Apparently lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are now only half the pitfalls that could send you straight into the fiery maw of hell. Here’s the story earlier this week from Fox News.

After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalization. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularized world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession. …

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.

Bishop Girotti said that mortal sins also included taking or dealing in drugs, and social injustice which caused poverty or “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few.”

Jeepers, Jesus in Jerusalem! With 14 sins tempting secular wanderers around every corner, hell’s gonna be crowded as… uh, hell.

But watchdogs of liberal bias in the media claim this mainstream coverage, such as the above by those lefties at Fox News, is a smear job on the church. “The list [of sins] actually didn’t come from any official Catholic Church document, but from an interview of a bishop that was published in L’Osservatore Romano, the “semi-official” newspaper in Vatican City,” writes Matthew Balan at NewsBusters. Well, in the name of being fair and balanced on Fox News’s coverage, I shall report and you can decide. Here’s an excerpt (.pdf) of Bishop Girotti’s interview.

In your opinion, what are the “new sins”?

There are various areas today in which we adopt sinful behavior, as with individual and social rights. This is especially so in the field of bioethics where we cannot deny the existence of violations of fundamental rights of human nature – this occurs by way of experiments and genetic modifications, whose results we cannot easily predict or control. Another area, which indeed pertains to the social spectrum, is that of drug use, which weakens our minds and reduces our intelligence.
…

Regarding the abortion issue, it seems that the Church does not take into account the difficult situations women have to deal with.

It seems that this is an excessive concern, especially since it is the Church that constantly seeks to protect and safeguard the rights and dignity of women. There are many courageous and intelligent initiatives led by Catholic organizations and Church movements. They endlessly and efficaciously support single mothers and fight today’s social and cultural tendencies to the contrary. They even take responsibility to raise unwanted children and facilitate their adoption.

Off the hook, for now, are drunks quaffing the blood of Christ, like me. As are women who don’t deal with the “difficult situations” of pregnancy by resorting to abortion, such as the 536,000 women who die each year from pregnancy complications.

What do you bet the good bishop has taken aspirin before, thus indulging in drug use? And after his sanctimonious little interview, I’m sure he’s proud of himself. See him in hell.

Cross-posted.