Today’s seven deadly sins

Apathy, cruelty, duplicity, hypocrisy, false morality, abuse of power and cultivated ignorance—these are said to be the seven deadly sins of our era. Apathy is one of the most resented attitudes by God. Revelation 3:16 says: “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

The Seven Deadly Sins – Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569

God loathes insipidness; it is the attitude that destroys values of humanity. The 18th century Irish  philosopher Edmund Burke counselled us: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” The Rev Martin Luther Jr went further in saying, in the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. The apathy of believers before evil is a grave sin before the eyes of the Lord.

Cruelty in our world takes different forms; against one  another, against a different community, against a different tribe, against a different race or ethnic group, against different nationality, against the poor, and so on.

I liked how Pope Francis, in his inaugural Mass homily, looked at the different heads of states gathered before him and said: “Tragically, in every period of history there are ‘Herods’ who plot death, wreak havoc, and mar the countenance of men and women… Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world.”

Duplicity, that is deceitful in speech or conduct, goes together with hypocrisy. It is something not only limited to politicians but those who hold economic powers of the world also.

Unfortunately duplicity often visits the gates of the Church too. This is why for many the election of Francis, with his simplicity of language and integrity of action, is seen as the real Spring of the Church. As the Church we need to take out the plank in our own eye so we may see better the speck in the world’s eye.

False morality is something we see most in action or advocate groups and some civil organisation of our times.

For example, I am always extremely surprised to hear people talk about promoting women’s rights when advocating for abortion. It is strange to me that the “Culture of Death”, as Pope John Paul II put it, is encouraged on the basis of promoting women rights. This is the tragic irony of our times that is consequential to adopting false morality.

Abuse of power is something we see almost every day in our governments also. It is most insidious when those trusted with the stewardship of our democracy through its institutions use the entrusted power against those who gave it to them, as seen in the recent unspeakable police brutality.

It is also an indictment against the way we live how women and children are raped and brutally killed in our country.

There is a deep spreading decay in our moral fibre that can be arrested only if we, as communities, take a stand, as we did during the 1980s. We need to reclaim our communities and our streets from the rampart criminal elements. The churches were at the forefront of the arrest of this spread of decay under apartheid, and so should they be today.

Media is the source of modern cultivated ignorance.

In our era of Internet intellectualism everyone presumes himself or herself an expert because they have read untested articles in the Web. You find them speaking in jargon terminology that, when dissected, actually obfuscate more than it explains.

You also see the cultivated ignorance in famous modern atheist who have no qualms in basing their intellectual lives in criticising the Church but hardly ever consult first hand what the Church actually says on the given topics (take, for instance, the canard that the Catholic Church opposes science).

Scripture says God gives us shepherds suited to the needs of our times. Hence, to those able to read the signs, it came as no surprise to be given Pope Francis by the Holy Spirit, the Lord ever creating and making things new.

Our times, not just the Church, are in need of shepherd with deep sense of humility whose eye is focused on the crucified Christ; focused on the simplicity of God that confounds the world by drawing redeeming goodness even out of the deepest sin know to men, that of killing God in this world.