiary (despite the name, it is not a jail but the Vatican office responsible for issues relating to the forgiveness of sins in the Roman Catholic Church). The bishop spoke the day after the Penitentiary concluded a course for confessors. The bulk of the interview dealt with matters concerning canon law and the sacrament of confession, items of little interest to the general public. But the bishop also spoke about some new forms of social sin. Here are the relevant questions and answers:

Sometimes people do not understand the Church’s (issuing of) indulgences and Christian forgiveness? Why do you think it is that way?

Today it seems that repentance is taken to mean opening one’s self to others when resolving issues found within his or her own special social sphere, within which one expresses his very own existence, and does so by offering his own contribution of clarification and support for those having such problems. Repentance, therefore, today takes on a (special) social dimension, due to the fact that relationships have grown weaker and more complicated because of globalization.

In your opinion, what are the “new sins”?

There are various areas today in which we adopt sinful behavior, as with individual and social rights. This is especially so in the field of bioethics where we cannot deny the existence of violations of fundamental rights of human nature – this occurs by way of experiments and genetic modifications, whose results we cannot easily predict or control. Another area, which indeed pertains to the social spectrum, is that of drug use, which weakens our minds and reduces our intelligence. As a result, many young people are left out of Church circles. Here’s another one: social and economic inequality, in the sense that the rich always seem to get richer, and the poor, poorer. This [phenomenon] feeds off an unsustainable form of social injustice and is related to environmental issues –which currently have much relevant interest.

(Download an English translation of the entire interview [PDF].)

Anyone reading these passages can see that the Church is not proposing any new list of mortal sins, and certainly did not list “obscene wealth” and “pollution” as matters to be confessed by the faithful. The bishop simply referred to the social consequences of sin, some of which seem to be exacerbated by an increasingly inter-connected world.

So how did the American and British press reports get it so wrong? Back in February 2007, John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter wrote an incisive piece about irresponsible reporting at the Vatican, and there is even an entire website, GetReligion.org, devoted to this problem.

Having worked in the Vatican for several years, I know many of the beat reporters, including some of those who botched this social sin story. Most have absolutely no interest in the larger theological or philosophical issues discussed at high levels, so in a way this is all the fruit of culpable ignorance.

But real damage is done to the Church and her flock by such slipshod reporting. Knowledge of Catholic social doctrine has surely suffered and people who may otherwise be interested in the Church have been driven away, all in the name of an eye-catching headline.

Thankfully, not all the news is bad. Institutions such as the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross have started seminars to train journalists in reporting on the Church, though it seems not all the English-speaking ones in Rome have yet been able to attend.

Source

Sensational reports aside, environmental concerns are obviously part of what we must consider in terms of social responsibility.  While there may be no need for individuals to confess sins such as "obscene wealth" and "pollution," we nevertheless are not excused from responsibility.  I have found that certain Catholic bloggers prefer to treat global warming as if it were either nonexistent or a "green" political ruse.  It's important to look beyond political polemics and begin to understand the real threats we face in our times.

I find it refreshing to see that a Vatican statement on sin looks to the overall social responsibility that humanity has, rather than looking to sin as a purely personal phenomenon.  However, each one of us must see himself or herself as a part of something greater.  We must realize that our personal choices have a profound impact on the whole.  It is time that we as individuals begin to demand change in our world, including prompt implementation of clean and renewable--even affordable--energy sources.  The call is for humanity, as individuals and as a whole, to take responsibility for the world in which we live.  We must demand change in that which left unchecked and to itself will destroy creation.

Comments

[JustMe]

But isn't persecution, scandal/coverup, conspiracy theories and "blessed storm candles/smoky handprints of Purgatory" sensationalism the only way the Church gets mention here in the States' news? I was about to ask, What's a Catholic gotta do around here to get some respect for the Church -- be a dying Pope? But that was only good for a few months' curiosity. When I saw an article on this last night (which also quoted JP II's wise admonitions), I could only roll my eyes at how misreported it was. Again. There's probably nothing much we can do about that, but there's much we can do otherwise.

There aren't any new sins, but there are new degrees and depths and depravities of many of them. Indeed, obscene wealth and pollution and the de-greening of all God's green for all His people is something that ought to be not only confessed, but repented and amended, with firm resolve, asap. A nattering squirrel has more green-smarts than many of us do, but worse, our whole affluent culture is geared to break commandments from the top one right on down through the list. We'll be judged (non-partisanly) as a nation, too, won't we? There's only so much our Patroness can plead for us, in the line of Patience and help.

And yes, the evidence of permanent damage, even if we weren't a nation of asthmatics, now, is irrefutable! The very least we can do is try to conserve and go more green. The core of the earth is going to end up being all landfill.. and what are the oceans receiving? Reduce, reuse, recycle. Grow our own, bicycle, work less, live on less, car-pool. Share, barter, demand truly recyclable packaging.. (Eliminate sorties and bombings, too--very damaging to earth, people, futures..) And don't we all know farm-someones out in Oregon who already have to buy water for their livestock? Not even Forbes 500 list-folks can afford to buy a planet's health once it's gone.

[anon]

Confess your sins online at: http://iconfessmyself.blogspot.com

[Deacon DW]

Just a couple things on anon's comment and link to the iconfessmyself blog:

1. You can confess all you want at iconfessmyself.blogspot.com but you can't get absolution from mortal sin without going to confession. If you want to really get something off your chest, and off your eternal soul, go to confession--it can be as anonymous as you would like--face-to-face or behind the screen. So, if you really want freedom from your guilt there is a way.

2. Nothing you do online is anonymous. I appreciate the person who left the inconfessmyself url also giving me an email address; however, that person also left an IP address, as everyone who visits a website does. With only a little effort a great deal of personal information can be gotten about you. You have to be careful about what you reveal in the combox. Now, on the other hand, you can rest assured that what you say in confession will never, ever, go further.

Peace, and happy blogging!

[JustMe]

Shoot. When I saw 2 other comments here, I thought maybe there'd be other suggestions for saving this sorry ol' planet. Not in two million years would I have guessed I'd find a McConfessional url instead. *sigh..

The down side of "confessing one's self" is that one cannot absolve one's self.

[Gabrielle]

Could someone give me an example, please, of how relationships have grown weaker because of globalization. I don't understand that point.

I think the general sense of what Bishop Girotti said is very thoughtful and right on target (if a tad late in the day...) DD, I too have been taken aback by some of the Catholic bloggers who consider global-warming to be less than a non-issue. And yet, the other day I read something written by someone quite high up on the Vatican-ladder (I wish I could remember who/where) who said it is as if the earth herself is crying, pleading with humanity. Go figure. Those of us who were saying that very same thing twenty-five years ago were told by other Catholics to take our New Age propaganda elsewhere.

[JustMe]

I can't make heads nor tails of his whole paragraph, G, leading up to "globalization." How does that answer the man's question?? This may not reflect what he's referring to, but all I could think of for an example you've asked is perhaps that of Ireland having joined the EU. Its whole economic structure changed, and Ireland has been inundated with other EUropean countries' workforce/housebuyers. All these new people aren't all Catholics, as Ireland most certainly WAS. That has changed the landscape as well-- certainly it has weakened the faith and complicated matters.

Overall, tho', I don't understand how any God-fearing people can dismiss the ills of global warming as unimportant. From well before Moses descended with the tablets, man was charged to be a good steward of the earth. It was a matter of survival as well as one of a sign of gratitude to God.

[Deacon DW]

At first I thought he might be hedging the question, for whatever reason--perhaps there was point he wanted to make that just went beyond the whole question of indulgences, but then perhaps not.

He seems to be saying that forgiveness, which includes the whole idea of indulgences, has a social dimension. This much we understand: it's part of the explanation of why we go to confession rather than simply taking our sins to God in private prayer (which also has a place).

Globalization weakens relationships, partly at least, in that it strikes at and redefines the basic structure of human social relationship, namely our whole notion of community and interdependence. It's not just economic globalization but everything that results from it. As humanity obtains a global realization of itself--in a way as never before--sin likewise begins to take on a global significance.

Repentance, he seems to be saying, comes about by reestablishing the basic communal human relationships--a point I touched on in my last homily (first Sunday of March). It appears to me that rather than taking on a psychological burden too heavy for ourselves, and rather than being bound by the shame inherent in sin and guilt, our true challenge is to recognize the broken relationships, which too often we find in our own households. Once recognized, healing can begin.

Perhaps in the past sin has focused too much on the personal dimension and neglected the most obvious--our relation with others.

[Gabrielle]

Thank you. :)