By Jennifer Litz
Editor
March 19, 2008

Easter is Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to America is not quite a month away, and the Catholic Church is 2,000 years old, give or take. It’s a small wonder, then, that The Vatican’s No. 2 recently came out with an updated list of offenses against God in our plugged-in age of globalization—lest Catholics think their religion is stodgy, old, or irrelevant.

The Vatican’s Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti—just a step below the Pope, for all intents and purposes—enlightened Vatican daily paper L'Osservatore Romano on “new” sins for the technological age. His comments came at the end of a weeklong Vatican conference on confession in the beginning of March. The decree? Those seven deadly standbys still stand, but take on new faces in our current era.

Much aberrant behavior goes beyond the individual now, to include social phenomena like drug culture, pollution, and being obscenely rich. The Vatican articulated all of these as sins. But the Church’s biggest concern is genetic modification: Girotti firmly denounced stem cell research and other genetic engineering.

“[Within bioethics] there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said.

Other newly articulated sins include drug use, socioeconomic inequity, and some no-brainers like abortion and pedophilia.

Local Bishop Michael Pfeiffer weighed in on the proclamations.

“I think it’s good the Vatican reminds us that, in some of our situations in daily life, we sometimes overlook the moral dimensions behind them,” he says. “I think it’s good the Vatican defined sort of a new list of capital sins. The old ones are still there. The capital sins were given that name centuries ago; they’re the root cause of all sins.”

But is Genetic Modification Really That Bad?

Pfeiffer spoke to Girotti’s insistence against genetic modification. The bishop says current experimentation with cells violates the sacred nature of God-given life.

“It deals with basic makeup of what it means to be human,” he says. “For example, the first basic cell, from conception, has the whole genetic makeup for that individual for the rest of his or her own life. There’s a lot of experimentation going on, for example, on the human embryo. And of course, we who hold that human life is sacred, and made in the image and likeness of God, we see that as an abuse of Him and human life.”

Few, if any, doctors in San Angelo practice stem cell or cloning research. But a nearby plastic surgeon objects to the premise that genetic modification is inherently evil.

Dr. William Rainey, a private practice doctor in Abilene, says that genetic modification and stem cell research are “a little bit different” issues. But from a moral and ethical standpoint, he says, they overlap.

“What scientists are doing in terms of genetic modification—We have a genetic roadmap,” Rainey says. “Every person has that. And that genetic roadmap is, it is a plan for every individual; how they develop and grow. Certain genetic issues make you more susceptible or less susceptible to disease processes and injuries, etc.

“Scientists who are involved in influencing how genes affect the human being are working to modify the effect of our genetic roadmap to help us be more healthy. I don’t see that working towards making people more healthy has any negative or offensive moral or ethical issues. It’s just a function of science impacting what God has given us to make us better.”

Rainey, a Catholic, says he doesn’t believe that stem cell research is “playing God.”

“I don’t think we can do anything that God hasn’t given us the ability to do,” Rainey says. “I don’t see . . . genetic modification as a lessening or a rejection of the belief in God. To lead a fuller, healthier life is a premise of the Christian Bible.”

Rainey believes the Catholic Church will one day reverse the opinion against genetic modification. He cites examples of the Church’s former condemnation of administering anesthesia for childbirth (“part of the deal was to suffer,” Rainey says).

“It may be 20 years, 50 years,” Rainey says. “But sooner or later, they will look back on it. Organized religion is slow to accept change. Science is different. We look out for change.”

The Slippery Slope of War

Bishop Pfeiffer is proactive and forward-looking, too. He has another advisory to add to the Vatican’s list.

“I would add issues like violence that we see in our world,” Pfeiffer says. “I would add war, the terrible influence of war. Wars are going on all the time. There is usually between 20 and 30 wars going on on planet Earth. And also, genocide is happening more and more in different countries.”

Pfeiffer says 100 million people have been killed in battle during recent centuries. “Is that advancement?” he asks. “What is true advancement? Even though we have technology, we have to use it for the good of human life.”

Pfeiffer doesn’t outright condemn the current War in Iraq as immoral. He says the morality of war can be hazy.

“Pope John Paul II pleaded with leaders of the world not to get into this war,” Pfeiffer says. “And he predicted the consequences we’re seeing today—the political unrest it’s causing, dealing with multicultural issues. The Pope said, ‘It’s one thing to oust a leader, but what are you going do then to put in a stable government?’”

Pfeiffer says the moral question now is whether to stay in theater and bring about that aforementioned stability.

“But when you do start a war, sometimes there are consequences you don’t see,” the bishop says. “And we don’t hear very often about the thousands of innocent people killed in this war—we don’t want to hear about that. It’s sad that we have 3,000 of our own killed, but we should be at least equally concerned about the hundreds of thousands of [foreign deaths] and property that has been destroyed. Those are all part of the moral framework. Some of it’s not clear cut.”

Nicholas Lutton is a broadcast journalist with the US Army. He has served two year-long deployments in and around Afghanistan. Lutton was raised Catholic, and attended Catholic schools. He takes offense to the implication that this war could be immoral.

"I have studied and questioned faith in general and the human element of faith,” Lutton says. “For example, rules and obligations set forth by religious leaders, what people believe and don't believe, who decides the rules and why, all of that stuff. I don't believe my faith and my service conflict . . . Most soldiers are religious and believe what they do is a good thing.

“Everyone needs to remember there are multiple facets to the current situation our country is in. We have built hundreds of roads, schools, and hospitals. We have supported hundreds of medical and veterinarian exercises for people all over the world. We are constantly doing humanitarian missions. People tend to focus on the part of our mission where we take out enemy targets. But why are they targets? Because they threaten a way of life for the majority of people who just want to live a happy and safe life.”

Lieutenant Col. James Ludwikoski is a military chaplain with Goodfellow Air Force Base who has been deployed many times in his life of service. He says the idea of a “just” war is well affirmed and documented in Catholicism.

“The holy father [Pope John Paul II] did not encourage any first strike situation with any war,” Ludwikoski says. “But once we are in it, of course he wanted everyone to follow the international rules that regulate how we are to behave. Which is basically the Just War theory. Is this war considered just? If you talk to different people you can get different opinions. If you’re defining ‘just’ as doing the right thing at the right time in the right way with the right people, that’s never possible. Likewise, there’s a moral fallout when you have genocide in a country, and the rest of the world is looking up.”

Ludwikoski concludes that because we’re in Iraq to do ultimate good, and we’re there on our president’s order, the Iraq War is a just one.

What About That Censure of Wealth?

“Linked to all of this is poverty,” Pfeiffer says of the conditions surrounding war. “The ‘haves’ are such a small part of humanity, and hold most of goods of planet Earth, and the vast majority of people don’t have much claim or use of goods. There’s a great disproportion.”

This dire disproportion between rich nations like the U.S. and poor ones like Africa is the reasoning behind the Vatican’s condemnation of the condition’s micro manifestation—individuals having excessive wealth.

But how wealthy is the Catholic Church?

And isn’t Bill Gates, one of the world’s most wealthiest men, also a large benefactor to Third World countries? The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the highest profile charities aimed at eradicating malaria and other deadly diseases in destitute countries.

Perhaps Monsignor Girotti meant everyone else.