Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Living in sinful times

WHERE MONEY TALKS

The Vatican's list of new sins shifts the focus from private guilt to collective impact.

It's a good job "" for them that is "" that Lakshmi Mittal, the Ambani brothers and K P Singh are not Roman Catholics. Had they been, they would have gone straight to hell for the newly-designed "deadly sin" of "being obscenely rich". That, says Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Vatican's Apostolic Penitentiary, is just as bad as trafficking in drugs or being a paedophile.

Hashish may be as old as the Assassins (the 11th Century Hashshashin or Hashishin) and bhang even older but it's only now that the West has recognised the narcotic peril. Similarly, some might say there was no such thing as paedophilia until the law dictated an age of consent. Sins don't remain static in this fast-moving world, and those who might have derived guilty pleasure from wallowing in wickedness (as they thought) by being proud, envious, gluttons, lustful, angry, greedy or slothful are now told they are white as driven snow, almost. Those Seven Deadly Sins are Old Hat. Pope Gregory the Great listed them in the Sixth Century, and this is the 21st. Even sin moves with the times.

Stick-in-the-mud religions might preach and practise today exactly what they did 1,400 years ago but not the modern Church over which Pope Benedict XVI, who doesn't think immortality pills a good idea, presides. As Girotti says, "New sins have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalisation." Not that it's fair to fasten it all on globalisation for surely some of these so-called new sins have been around for quite a while. OK, tinkering with clones and Dolly the Sheep and all that, genetic engineering in short, is off the shelf, but surely some women have got rid of unwanted babies since the start of pregnancy. Why else would gin be called "mother's ruin"? Yet, abortion is in the new list. Polluting (presumably the atmosphere) is another addition. Did chulahs not belch out smoke long before CNG appeared as bus saviour? The most surprising new cause for eternal damnation is "causing social injustice". Some might say Adam's eviction was social injustice since his better half was really to blame. And what about the serpent that tempted her? If anyone is guilty of social injustice, it must surely be that creature whose intervention cost the original pair their paradise.

But the cool new-look Vatican isn't into simple old-fashioned stuff. "You offend God," says Girotti, "not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour's wife "" but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos." Why, I wonder though, did he say "morally debatable"? That admission of doubt goes ill with infallibility. It suggests borderline cases. The Inquisition was not so namby-pamby. It knew a heretic when it saw or smelt one.

Something else needs noting. The shift is away from conscience and private guilt to collective impact. That, too, is part of the new trend, a revival, one might say, of the Confucian communitarianism to which Asia's tiger economies attributed their dynamic growth. "If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual,'' says Girotti. It's in this context that the "excessive accumulation of wealth by a few" is condemned. It's a mortal sin as opposed to the merely "venial sins" of the more indulgent past. As the church says, "Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell."

Does that mean that Mittal, the Ambanis and the DLF chief are all condemned to Hell? Perish the thought, nothing like it. Read the small print which speaks of "excessive accumulation of wealth by a few". What is excessive? Those who have studied the Law of Contracts know that in Nash vs Inman, a Cambridge undergraduate's 11 fancy waistcoats were regarded as "necessaries". How can Mittal, for instance, buy more Arcelors if he ranks only fourth in Forbes' global pecking order. His $45 billion can't be deemed "excessive" while the DLF chief's $30 billion is peanuts.

The objection is also to a few becoming rich. It's all right if lots accumulate excessive wealth. That would be catholic communism. Well, lots, including the 23-year-old inventor of Facebook, are filthy rich nowadays. So many, in fact, that Millionaire magazine has changed its title. There are just so many millionaires around that in some circles it might be more distinctive to be poor.

sunanda.dattaray@gmail.com