Nancy Gibbs reminds us that “There was a certain bracing beauty about the original seven deadly sins – pride, gluttony, sloth, lust, greed, envy, and anger – which among them could account for virtually all the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. Anger gives rise to violence; gluttony to waste; pride to every manner of tragedy and hurt. They were judged sufficient for the past 15 centuries, ever since they were cataloged by Pope Gregory the Great…
“But not anymore. ‘We are losing the notion of sin,’ Pope Benedict XVI warns. The culture celebrates what it once sanctioned: parents encourage pride as essential to self-esteem; a group of self-rising French chefs has petitioned the Vatican that being a gourmand is no sin. Envy is the engine of tabloid culture. Lust is an advertising strategy; anger, the righteous province of the aggrieved…”
The Vatican has begun stressing a broader range of sins for the modern age. I think that Mohandas Gandhi, of all persons, had a great version of the seven deadly sins:
- Wealth without work - Politics without principle
- Pleasure without conscience - Commerce without morality
- Science without humanity - Worship without sacrifice
- Knowledge without character
-DJ
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