In traditional Catholic piety, sins have been divided into venial and mortal sins:\u00a0 venial being more minor offenses, and mortal sins being those that mark a significant life-changing turn away from God.\u00a0 Another designation that has been part of our tradition is that of \u201cDeadly\u201d or Capital sins.\u00a0 The word capital is derived from the Latin root caput, meaning head.\u00a0 So, these capital sins are the source or headwaters for sins. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThe seven capital sins, for those of you making lists, are: Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust. What most moral theologians will tell you, however, is that these seven things aren\u2019t really sins in themselves. They are characteristics or emotions that, when acted upon, lead directly to sin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tTake anger, for example. At times anger is justified, like when one is confronted with injustice. Some times people even refer to \u201crighteous anger,\u201d like the anger expressed by Amos and the other OT prophets when their people went astray. Anger is an emotion, a feeling, and it arises unbidden. You can\u2019t make yourself not feel it, but you can decide how \u2013 or whether \u2013 to act on it. Anger, if unchecked, can lead to violence. So, although Anger isn\u2019t itself sinful, if it is unchecked, it can lead to acts that are clearly sinful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tAnd this is the nature of Capitol \u201csins.\u201d Although they aren\u2019t really sins in themselves, they can lead to sin. They describe character weaknesses and tendencies toward sin, and so they need to be handled thoughtfully and carefully. Perhaps they would be better described as the seven capital temptations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In traditional Catholic piety, sins have been divided into venial and mortal sins:\u00a0 venial being more minor offenses, and mortal sins being those that mark a significant life-changing turn away from God.\u00a0 Another designation that has been part of our tradition is that of \u201cDeadly\u201d or Capital sins.\u00a0 The word capital is derived from the Latin root caput, meaning head.\u00a0 So, these capital sins are … Continue reading Seven Deadly Sins<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts-of-faith","tag-facts-of-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5FUlW-6q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":399,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}