douglaschick18's Blog

Interestingly enough, after reading your post I was unsure whether it was a joke or not, so I researched it. I found that different news outlets which had reported on this had slightly varying lists. Here is the list that was reported by WSBT-TV in Indiana: “…genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs.” This is the same list that ABC Online Australia used. The Sydney Morning Herald posted a different list: “Polluting, genetic engineering, obscene riches, taking drugs, abortion, pedophilia and causing social injustice.” The Huffington Post had this list as well. Notice that pedophilia and abortion are on the second list and causing poverty and carrying out experiments on humans are missing.

I was intrigued by this so I kept looking. Then I found a post on getreligion.org called Seven Sensationalist Sins. In this post the author claims that there has been some very bad reporting following an article in the Vatican newspaper L’Observatore Romano. According to the author the original Vatican story didn’t mention the seven deadly sins, that was an invention of Times of London reporter Richard Owen. The author from getreligion also postulates that the punishments are actually from Dante’s Inferno, not the Vatican. From all the discrepancies that I found in various reports it seems more likely that this is a case of sensationalist reporting, not Papal decree.

http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3265