Seven "New" Not-so-Deadly Sins

A couple of weeks ago, several news organizations released the story that the Catholic Church had updated the Seven Deadly Sins by adding seven more. Organizations such as Fox News, the London Telegraph, and BBC News reported that damaging the environment, genetic manipulation, abortion, excessive wealth, contributing to socioeconomic gaps, pedophilia, and drug dealing were the seven “new” deadly sins. These new sins were based on an interview  with Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, where he stated that because the world is becoming increasingly global, sin takes on a new global dimension. News organizations jumped at this information and reported that the Vatican had altered its well known list and added these seven new more global sins.   

However, the sites that reported this did not get the whole story. Investigation into Catholic sources, such as the Catholic News Service, reveal that the new sins were not new sins at all; rather, Archbishop Girotti pointed out that there are new forms of sin that fit in with the existing rules about what a sin is. Because of recent techonological advances and globalization, there are new ways to violate the old rules, and such violations have more global consequences. Girotti stressed the need to pay more “attention to sin” and to confess more often; he did not issue a statement on a whole new list of sins.    

But when the media got a hold of it, they spun their own tale, creating a sensationalist story about seven new additions to the traditional list of lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, envy, anger, and pride. The whole incident reveals more about modern journalism than it does about sin. For some organizations, journalism no longer means reporting the news, but is a way to tell stories almost as fantastic as fiction. Much journalism does not provide a good look at what is happening in the world, but lures in readers with outrageous and often manipulated “reporting.”  As readers, we must be aware that not everything the BBC says is Gospel, and we should investigate for ourselves rather than blindly accepting. That said, the journalistic world also has a duty to be more professional, and to report what is true rather than what sells. Father John Baker, Catholic Chaplain  at Vanderbilt, aptly summed up the fiasco by saying, “I would propose my own new sin: Irresponsible publication.” Amen.