The mothers of all sins

I refer to The Sins Of The New Economy (Business and Finance, April 4). Even though the author cited the Vatican's example, and made mention of the fact that "... in today's society we need to face up to new forms of sin", the fact remains that the so-called "new sins" all relate to one or the other of the original ones. As an example, abortion is murder in the eyes of the Church. Therefore, any way one interprets this, a sin once committed can only be absolved through the Sacrament of Confession, and at the time of confession the sinner must earnestly resolve in his heart of hearts that he will not commit that sin again. Otherwise, he/she will be making a mockery of the sacrament in question, and thus his sin will have now multiplied twofold. A person could sin through "... thought, word, or deed!" (Act of Penitence).

The Catholic Church divides sins into venial (less serious) sins and mortal sins, which threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession and penitence. It holds mortal sins to be "grave violations of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes", including murder, contraception, abortion, perjury, adultery and lust.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell!" Although there is no definitive list of mortal sins, Christians are taught and accept the broad seven deadly sins or capital vices laid down in the sixth century by Pope Gregory the Great and popularised in the Middle Ages by Dante in The Inferno: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. Instead, Christians are exhorted to adhere to the seven holy virtues: Chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.

In olden times punishments meted out for being found guilty of any one of the deadly sins were as follows: Pride: broken on the wheel; Envy: placed in freezing water; Gluttony: forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes; Lust: smothered in fire and brimstone; Anger: dismembered alive; Greed: put in cauldrons of boiling oil; Sloth: thrown in snake pits.

Drug pushers, the obscenely rich, environmental polluters and "manipulative" genetic scientists may or may not accept that their activities are somehow traceable to the original sins, so the Vatican has singled these out of seven new ones "for the age of globalisation". The list, published in L'Osservatore Romano of March 3, 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.

Oh, to be a child and innocent again!