. . . . even though I keep telling myself that in a church nearly 2,000 years old there have got to be bad days every so often.
Today the Church decided to add to the list of sins:
I ate a genetically modified tomato last night. I liked it. I think I'm going to hell.
Seriously, folks, moving sin from the individual to the societal level in a theological sense is a staggering concept, opening the door for all sorts of religious interventions in secular society that I'm not willing to countenance as an American citizen, regardless of my faith.
In case it may have missed the Vatican's radar, genetic manipulation represents the best chance we may ever have to wipe out Sickle-cell Anemia and hundreds of other inheritable, devastating diseases.
Moreover, it goes down particularly badly when taken in company with a typical piece of Vatican rationalization about the priestly sexual abuse scandal:
Let's get this one straight: the media was wrong to report on priests sexually assaulting minors and bishops covering it up because such reporting somehow "discredits the church" more than the criminally sinful behavior of the clerics?
Next thing you know, they'll rewrite the Ten Commandments to cover using your cell phone while driving.
Oops. Oh. Shit.
Today the Church decided to add to the list of sins:
In olden days, the deadly sins included lust, gluttony and greed. Now, the Catholic Church says pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experiments are on its updated thou-shalt-not list.
Also receiving fresh attention by the Vatican was social injustice, along the lines of the age-old maxim: "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer...."
"If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual," said [Monsignor Gianfranco] Girotti [head of the Apostolic Penitentiary], whose office deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution.
I ate a genetically modified tomato last night. I liked it. I think I'm going to hell.
Seriously, folks, moving sin from the individual to the societal level in a theological sense is a staggering concept, opening the door for all sorts of religious interventions in secular society that I'm not willing to countenance as an American citizen, regardless of my faith.
In case it may have missed the Vatican's radar, genetic manipulation represents the best chance we may ever have to wipe out Sickle-cell Anemia and hundreds of other inheritable, devastating diseases.
Moreover, it goes down particularly badly when taken in company with a typical piece of Vatican rationalization about the priestly sexual abuse scandal:
Closer to home, Girotti was asked about the many "situations of scandal and sin within the church," in what appeared to be a reference to allegations in the United States and other countries of sexual abuse by clergy of minors and the coverups by hierarchy.
The monsignor acknowledged the "objective gravity" of the allegations, but contended that the heavy coverage by mass media of the scandals must also be denounced because it "discredits the church."
Let's get this one straight: the media was wrong to report on priests sexually assaulting minors and bishops covering it up because such reporting somehow "discredits the church" more than the criminally sinful behavior of the clerics?
Next thing you know, they'll rewrite the Ten Commandments to cover using your cell phone while driving.
Oops. Oh. Shit.
Comments
It is a serious concern though that the church is so bastardized in its thinking that it is moving sins to a social level. Morals after all are a personal thing.
A seemingly good point. I don't believe in addressing the issues legally, but most certainly via social interaction it's required.While most of us grasp the existence of our own individual sins and even more clearly the sins of others there is little awareness of our own complicity in sins that lacerate us as a people, a society, a nation even a civilization.
The sin, as we see it, is not our own. It is not of our making. We do not will it, therefore we are not responsible for it. We recognize the evil. We lament it. But in the end, because we do not enact the evil ourselves, we have no responsibility for it.
Now, multiply that by a society, a nation, a civilization, and we begin to understand the nature of collective sin, the sin for which all are responsible but in which no one personally participates. Unlike individual sin which both confronts us and indicts us in clear and personal terms, collective sin is a much more subtle evil that attempts to elude the responsibility of the individual by diffusing and propagating itself in a social context. It is collaborative sin, sin that is only possible through the collaboration of the many. The Holocaust, slavery, and pornography come immediately to mind.
I think it comes down to are we our brothers keeper? Which was asked by Cain.
Here the actual context from the Vatican.
Tom
Personal Sin and Social Sin
16. Sin, in the proper sense, is always a personal act, since it is an act of freedom on the part of an individual person and not properly of a group or community. This individual may be conditioned, incited and influenced by numerous and powerful external factors. He may also be subjected to tendencies, defects and habits linked with his personal condition. In not a few cases such external and internal factors may attenuate, to a greater or lesser degree, the person's freedom and therefore his responsibility and guilt. But it is a truth of faith, also confirmed by our experience and reason, that the human person is free. This truth cannot be disregarded in order to place the blame for individuals' sins on external factors such as structures, systems or other people. Above all, this would be to deny the person's dignity and freedom, which are manifested-even though in a negative and disastrous way-also in this responsibility for sin committed. Hence there is nothing so personal and untransferable in each individual as merit for virtue or responsibility for sin.
As a personal act, sin has its first and most important consequences in the sinner himself: that is, in his relationship with God, who is the very foundation of human life; and also in his spirit, weakening his will and clouding his intellect.
At this point we must ask what was being referred to by those who during the preparation of the synod and in the course of its actual work frequently spoke of social sin.
The expression and the underlying concept in fact have various meanings.
To speak of social sin means in the first place to recognize that, by virtue of human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual's sin in some way affects others. This is the other aspect of that solidarity which on the religious level is developed in the profound and magnificent mystery of the communion of saints, thanks to which it has been possible to say that "every soul that rises above itself, raises up the world." To this law of ascent there unfortunately corresponds the law of descent. Consequently one can speak of a communion of sin, whereby a soul that lowers itself through sin drags down with itself the church and, in some way, the whole world. In other words, there is no sin, not even the most intimate and secret one, the most strictly individual one, that exclusively concerns the person committing it. With greater or lesser violence, with greater or lesser harm, every sin has repercussions on the entire ecclesial body and the whole human family. According to this first meaning of the term, every sin can undoubtedly be considered as social sin.
Some sins, however, by their very matter constitute a direct attack on one's neighbor and more exactly, in the language of the Gospel, against one's brother or sister. They are an offense against God because they are offenses against one's neighbor. These sins are usually called social sins, and this is the second meaning of the term. In this sense social sin is sin against love of neighbor, and in the law of Christ it is all the more serious in that it involves the Second Commandment, which is "like unto the first."(72) Likewise, the term social applies to every sin against justice in interpersonal relationships, committed either by the individual against the community or by the community against the individual. Also social is every sin against the rights of the human person, beginning with the right to nd including the life of the unborn or against a person's physical integrity. Likewise social is every sin against others' freedom, especially against the supreme freedom to believe in God and adore him; social is every sin against the dignity and honor of one's neighbor. Also social is every sin against the common good and its exigencies in relation to the whole broad spectrum of the rights and duties of citizens. The term social can be applied to sins of commission or omission-on the part of political, economic or trade union leaders, who though in a position to do so, do not work diligently and wisely for the improvement and transformation of society according to the requirements and potential of the given historic moment; as also on the part of workers who through absenteeism or non-cooperation fail to ensure that their industries can continue to advance the well-being of the workers themselves, of their families and of the whole of society.
The third meaning of social sin refers to the relationships between the various human communities. These relationships are not always in accordance with the plan of God, who intends that there be justice in the world and freedom and peace between individuals, groups and peoples. Thus the class struggle, whoever the person who leads it or on occasion seeks to give it a theoretical justification, is a social evil. Likewise obstinate confrontation between blocs of nations, between one nation and another, between different groups within the same nation all this too is a social evil. In both cases one may ask whether moral responsibility for these evils, and therefore sin, can be attributed to any person in particular. Now it has to be admitted that realities and situations such as those described, when they become generalized and reach vast proportions as social phenomena, almost always become anonymous, just as their causes are complex and not always identifiable. Hence if one speaks of social sin here, the expression obviously has an analogical meaning. However, to speak even analogically of social sins must not cause us to underestimate the responsibility of the individuals involved. It is meant to be an appeal to the consciences of all, so that each may shoulder his or her responsibility seriously and courageously in order to change those disastrous conditions and intolerable situations.
Having said this in the clearest and most unequivocal way, one must add at once that there is one meaning sometimes given to social sin that is not legitimate or acceptable even though it is very common in certain quarters today.(74) This usage contrasts social sin and personal sin, not without ambiguity, in a way that leads more or less unconsciously to the watering down and almost the abolition of personal sin, with the recognition only of social gilt and responsibilities. According to this usage, which can readily be seen to derive from non-Christian ideologies and systems-which have possibly been discarded today by the very people who formerly officially upheld them-practically every sin is a social sin, in the sense that blame for it is to be placed not so much on the moral conscience of an individual, but rather on some vague entity or anonymous collectivity such as the situation, the system, society, structures or institutions.
Whenever the church speaks of situations of sin or when the condemns as social sins certain situations or the collective behavior of certain social groups, big or small, or even of whole nations and blocs of nations, she knows and she proclaims that such cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins. It is a case of the very personal sins of those who cause or support evil or who exploit it; of those who are in a position to avoid, eliminate or at least limit certain social evils but who fail to do so out of laziness, fear or the conspiracy of silence, through secret complicity or indifference; of those who take refuge in the supposed impossibility of changing the world and also of those who sidestep the effort and sacrifice required, producing specious reasons of higher order. The real responsibility, then, lies with individuals.
A situation-or likewise an institution, a structure, society itself-is not in itself the subject of moral acts. Hence a situation cannot in itself be good or bad.
At the heart of every situation of sin are always to be found sinful people. So true is this that even when such a situation can be changed in its structural and institutional aspects by the force of law or-as unfortunately more often happens by the law of force, the change in fact proves to be incomplete, of short duration and ultimately vain and ineffective-not to say counterproductive if the people directly or indirectly responsible for that situation are not converted.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_02121984_reconciliatio-et-paenitentia_en.html