two things severely wrong here.
one, the catholic church does indeed give guidelines on HOW to do it. read up on distributism. recently the vatican came out with a new list of mortal sins for the modern era and among these were “obscene wealth” and “environmental pollution”. here is the entire list:
npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88085760
The NPR (not Vatican) article is an utter distortion of what was said. Sadly, rather than depending upon common sense, many Catholics have picked up on that distortion and have run with it…rather than checking with their own God-given common sense.
From the NPR article:
In an effort to appeal to the modern Catholic, the Vatican has announced a list of seven new mortal sins. Some of the new don’ts: thou shalt not pollute and thou shalt not have too much money.
Madeleine Brand speaks with Father James Martin, acting publisher of the Jesuit magazine America, about the importance of updating the 1,500-year-old sin list.
“I think it’s to remind people that sins are not just individual,” he says referring to the Catholic church’s old seven deadly sins — lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. “There’s also social sins … .sins that affect the community at large and sins that an institution can engage in.”
From Fr Martin at
America magazine (HARDLY a conservative Catholic voice):
As an example of how the media sometimes can get a story wrong, or at least confuse things unnecessarily, witness the story from the March 8 issue of L’Osservatore Romano, which included an entirely sensible interview with Bishop Gianfranco Girotto, an official at the Apostolic Penitentiary, on the subject of social sin. Contrasting an older understanding of sin as more individualistic in nature, Bishop Girotto noted that sin “today…has an impact and resonance that is above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalization.” He pointed to a number of “social sins” (by now a familiar term to Catholics accustomed to hearing it applied to racism, sexism and anti-Semitism). Among those he mentioned were economic injustice, environmental irresponsibility, accumulation of excessive wealth and genetic experimentation with unforeseen consequences.
From
Zenit:
Reports that the Vatican has published a new list of the seven deadly sins of modern times that includes littering and economic inequality is simply not true, affirmed the episcopal conference of England and Wales.
The conference released a statement today clarifying that an interview published Sunday by L’Osservatore Romano with Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the tribunal of he Apostolic Penitentiary, was misinterpreted in the media as an official Vatican update to the seven deadly sins, laid out by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century.
“The Vatican has not published a new list of seven deadly sins; this is not a new Vatican edict,” said the conference. “The story originated from an interview that Bishop Gianfranco Girotti gave to the L’Osservatore Romano in which he was questioned about new forms of social sins in this age of globalization.”:
From the
original interview (translated courtesy of the Acton Institute):
Does the attention to sin come from a sensibility to the needs of modern society or from a reference point of a past time?
The reference is always the violation of the covenant with God and with brothers and the social consequences of sin. If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a value, a resonance beyond the individual, above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalization. In effect, the attention to sin presents itself more urgently today than yesterday, because its consequences are wider and more destructive.
(snip)
In your opinion, what are the “new sins”?
There are various areas today in which we adopt sinful behavior, as with individual and social rights. This is especially so in the field of bioethics where we cannot deny the existence of violations of fundamental rights of human nature – this occurs by way of experiments and genetic modifications, whose results we cannot easily predict or control. Another area, which indeed pertains to the social spectrum, is that of drug use, which weakens our minds and reduces our intelligence. As a result, many young people are left out of Church circles. Here’s another one: social and economic inequality, in the sense that the rich always seem to get richer, and the poor, poorer. This [phenomenon] feeds off an unsustainable form of social injustice and is related to environmental issues –which currently have much relevant interest.
So this bishop expresses his opinion. He talks about the
social dimension of sin. And the media picks up on it, saying that the Vatican has replaced the traditional list of deadly sins with a new, modern, more up to date one…that, oh by the way, agrees with their point of view…and then many Catholics buy off 100% on secular media reporting and adopt it as dogma.
And then they condemn those of us who actually refer back to the Social Magestierum as being devilish. And consign us to the nether regions.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
Archbishop Chaput, speaking at the 2011 World Youth Day, had some very wise words that everybody should heed:
We make a very serious mistake if we rely on media like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, or MSNBC for reliable news about religion. These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith—and sometimes they can’t provide it, either because of limited resources or because of their own editorial prejudices. These are secular operations focused on making a profit. They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth.
Social policy is social policy and the Church most certainly would not espouse a preference or favor for one nation over another as a matter of policy.