Holy Week is over, the Philippines will slowly return to its “normal programming” in a few hours’ time since it is, as of this writing, Monday.

Shows that promote mediocrity, giving dole-outs, sex and consumerism will once more dominate the prime-time slots in local television networks for all ages, especially children, to watch and emulate. But in these very same noon-time shows are the same TV personalities who starred in their respective networks’ Lenten season special proving one thing: they may promote the evils mentioned earlier 98% of the year, but during this holy week, they could come full circle and become symbols of repentance, compassion, and being true Christians. Not!!!

As I’ve said, in a few hours’ time, they will be at it again. Just like last year, even more daring and corrupting. Hypocrisy in all its raw glory.

Speaking of hypocrisy, it’s things like these that remind me of something my high school mentor once said;

Sa muling pagbabalik ni Kristo, ang mga una niyang itatapon sa impyerno ay mga ang mga pari at taong simbahan. (In the second coming of Christ, the first ones he’ll cast into hell will be most of the priests and the laity.)

I asked him why so? He replied;

Kasi ang sabi at bilin ni Kristo bago siya umakyat sa langit ay ipalaganap ang Mabuting Balita o magmalasakit sa kapwa tao saan sa mundo. Hindi yung magpagawa nang magpagawa ng mga simbahan, mangolekta ng pera atbp. (It’s because Christ told them to go spread The Good News or become compassionate for others in all corners of the world. He never told them to build huge churches, collect money etc.)

In the context of what is happening today in our country, DJB Rizalist has also answered my question eloquently:

From my experience with little children making up profound excuses for their dereliction of duty in the loss of a favorite toy or article of clothing (and perfervid vows to look for it) the Catholic Bishops newfound dedication to searching for “the Truth” sounds more like an evasion of the Truth even if they already know exactly what it is.

Yet, they are surely mostly good men, if a touch deluded about certain things. It is to me impossible that they are acting out of pure evil or clerico-fascism (though that has always been a fatal attraction), impossible that they do not see the President’s crimes and dishonesty, impossible they do not believe the testimony and the evidence piling up in the Senate about ZTE, Spratly and a dozen other major crimes of the president and her men. Many other impossibilities about them have been eliminated by logic and reason, therefore as Sherlock Holmes said, after you have eliminated the impossible in some mystery, what is left, no matter how improbable has got to be the Truth!

What is left, and it is not that improbable, is that like Romulo Neri himself, the Catholic Bishops have something about themselves that is so terrible and disgusting that they must hide behind a “continuing search for the Truth” even as they are being BLACKMAILED into complicity with a massive coverup.

So what is it? Sexual indiscretions and the fathering of children in confessionals? Homosexual orgies? Acceptance of gambling-stained Pagcor funds, rationalized into sanctity by the needs of charity? Paedophilia? What? Sherlock Holmes wants to know…

I may be ex-communicated for this or something but just like Sherlock Holmes and DJB, I also want to know. So my dear Bishops and priests?

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Was actually waiting for the release of WordPress 2.5 but I never expected to read about the update made to the seven deadly sins according to the Catholic Church.

Just as the ancient wonders of the world were matched by seven modern wonders, the deadly sins have a 21st-century version.

Polluting, genetic engineering, obscene riches, taking drugs, abortion, pedophilia and causing social injustice join the original seven deadly sins defined by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century: pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and sloth.

We thank the famous classical writer Dante for popularizing these 7 sins in the human memory. So what are the new 7 deadly sins? There are various versions of the new list but they are summarized in this one:

1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Gluttony
4. Lust
5. Anger
6. Greed
7. Sloth
8. Polluting
9. Genetic engineering
10. obscene wealth
11. taking drugs
12. abortion
13. pedophilia
14. causing social injustice

I simly called it “Sins 2.0″ hence the title of this entry. The original list referred to a more individualistic approach but now in our modern world of globalisation, internet and web 2.0 sins have taken a more “global” or wider dimension.

Science vs Religion…again

The reactions in the blogosphere are varied and interesting. Jam notes that the first two depicted well yet again another science and religion conflict. Eye on DNA, a leading blog about genetics and health, helps out the Vatican by further extending the list with particular focus on genetic engineering. And here I am dreaming of being a geneticist one day…thanks Darth Pope Gregory!

Making money off the internets

Interesting and something I find a bit more intriguing is the addition of having “obscene wealth” to the new list. Watch out Bill Gates and the rest of the world’s billionaires, God and the Vatican’s eyes are on you. The same goes for the Google gods Larry Page and Sergey Brin and M$ bigman Steve Ballmer, told ya Micro$oft is evil! Now I wonder, if becoming a dot com mogul like John Chow, Jeremy Schoemaker, Kevin Rowse, Yuga and the other top probloggers would also fall as sin under this category? I’m just thinking out loud here, okay?

Father, forgive me.

But wait, isn’t that priests are amongst the wealthiest in our community too? They drive around the parishes in SUVs, they have the latest Nokia phones, they recieve fat envelopes from source of evil in this country and so on. Are they sinners too?

an even more inconvenient truth

Something more welcoming on the other hand is inclusion of polluting as a deadly sin. Well if Al Gore’s documentary/Hollywood film about the impending doom of our planet doesn’t wake you up perhaps the floods and landslides in the Bicol region will be enough to convince you that it’s time to clean up our acts. Imagine that, first sins of commission and ommision, and now sins of emission!

I just hope that this would help the environmental movement, I want my grandson’s grandchildren to see a real flowing river that’s clean and safe enough to bathe in.

Confess sinners

When was the last time you had a confession? Frankly, I can’t remember mine. Apparently, the decline in practice of this sacrament is what has led Pope Benedict VXI to update the list of deadly sins. And this is at the crux of this whole new update, Joe Buckley drives home a sharp point;

The seven deadly sins are still deadly. The Vatican’s attempt to make confession more relevant, if that’s what this is, will fail badly in the case of the American laity, because it appears to merely make Political CorrectnessTM a virtue. It has the unfortunate effect of trivializing sin and the sacrament of confession.

It reminds me of my very first confession back in my 3rd grade of elementary school. We hardly understood all the previous rituals and prayers the priest had us recite and perform. Things got exciting and difficult when we were told to write down all of our sins on a piece of paper which later would be burned, which in turn would grant us pardon by the Big Guy in the sky.

Can you write all of your sins on a single piece of paper? When I ask all sins, I mean ALL sins because back then, we were whispering to each other if we included this particular bad thing we did yesterday or that awful naughty thing we did last week and so on. The same questions I asked myself, do I include the one when I took 10 pesos from my mom’s wallet or when I bought some fancy toy instead of the stuff I needed for my school project? Some of my classmates were even copying what others have written on their paper!

So Joe has a good point, requiring people to step into a booth with a man in a skirt, I mean robes and confessing up their sins trivializes the whole thing. I say, why bother to tell the priest if God himself knows every little thing we do and in the times we give in and follow our conscience, say silently and sincerely to ourselves, even if not in the presence of others, we’re sorry and we repent for our wrongdoings.

A good discussion by Ed Morrisey in Hot Air about confession and the new seven sins could wrap this up for now:

It’s an exercise I find challenging, unpleasant, but necessary on at least an occasional basis. A hazy and private “My bad!” to God every once in a while doesn’t force me into that level of introspection. With a priest, I know that the actual verbalization of these issues will go no farther, and he acts as a mechanism between penitent and God to ensure that process occurs at all.

However, the addition of sins based on political correctness demeans the process. If pollution is a sin, do I have to give up driving a car? Lighting my house? Burning wood in the fireplace? Or is there a level at which sin arises; if so, will the Vatican provide the formulas? It’s silly, because excessive consumption is already covered by gluttony. This looks like a desperate attempt at temporal relevancy when the Church should be concerned about eternal truths. It’s like watching your parents try to rap.

If the Vatican wonders why Catholics feel that reconciliation has become less relevant, perhaps it’s because the Church tries to impose faddish notions of sin on its members. If the Vatican doesn’t take sin and repentance seriously, why should Catholics?

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