This just in: New sins
March 14th, 2008 by Stuart
This week the Vatican published a list of new sins. Apparently modern times mean modern sins, and the Vatican doesn’t want to leave anything out. The new sins include environmental harm & pollution, genetic manipulation & cloning, social & economic justice issues, and drug trafficking.
I think it’s a neat idea to send out regular updates on what’s sinful. I mean, wouldn’t you want to be kept informed whenever your church’s list was updated? After all, these are “modern times,” so I think you should be able to sign up to have sin alerts e-mailed to you. Maybe they could offer an RSS feed or send SMS text messages to mobile phones.
Anyway, the update was given by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the second-in-command of the Vatican’s division/task force that rules on issues of sin and penance. This would be a neat gig, I think, since you’d really want to try something out before ruling on its possible sinfulness.
As I read the list, though, most things to me were obviously sinful. Drug dealing? Yeah that’s sinful. Hurting the environment? Also bad. Unjustly oppressing others? No doubt. Did it really take them this long to realize those things were bad? But why are they paranoid about cloning? I think they’ve been watching too many cheesy sci-fi movies if they think scientists want to clone and replace people. Maybe next year they’ll declare Klingons sinful too.
Not being Catholic, I don’t understand all the details of papal rulings, but were the things on the list just not sins until now? Was drug trafficking okay last week but not this week? And is there a list of everything else that’s sinful? That’d be a long list…. “Thou shalt not cut people off while driving. Thou shalt not watch reality television.” Yes I said it: reality TV is sinful. I’m not afraid to say it. Hey, I’m just typing what the Holy Spirit tells me! 
[…] shares This just in: New sins from Connected Christianity. He says, “Just in case you needed an update on what’s […]
I would love to see Christian churches issue lists of what people do right. So much of what churches do is contrary to the loving message of Jesus Christ.
Thought provoking. Thanks.
Here via The Seventh Day.
Sandy,
That’s an interesting idea. I think it’d be fun to let it be a collaborative effort. Maybe put up a big sheet in the church hallway that says “Good things to do” or “Ways to do right,” and let people write on it.
What I think isn’t time well spent is parsing over every possible bad behavior. That’s why I thought it was funny for the Vatican to release an addendum to a sin list. I think it’s better to spend time saying, “This is good, do likewise,” and not saying, “Don’t this, or this, or that either, and definitely that…” That would take forever.