Take, Eat

This week, a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church in New York publicly criticized Rudy Giuliani's receiving of the Eucharist (Holy Communion).

Regular readers of this blog are probably beginning to recognize that one situation that sickens me more than normal is when someone actively seeks to promote disunity and hypocrisy within the 'Body of Christ'.

Cardinal Egan's reasoning is that Giuliani is a supporter of abortion rights, which is a "grave offense against the will of God". With that in mind, the Cardinal seems to have a very high (perhaps rightly so) standard of behavior (or thought life, since Rudy has never had an abortion). With a standard that high for receivers of Communion, how much higher must the standard be for those serving Communion. I wonder, under Egan's belief system, how many Priests, Pastors, Bishops, Reverends or Cardinals have ever committed a "grave offense against the will of God".

To guess, we must first have a measuring stick for the will of God. This sounds like an exact description of the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible says, in Proverbs 6, that God hates haughty eyes, lying tongues, hands that shed innocent blood, hearts that devise wicked schemes, feet that rush into evil, false witnesses and men that stir up disagreement among brothers.

I doubt strongly that Egan and his colleagues have never been proud or lied. I would not feel comfortable saying that the Roman Catholic Church has never been involved in the shedding of innocent blood. I sense that there have probably been a clergy or two who devised wicked schemes and looked forward to sinning. I can even name at least one Cardinal who has stirred up disagreement among brothers.

Orthodox Christianity is a religion made of of people who recognize that they have committed great crimes against the will of God. It is a religion of people who recognize that no one will ever deserve to receive Holy Communion.

A good word for Cardinal Egan, myself, and anyone who strives to follow after Christ would be to "First remove the planks from our own eyes" (Matthew 7:3-5).

Fourteen?

"Peter urged us to live our lives in a Holy way so that we may speed up Christ's return. To do that we need to know what sin is, but more importantly we need to know and seek the heart of God. To make it a list of dos and don'ts, simply returns us to bondage and we lose the freedom we found in Christ. But we also can not let the world determine right and wrong. God sets the standard of Holiness, not man."

In the past hour, I have been mentally struggling with the recent Vatican release of seven additional so-called 'deadly' or 'mortal' sins. While struggling with how I feel about it, a great friend spiritual confidant pointed out that "Aren't all sins deadly?" That, in addition to the above statement from Brent over at LeaveThe99, have really helped me sort through it. The new list includes:

• Environmental Pollution
• Genetic Manipulation
• Accumulating Excessive Wealth
• Inflicting Poverty
• Drug Trafficking and Consumption
• Morally Debatable Experiments
• Violation of Fundamental Human Rights

As far as the original seven go, (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride) I can see the biblical support for these, regardless of my mixed emotions when it comes to dogmatic lists of sins. However, with the additional seven, I feel like they are all either too broad, too specific, or too political. Regardless, they do not appear to be able to withstand another thousand years.

What do you all think about this? Why did they release seven more? Did the others finally expire after nearly a thousand years? Do we really need a pope to tell us what a sin is?