This comes from the NYTimes, and I’m still digesting it. I want to find out more about A) the original news from the Catholic Church, and B) the structure of the observations behind this article. Can anyone point me in the right direction to start and/or offer some insight?
“The Vatican and Globalization: Tinkering with Sin“
“It’s hard to erect rules to last forever. The recent suggestion by a bishop from the Vatican’s office of sin and penance that globalization and modernity gave rise to sins different from those dating from medieval times seemed to many like an acknowledgment that the world is, indeed, changing.
“If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a value and resonance that is above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalization,” Monsignor Girotti told the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.”
The two questions and answers that seem to be sparking the media furor are:
Does the attention to sin come from a sensibility
to the needs of modern society or from a
reference point of a past time?
The reference is always the violation of the covenant with God and with brothers and the
social consequences of sin. If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today
it has a value, a resonance beyond the individual, above all social, because of the great
phenomenon of globalization. In effect, the attention to sin presents itself more urgently
today than yesterday, because its consequences are wider and more destructive.
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.
Reading those myself, what I see him saying in the first is that in modern times, sinning has consequences beyond simply harming the individual. That before, for instance, if someone told a lie, very few people were hurt. Obviously, it hurt the person they lied to, and it would hurt the lier and their relationship with God, and maybe one or two other people, but beyond that? Now, in the day of globalization (or so says the Bishop), if one man tells a lie about finding WMD in Iraq, we send hundreds of thousands of men off to die… if one board of directors engages in unethical behavior, we get lots of little old ladies with no pensions. IOW, because of globalization, our sins have a capacity to hurt far more people than they previously did.
On the second topic, he’s not suggesting in any way shape or form that we get rid of the traditional 7 deadly sins. He’s also not suggesting we replace the Commandments. What I read him as saying is that new technology creates ways for people to sin that simply were not previously possible. For instance, abortion probably wasn’t an official sin 500 years ago. When we developed the technology to safely, quickly, and easily abort babies, thus essentially mass producing the technique, the Catholic Church made a decision that yes, abortions were a sin. He’s saying that progress has created other such situations – things that simply weren’t an issue 500 years ago. He lists three specifically – genetic modifications/experiments, widespread drug use, and social/economic inequality. The Bishop is simply arguing that these (just like abortion earlier) should be officially deemed Not Good and added to The List Of Sins.
Here is the link to what claims to be an accurate English translation of the actual interview:
http://blog.acton.org/uploads/penitentiary_interview.pdf
Here is the article I got the translation link from:
http://newsbusters.org/people/gianfranco-girotti
Here’s a good getreligion article on the “Seven Sensationalist Sins.”
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3265