Catholicism: Now with double the damnation!

Emperor Palpatine's got a brand new bag!

Evidently, someone in the Vatican watched Dogma and got spooked that the Church is perceived as "a passe, archaic institution; obtuse... even hokey." Which isn't an unfounded fear: possibly the only thing more outdated than Roman Catholicism is intellectual property & copyright law.

Well, he may have that patina of organic decay for which Lon Chaney needed makeup, but who says Pope Benedict XIV ain't a baller & shot-caller, a dynamo of papal decrees? Just in time for Easter, the Vatican has found a way to induce extra guilt that Jesus died for YOU, motherfucker: seven fresh categories of deadly sin! That's right, folks, seven brand-new, cutting-edge classes of one-way tickets to the Inferno. A Vatican spokesman explained that, “While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance... due to the phenomenon of globalization.” The new official list of the Fourteen Deadly Sins is as follows:

Old & Busted

1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

New Hotness

8. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
9. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
10. Drug abuse
11. Polluting the environment
12. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
13. Excessive wealth
14. Creating poverty

Perhaps this is my soulless, heathen frivolity talking, but I'm actually kind of excited about this new list, because based on this criteria, everyone is going to Hell. At least there's an admirable kind of consistency to this level of vindictive judgement that would doom itself as direly as anyone else. Think I'm kidding? Well, let's take a look at who might fit into the Church's newly-renovated Rogue's Gallery:

Bioethical violations

If not your mother, then your sister, your girlfriend, your wife... at any rate, a lot (hopefully MOST) of the women you know & love.

Morally Dubious Experiments

Yeah, bet the fundies never thought Saint Ron would've gotten behind stem cell research. (This is to say nothing of everything else the festering meatsack did to merit a permenant vacation to Hades.)

Drug Abuse

Dude, Hell is going to rock so hard if this who's gonna be there... well, except that last guy.

Polluting the Environment



Widening the Wealth Gap

Boo-yah!

Excessive Wealth

Double boo-yah!

Creating Poverty

She had it coming.

And on that note... happy easter, everybody.