New Catholic mortal sins? Not quite

BY ROBIN FARMER
Media General News Service
Published: March 28, 2008

Thou shall not create new sins.

Recent media reports about seven new mortal sins for Catholics that include polluting, selling drugs or becoming obscenely rich are not true, a Vatican-based priest said yesterday by phone.

Despite widespread print and broadcast reports, the Vatican did not update the deadly original seven sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride, said the Rev. Jonathan Morris, Professor of Ethics and Media at the European University of Rome.

The so-called new sins, which include genetic manipulation and accumulation of excessive wealth, were based on comments made by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti during an interview about the “new forms of social sins.”

“This was a group of Rome-based reporters who, over a plate of Italian pasta, decided to invent a story,” said Morris, a Fox News analyst who will be part of Pope Benedict XVI’s entourage when he visits America next month.

Girotti’s comments were made this month in L’Osservatore Romano, a daily newspaper published in Vatican City.

“It’s a little piece of an interview taken out of context with a monsignor from the Vatican who was asked given the new globalization, what are the new areas of social responsibility?”

He listed taking care of the Earth and the community at large, said Morris, author of the forthcoming book, “The Promise: God’s Purpose and Plan for When Life Hurts.”

“He was trying to bring to light that we have to be aware as a society to seek the common good, and we can’t pretend morality is all about my personal relationship with God. . . . It’s about responsibly to other people.”

During the interview, Girotti, regent of the tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, mentioned such transgressions as destructive research on human embryos, degradation of the environment, drug trafficking and social inequality, “by which the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer, feeding an unsustainable social injustice.”

Shortly after Girotti’s interview, dozens of media sources reported a revised list of “new sins.”

Robin Farmer is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.