Seven New Deadly Sins? Not Quite.

When this article showed up in my RSS reader yesterday, I meant to write something about it. I decided to wait, though, because it seemed like one of those stories where the initial reporting was just not right. Here’s the lede:

Drug pushers, the obscenely rich, environmental polluters and “manipulative” genetic scientists beware – you may be in danger of losing your mortal soul unless you repent.

After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalisation. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “securalised world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.

I admit that my initial reaction was to wonder what in the name of all that’s holy the Catholics were doing. Adding a list of socially-trendy sins is definitely not going to bring people a-runnin’ back to the Church nor is it a particularly Biblical way of looking at sin. As reported, it’s a boneheaded move for the Pope.

Then I read it again and the problems with the reporting started jumping out at me. Is it plausible that the Catholic Church would announce brand-new doctrine in a newspaper or that someone other than the Pope would do it? I’m not Catholic, but even I know that something like that would have come out in an official announcement, after a pretty big Catholic senior staff meeting, and Pope Benedict himself would probably be the one doing the announcing. It would mostly likely show up in a book that every Catholic could get and word would most definitely have filtered down before now that something big was in the works. The Pope doesn’t just add new “deadly sins” out of the blue. There’s buzz.

Thanks to the Anchoress, I see that my suspicions were correct. The reporting was mostly bunk and the Church hasn’t slid further into soft and mushy LeftyLand. Take a moment to read her post and the articles to which she links for the real scoop.

I find this sort of story interesting and I generally agree with her, except for this part:

The press knows full well that if it blares a sensational headline, that headline becomes part of the collective subconscious, and the inevitably buried corrections mean nothing. I think we saw such an example in the recent Rudy Giuliani campaign.

And these sorts of things always seem to happen as we approach Holy Week – a little distraction from what we’re supposed to be doing, a little discrediting before the Vatican actually proclaims the Risen Christ. Never fails.

I understand where she’s coming from. Religious reporting really does look hostile an awful lot of the time. I’m very sure that some reporters on the religion beat are hostile to religion. But I don’t think that’s most of them and I don’t think it’s a purposeful thing. I think that what seems like hostility is simply arrogance and ignorance. Most MSM stories on religion are written, I suspect, by those who don’t understand religion and have no desire to try. They treat it like politics or sports. Whether you adhere to a particular religious belief or not, you have to recognize that religion is transformational in a way that perhaps nothing else in the world is. It’s not just something you pick up one day and put down the next even though much of the world treats it that way. Religion is life-altering and it’s important that when you write about it, you understand that and take that seriously. You don’t have to believe it, but you do have to respect it. Most MSM reporters simply do not, based far too many religious stories I’ve read. I suspect that the shoddy reporting yesterday wasn’t malicious, but it was definitely ignorant and just a bit arrogant.

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Category: Gimme that Old Time Religion