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Seven new offenses were announced at the Synod of the Catholic Church.
This gathering of Catholic hierarchs is part of the synod process initiated by the Pope in 2021. Pope Francis wants to reform the church, and not everyone is happy about it — neither the cardinals nor the laity. Previous synods have discussed issues such as blessing same-sex unions and allowing women to preach — basically things for which people used to be sent to the stake.
Now, as part of the reform of the Church, the Pope has decided to announce seven new mortal sins. The announcement was quite solemn: in St. Peter’s Basilica, seven cardinals announced each new sin and immediately repented for it. Here is the list:
Sin against peace,
against creation, indigenous peoples, and migrants;
sin of violence,
against women, family, and youth;
sin of using doctrine «as stones for stoning»,
against poverty,
against synodality, communion, and participation.
These new sins are meant to be mortal sins, as the pontiff himself emphasized. Some of the formulations are so general that they encompass numerous life situations. For example, the sin of poverty could include someone who simply doesn’t help the poor-maybe they just don’t like them. Or it could be spending money on personal pleasures instead of giving to those in need.
The sin against women and the family could include divorce, surrogacy, contraception, abortion, or even a serious argument that ends with someone packing their bags and moving back in with their parents. The same goes for sin against youth. Why, then, is there no sin against old age — euthanasia is already practiced in many Catholic countries.
The sin of using doctrine «as a stone for stoning» (as it is precisely phrased) is a bit more complicated. It is understood that Pope Francis is referring to any wrongful, illegal use of authority (and here the range is wide), where the perpetrator hides behind doctrine, claiming to act in the name of an idea while inflicting punishment — all of which is a «lack of mercy» and thus a sin.
But the Church itself has a canon of rules by which it judges offenders. The starting point here is a certain doctrine against which one cannot act, which means that any revelation against it is also sinful. So what about the synodal process initiated by the Pope himself?
The absence of synodality, communion and participation may also deserve further consideration. If a priest with some authority, or simply a lay person, manages his parish independently, without listening to advice, is this already a grave sin?
There could be a trap. A few years ago, during the opening of the synod process, or even before it began, groups of dissenting bishops and cardinals emerged within the Catholic Church, consisting mainly of German and American hierarchs — and these were quite influential clergy. They refused to see the authority of the bishop as part of a broader process of reflection among the faithful, believing that it would be lost in discussion. So the sin of lack of synodality could now be attributed to these dissenters themselves — they refuse to communicate.
And the sin committed against migrants is a special issue.
«It is with a sense of shame that I ask forgiveness for my indifference to the tragedies that turn sea routes and borders between countries from paths of hope to paths of death for so many migrants», said Canadian Cardinal Czerny during his act of penance in St. Peter’s Basilica. «The value of human life always surpasses the value of borders».
For the head of the Catholic Church, the issue of migrants is a special one. From washing the feet of new settlers during the appropriate ceremony to criticizing Viktor Orbán’s government and accusing it of «bad Christianity», the pontiff believes that migrants can offer «important assistance» in overcoming Italy’s demographic crisis (as if he’s the head of Italy) «if they are well integrated into the social fabric of society». He sees them as a threat only if they don’t assimilate.
Meanwhile, migrants are clearly not the majority in the congregations of Catholic churches, if they attend them at all. Maybe it’s because they are of a different faith?
Last year, the Italian publications Panorama and La Verità published an investigation alleging that Pope Francis and Cardinal Zuppi were funding illegal immigration. According to the investigation, the Vatican donated about €2 million to the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, which illegally transported migrants across the Mediterranean on the ship Mare Jonio. The publications’ conclusions were based on intercepted internal Vatican chats in which this whole funding issue was discussed by prelates.
Can these innovative principles lead to a kind of theological revolution? Of course, the head of the Catholic Church was guided by the real crises that exist in the world — migration, social or ecological (the latter being a sin against creation, that is, a sin against the planet). The Church must respond to these challenges and promote its values. The idea is clear and probably even makes sense if it doesn’t cause a rift among Catholics.
And he hasn’t even heard of the Quadrobers.