March 10, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI to Bring Seven Extra Sins to D.C.
Photograph of Pope Benedict XVI by Pier Paolo Cito/Associated Press
It's fair to say that Washington's Catholic community is currently up to its eyeballs in Pope Fever, what with the pontiff's exclusive April 17 mass at the new Nationals stadium only a little over a month away. Turns out, Pope Benedict XVI will be bringing more than the Popemobile with him to D.C. Bloomberg News reports that today the Vatican has officially created seven brand new sins, which will no doubt be the cornerstone of many of the Pope's big upcoming masses.
The new so-called "social sins" are in addition to the familiar "deadly sins" that that crazy dude in that movie used as a reason to kill Gwyneth Paltrow. The new sins are:
1. 'Bioethical' violations such as birth controlJust to clear up any confusion, the original sins, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth, are still in effect. We repeat, these new sins don't cancel out the old ones, so get off your butt and quit lusting after your boss who you are so envious of that you're stealing from the company and boasting about it. And while you're at it, stop taking the Pill, smoking weed, littering and conducting potentially lifesaving medical research. Otherwise, you'll never get one of those coveted papal mass tickets.
2. 'Morally dubious' experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
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Damn, and I just finished doing a three after four-ing my commode and one-ing my right hand.
Well, so much for me getting into heaven.
New Sin Number 6: Excessive wealth
Is Pope Benedict going to sell the Vatican jewels, like Anthony Quinn in Shoes of the Fisherman?
Where does being a pretentious dick fall into the lineup of grave sins? What if you're attracted to pretentious dicks and you happen to be one yourself? Do the two cancel out each other?
ok, that picture should have force lightning coming off his fingers.....
just sayin'.
what did this post have to do with DC? sommer is mad. why are you so mad, girl?
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
So the Vatican is against capitalism?
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
So the Vatican is against capitalism?
Vatican was very interested in communism pre-WW2, however the feeling was not mutual.
For some reason, I pegged Benny as a steel watchband kinda guy.
Excessive wealth?
What?
The Vatican has untold billions, just in artwork hanging in the fucking Vatican basement. You know, the crappy stuck they won't even deign to hang in public.
I shudder to think the good they could be doing with all that.
But no.
dcistlurker: Benedict is coming to town. He's making a list; he's checking it twice . . . and there are new sins.
Sommer is giving us the heads-up on the new sins so we can get our bizness straight. That's a public service, and darn skippy of her.
It is truly sad to read that so many people have not experienced true and authentic love, the love that only comes from God alone. The way so many have a disregard to the very church that Jesus Christ instituted himself.
Thanks to the wisdom of many great leaders of our universal church on earth, there is a preservation of history and beautiful inspirational artwork that leads one to reflect on the glory of God and the beauty of all His creation.
It would be wise to thank our church leaders and the vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict, to remind us that our individual actions really do have an effect on others...our sins truly do not effect us alone.
All Glory be to God.
In Jesus, through Mary.
Need help with knowing that Jesus came to REDEEM us from our sin, not add more laws or mere coping mechanisms? Visit http://www.giftfoundation.org
http://www.theologyofthebody.com
It's also pretty much an exact (although somewhat expanded) copy of a post that was on Gothamist earlier in the day, so it didn't take much effort . . .
Nice Christ-y spam, Pleskowicz.
Who Would Jesus Spam, indeed.
re: pleskowicz -- it's interesting to see fresh blood around here, instead of us regulars who are just stinkin' up the joint, but i'm not used to being proselytized in a blog...
Oh, I'll bite.
Plesky - care to justify the massive private holdings the Catholic Church has?
The massive art and real estate holdings?
Care to explain why that $$ isn't spend on helping the poor?
Thank you all for your kind words. I truly was making no effort to proselytize anyone. It's just a shame that so many people push away talking about an objective reality...relativism is so rampid and has really aided in distorting any type of objective truth.
These "new" sins, we must remember, all stem from the seven deadly sins, which in truth you will admit, widen the distance between us and God. God gave us our free will so that we would freely choose to love Him, otherwise he would have just made it that way...and that's not really love at all, is it?
Peace be with you, Hillman:
Can you speak more on the "massive private holdings"? What specifically are you referring to?
As to my knowledge, the Church is the universal church which serves the entire world, not just a few countries. I believe the Catholic church is the largest group of people doing more than any one else in the world in helping the poor. Are you aware of other groups that are doing more?
+JMJ+
he looks like a zombie in that picture
starts out strong, loses steam with #4, then crashes into poverty creation.
Also, 'morally dubious' experimentation like "let's play doctor."
Wait... objective reality... hardcore Christian... does not compute...
Hey Plesk: Love the J-man? More power to you. But let's not pretend it's objective. It ain't, which is part of the point. You wouldn't call it faith if there were proof.
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Extra Sins.
"Can you speak more on the "massive private holdings"? What specifically are you referring to?"
Well, for starters, Vatican City. Lovely temperate climate. Wouldn't that make a fine shelter for the poor?
And the hundreds of massive and unbelievably ornate church buildings in the US alone.
Wouldn't the proceeds from the sale of some of these save millions of starving children?
you'd think 'touching little boys' would be a sin.
hillman - anyone with a remedial knowledge of finance knows that raising cash from the CFI line on your cash flow statements is not a good sign for your operation. and thats before considering you raising the Church's assets without considering the amount of charity $$$, time, energy, and effort Catholics put out every year, which could pay for the Vatican City a few times over every year. do the math....
mike licht - i like my dcist minus sommer being mad at the Catholic church - dcist has already posted a few times about the pope coming - this is more an editorial about her own sh** which is a rare BORING post on an otherwise on point blog...i see you came to her defense though - thats cute.
Hillman:
You still haven't addressed the fact that the Catholic Church is, has, and will continue to do more than any other group in the world when it comes to helping the poor.
Peace be with you.
BeyondDC:
Objective reality. Example being: If you are in a room with no windows and you personally have such a great amount of faith and belief that it is a clear, sunny day of 75 degrees and you then leave the room to step outside only to discover that it has been snowing for the past two hours and there are 3-4 inches accumulated.
Due to our sins, our vision can be blurred to see that what we do in life truly does effect others--however, we usually only see this when good things happen. Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven, which are freely offered to all of humanity. And, we all have an innate yearning and desire to be in union with God, like the echo of Adam and Eve (before they listened to the father of lies) that resounds deep within every human person. Through grace, we can experience a taste of that perfect union with God, a foretaste of our union with Him in heaven.
For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Peace.
I think I'm going to borrow from plesko's line of arguement/defense style. It kind of reminds me of the "bless her/his heart" but less country and more oh, judeo-christiany which warms my bitter agnostic heart.
For example:
1. "Gosh Susan, you look different today." - Mildly insulting
2. "Gosh Susan, you certainly did gain some weight while you were gone. For a second there I thought you were pregnant but then I remembered that you can't have kids. Peace be with you." - Not insulting at all.
The fact that some believe in a Creator really seems to wig people out. If all of the haters here are so comfortable with the non-belief, why all the vitriol? The tone of the comments remind me my junior-high years when kids first discovered they could talk back to their parents and thought how cool they were when they said outlandish, hurtful and irreverent things. It’s kind of pathetic.
Taken on balance and not ignoring some of the bad actions by some of its clergy and members, the Catholic Church has done more to foster human rights and peace around the world than any other institution. In spite of the fact that people make mistakes and sometimes act in evil ways, we are better off with institutions of faith to keep the society cognizant of the value of aspiring to live for others and not just for oneself.
You still haven't addressed the fact that the Catholic Church is, has, and will continue to do more than any other group in the world when it comes to helping the poor.
Indeed. Think of all those sad Catholic children dying alone without any siblings. Only by speaking the truth about the evils of birth control can we ever repopulate the globe with millions of children so that they may die in squalor and thereby gain the Kingdom of Heaven and experience God's love.
What Would Judas Do?
Pee(ce) be with you.
And if there's anything I've learned from Jack Chick tracts, it's that Catholics ARE NOT Christians. They're Isis worshippers who use their albino assasins in Opus Dei to protect the Ark of the Covenant from Nazis and the Da Vinci Code from Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou.
Plesko:
I never said the Catholic Church doesn't do some good.
What I'm saying is they could do a whole lot more.
They have probably the most extensive collection of art in the entire world. So much so that many people say they actually have no way of cataloging it all.
And they are the biggest private landholder in the entire world.
You don't need fancy churches and huge art collections to continue operating.
Why don't they sell at least the art collection and use that money for the poor?
And how about they stop spending their resources fighting to make sure that an old destitute lesbian couple can't get health care or government benefits, and instead spend those resources on, say, AIDS babies in Africa?
Catholics ARE NOT Christians?
monkeyrotica:
How can you possibly write this? This is truly absurd and one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard. It is simply so sad that you personally have not experienced an authentic love that comes from Christ. I will encourage you to visit a Roman Catholic church to sit in front of the eucharist (Jesus' body, blood, and soul and divinity present within the tabernacle) to pray. Yes, you can pray anywhere. But, when you really need to speak to a friend when in need, isn't it better to talk with them face to face rather than on the phone?
+JMJ+
I will encourage you to visit a Roman Catholic church to sit in front of the eucharist (Jesus' body, blood, and soul and divinity present within the tabernacle) to pray.
I have serious problems with a belief system that encourages cannibalism and whose primary symbol is an instrument of torture.
And we've got a word for people who come back from the dead and demand that people eat their flesh and drink their blood to be reborn into new worlds where His flesh is your key. They're called vampires.
I'll stick with worshipping the Fightin' Jesus (the One that DIDN'T get nailed).
(imgoph patiently waits for two things. one, how is monkey going to reply to this, and two, when is plessy going to figure out monkey's sense of humor)
Seven more reasons to leave the church.
Plesko, as one Catholic to another, please get of your holy soapbox. Thank you.
As for these sins: really? They seem awfully specific. Personally, I'm going to stick with the old school sins that can be applied to a wide variety of circumstances.
Would that "bioethical violations" include something along the lines of creating a mutant cyborg orangutan killing machine? For the sake of argument, let's call him "Shemp." Also, if I sent Shemp back in time to kill Hitler, would it still be considered a sin, since he'd be doing this BEFORE the Pope declared his very existence a sin? Finally, anyone know where I can get a good price on an orangutan, or barring that, what's left of one? I pretty much got the rest of the hardware I need from Radio Shack, including the lavender princess telephone and the flux capacitor.
I know I will have to go to confession for this, but does the pope's pose strike anyone as resembling that of Palpatine in Star Wars III?
Ples-- didn't the Gates foundation, UN, hell just about anyone else, outspend the Vatican last year in regards to helping the poor?
The only thing the chruch does to help the poor is keep them breeding and donating. I offer as support: 2000 years of the church -and- poor people still hanging around wherever the big C. church is most prevelant. Have you spent time in Central/South America? That place has been cleaned out by the church, like a vacuum cleaner with one long hose straight to the Papal holdings-for about 400 years now.
Yeah, IMGoph cited that in post #4.
That pic needs a bubble that says, "If only you knew the POWER of my tiny little HAT! Now, young Skywalker, you...will...DIE!"
You only need to go to confession if it's a sin to be the 12,000th person to make the same comparison, Cranky . . .
Orangutans are pretty hard to come by at this time of year, Monkey ... have you considered the possibility of a chimp? They have the bonus of being much more naturally violent, plus there are hundreds of them living in plush retirement sanctuaries who might be bored and looking for a new career challenge. If you're really lucky, they'll even have some cool mutant powers from the medical tests that were conducted on them while they were young.
Ok, first of all, monkey, you make me laugh. I love your sarcasm(even though I think you're wrong on the actual issue here). Just wanted to let you know. lol
Guys, I posted this in the gothamist site but I figure it could be used here, too. (Since its the same exact article >_>)
Another prespective on this.
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=57130
If, after approximately 2000 years of your religion's existence, you find the need for a 100% increase in list of activities that your religion considers "sins", then maybe your religion wasn't really that well thought out in the first place.