To Whom It May Concern:
In the March 28th, 2008 issue of The Review (Volume 55 Issue 9), a student examined the “new sins” that have supposedly been added to the traditional list of mortal sins. In the article entitled “Student examines The Vatican’s increase in the list of mortal sins,” that student commented that an increase to the list of mortal sins may not have been the wisest step the Church could have taken. Unfortunately, the mainstream media press coverage of Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti’s interview with L'Osservatore Romano tended to fail to convey the actual essence of the interview. As the coverage by Catholic World News points out, “when a second-tier Vatican official gives a newspaper interview, he is not proclaiming new Church doctrines.” Along those lines, the USA Today coverage made sure to report that “Vatican officials, however, stressed that Girotti's comments broke no new ground on what constitutes sin.” Catholic World News said that Girotti’s comments, which were meant “to offer a new, provocative perspective on some enduring truths,” offered insight into the understanding of sin held by most people today. Sin is not, as most people seem to conceive it to be, disobedience of the decisions of a group of men in Rome. Instead, sin, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience…” These offenses cannot change according to political trends or the whimsical decisions of Vatican officials, as the Catholic World News article noted. Far from going out of his way to make the life of a Catholic that much more difficult (as many reporters have interpreted the event), the archbishop was merely caring for his flock by helping them to form their consciences in regards to “social sin” where a society may, by its attitudes, infringe upon the “basic rights of human nature.” The mortal sins, then, are the same that they have always been. Catholics need worry about no more and no less than they did before. Archbishop Girotti’s comments merely serve as a reminder that the conscientious Catholic will examine social issues in the same light by which he or she examines his or her own soul.
Sincerely,
Gabriel A. Jakubisin
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