The new collectivistic sins.

You’re all a bunch of sinners! So says the Vatican, which has invented a new list of sins. I guess the new sins were necessary since they were having such a hard time with the old list. Of course, one problem is the Vatican has lost all moral authority over the old sins -- things like adultery and fornication. It’s pretty hard to take them seriously after the massive cover-ups they engaged in regarding the actions of their own clergy. So they have a new list of deadly sins.

They also argue that the old sins have a “rather individualistic dimension” to them and the new sins are collectivistic. Many of them come from the Church of the Greens. Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, argues that becauses the “new sins” are more collectivistic, “it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins.” Gee, Father, shouldn’t the church pay more attention to it’s sins? This priest, a close ally to the Pope, said: “While sin used to concern mostly the individual today it has mainly a social resonance.”

These “sins” are a combination of Luddite thinking, moral conservativism, environmental alarmism and socialism. Count on the Vatican to take the worst ideas floating around in society and combine them all into one odiferous batch of intellectual excrement. The sins include:

1. Bioethical “sins” such as birth control and genetic modification.

2. Experiments on “stem cells”

3. Drug use. I assume the drugs they refer to don’t include alcohol, a favorite drug at the local rectory and at the communion rail. Apparently it doesn’t include tobacco either.

4. Pollution.

5. “Contributing to the widening divide between rich and poor.” Please note that if you work harder and earn more money you are contributing to the “widening divided between rich and poor” since your increased wealth doesn’t benefit someone who didn’t earn it. However, if you quit your job and go on welfare you are lessening the divide. Of course don’t expect the Pope to give up his palaces, satin robes, jeweled crows and gold trinkets.
6. Similar to the neoMarxist assumptions of sin #5 is the the sine of becoming wealth.

Girotti repeates the demonstrably false claim that: “The poor are always becoming porrer and the rich even more rich, feeding unsustainable social injustice.” That is just bullshit. The reality is that the wealth of poor countries is growing much faster than rich countries. And more people have left poverty in the last two decades than at any time in human history. But facts and theology rarely go together. And the Vatican is now just taking the Gospel According to Marx as it’s new Bible.

7. The final sin is “creating poverty” which is a nonsense sin. Poverty is man’s default status. It is how man was created -- by God if you a believer. Man is born with nothing. All wealth is created by human endeavor. You don’t create poverty. You create wealth. The Vatican wouldn’t know this since it doesn’t produce wealth, it merely redistributes it from poor congregants to a very wealth church.

These sins are genetic modification, experiments on humans (what does this mean?), pollution, social injustice (a meaningless term), poverty, wealth and taking drugs. See, not a single mention of altar boys in the entire batch.

Though this Vatican spokespriest was asked about “scandal and sin within the church”. Apparently that was a reference to the priests sexually attacking children. He did acknowledge the “objective gravity” of these incidents and then turned the tables saying that reporting on such things much be denounced because it “discredits the church.” Gee, I thought it was the cover-ups by the Cardinals and Bishops that discredited the church?

Photo: This is a Papal trinket. It is a large sized replica of a church made out of gold and platinum, surely that is a sign of "excessive" wealth.