Modern day sins
LINK: ‘Note Verbale’, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Times) – 23 March 2008 Issue
Sins are acts or omissions regarded by institutions of faith as transgressions of their God’s will.
From the standpoint of the Roman Catholics, sins may be original, referring to the since of disobedience inherited by all the descendants of Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Following this biblical line, no one comes out of the mother’s womb sinless. Sins may also be personal, taking either the form of mortal or venial sins depending on their nature, gravity, and deliberateness.
In the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, they say that Saint Gregory I, The Great, who introduced the edict of celibacy, listed the original seven deadly sins during his papacy in the 6th century. And this list was made popular by a great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, in his epic poem and literary masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy” in the 14th century.
The seven deadly sins include: Luxuria (extravagance or lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride).
If there are seven deadly sins, there are also seven holy virtues. They say that the seven virtues were derived from an epic poem written by a Roman Christian Poet, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, entitled “Psychomachia” or the “Contest of the Soul”, which was intensely popular in Europe during the Middle Ages. These seven virtues that include, Chastity, Abstinence, Temperance, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and Humility, are regarded as ‘contrary virtues’ because they are supposed to protect one against each of their counterpart in the order of the seven deadly sins.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, India’s great political and spiritual leader and one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, devised his own list of seven sins which he considered to be most spiritually damaging to modern-day humanity. These include: Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge without Character, Politics without Principle, Commerce without Morality, and Worship without Sacrifice.
A week ago, Vatican came up with a list of seven modern-day mortal sins for Roman Catholics, in addition to the traditional seven deadly sins, because of their prevalence in this era of ‘unstoppable globalisation’. Reports say that these new mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession or the Sacrament of Penance in the Catholic faith.
The seven modern evils include: environmental pollution, genetic manipulation, accumulating excessive wealth, inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and consumption, morally debatable experiments, and violation of fundamental rights of human nature.
8ins are intrinsically evil because they deliberately offend the sensibilities of human nature. For this reasons, almost all sins, if not all, are also legislated and regarded as crimes against society in the modern world that deserve corporeal punishment. Although, it does not necessarily follow that all state-defined crimes are sins per se.
The sins committed by human beings have no expiration date. Neither does their basic nature change with the changing world. Sins will be the same throughout the existence of humanity. What the human conscience perceives as evils before are the same evils today, only the form, manner, face or packaging of their commission will change.
As the Christian world celebrates and observes Easter Sunday, people should be reminded that still the best prescription to avoid the temptation and occasion of sins, modern or old, is to conscientiously observe the ethic or reciprocity in their human conduct as expressed in the Golden Rule of “doing unto others what you would like others do unto you”. And certainly, this is in keeping and in accord with God’s will even in today’s world.
