Seven Deadly Sins updated?

It’s confusing non-biased reporting with uneducated reporting.

My husband was listening to an NPR report where they commented on some of the “incomprehensible” references that Mike Huckabee was making. THey were all Bible references, of course, and they weren’t esoteric things. They were statements like “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” or references to David and Goliath.

And yet the reporters admitted that in the press rooms, no one could come up with background for these esoteric statements. (I mean, really, who’s heard of David and Goliath? Oh, wait, it’s part of the larger culture.)

We’re not talking about references to Zerubabel or Keziah. 🙂

So I agree about the both/and part. They’re not interested in informing themselves because they don’t want to be. The first definition that fits their preconceived notions is the one that goes into print.

Cdl. Stafford is head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, or so I thought.

Sloth may have something to do with it as well.

The Wikipedia article for “sin” states:

“However, like the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Catholic Churches do make a distinction between sins that are serious enough to bar one from Holy Communion (and must be confessed before receiving once again) and those which are not sufficiently serious to do so. In this respect, the Eastern Tradition is similar to the Western, but the Eastern Churches do not consider death in such a state to automatically mean damnation to Hell.”

Neither does the Western Catholic Church; for a sin to be “mortal” there must be 1. grave matter, 2.full knowledge of the evil, 3. full consent of the will (Catechism 1857-1859). Therefore, it all depends on what the words “in such a state”(i.e. all 3 conditions fulfilled) mean in this Wikipedia entry.

The Catholic Church, Eastern or Western, does not judge the damnation of human beings on an “automatic” basis, but both parts of the Church teach that grave sin will send a soul to hell…as does the Orthodox Church.

The quote from the newspaper article, however, says something different: “nor do they believe that those people who die in a state of sin are condemned to automatic damnation.”

Well this is also true for ALL Catholics (and Orthodox.) Many, or most, people die in SOME state of sin, which is one of the reasons we pray for the dead. Dying in “mortal” or “serious” sin is another, specific matter.

The Wikipedia article seems to downplay and mislead the reader about the importance of serious sins in the view of Eastern Christians, simply because there has not been as much emphasis on differentiating “lists” in the East, as there has been in the West.

In the Byzantine tradition, on the 2nd Sunday of Lent, we sing: “Today the time of earthly deeds is revealed, for judgment is at hand….let us bring tears of supplication, begging mercy and crying out: “I have sinned more times than there are sands of the sea; but forgive me, O Creator of All, that I may receive the crown that does not perish.”