New Seven Sins

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Tuesday 12 March 2008

RAPID ROUNDUP: Vatican lists new seven deadly sins - an expert comments

The Vatican have announced the seven deadly sins of modern times to sit alongside the more traditional sins like gluttony, sloth and greed. The modern sins, announced in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, included genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs.

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Dr Robert Sparrow is a bioethicist and Lecturer at the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University.

"It's pleasing to see the Vatican moving with the times and updating its list of mortal sins. It seems only fair that those who commit 'modern sins' should also burn in hell for all eternity alongside those who fail to confess the more traditional vices of lust, gluttony, sloth, and avarice, etc. As a bioethicist, I would admit that I'm somewhat bemused to see that merely carrying out 'morally debatable' scientific experiments is enough to jeopardise scientists’ souls. There are serious ethical issues about genetically modifying organisms or experimenting on embryos and I would like to see more rather than less debate about them. However, compared to 'ruining the environment', 'causing poverty', or 'the excessive accumulation of wealth', the sins that the Pope would encourage scientists to confess seem pretty small fry to me. I can only hope that the Catholic Church and those who pay attention to its pronouncements will spend as much time and effort condemning these everyday evils as they do the activities of scientists researching stem cells or helping infertile couples to reproduce."

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