The Eighth Deadly Sin

Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship

Heartland Parishes of Ellis County

St. Thomas Aquinas did not believe the seven deadly sins (also known as the capital vices and the cardinal sins) should be ranked. By deadly we mean they can, and often do, destroy the human spirit.  They also often result in the destruction of the human person. 

I’d like to suggest that today in America there is an eighth deadly sin…apathy.   Maybe it’s just an American sin, so the Church has not yet caught up with it.  My Webster’s Dictionary defined it as follows: 1: lack of feeling or emotion: impassive 2 : lack of interest or concern : indifference.  Likewise, sloth is defined in Webster’s as follows: 1: disinclination to action or labor.  So, sloth and apathy are ugly stepsisters.

Let’s look at sloth first. When the serpent tempted Eve with the apple, where was Adam?  He was with her in the garden!  What did he do?   He did nothing.  He took no action. What should he have done? He should have done something to protect her.  It was his responsibility to do so.

Now let’s look at apathy.  When Eve enticed him with the apple, what did Adam do?  He complied.  He valued Eve’s companionship.   He likely did not want to risk the consequence of offending or losing her.  Instead, he, like Eve, chose to disobey and offend God.  Adam had less passion for God than he had for the woman.  

You see where I’m going with this, right?  This is sin.  It’s a deadly sin.  We are Adam and Eve all over again.  Rather than standing up for right or against wrong, we have a “disinclination to labor or action.”  We are unwilling to risk what we already have.  We are content with our things, our comforts, and our securities. We’ve become apathetic.  Our passion for God is weak.     

God cast Adam and Eve, our first parents, out of the garden.  Should we expect a reaction from God that is different than that which Adam and Eve were shown?  If we think that is “Old Testament thinking,” and we are under the new law, let’s go to the New Testament.  In Revelation 3:16, speaking to the New Testament community at Laodicea, God relates: “So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

We’re pretty comfortable quoting John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not parish but have eternal life.”  And it’s true!  Yet, in a later book of the Bible, written by the same author, we get a considerably different message.  God apparently wants us to be passionate about having been given a redeemer who died for our sins. 

The evil in the world today, is of the same serpent.  It has a much uglier face than the simplistic “story of the fall.”  Today, we allow babies to be torn apart in the womb, or even while being delivered.  We let our secular culture tell us homosexual activity is a good.  Safe sex is taught in our public schools.  We accept all this.  Doing otherwise is not convenient. We would have to take a stand.  We would be criticized. 

Tithing of our time, talent, and treasure alone does not make us good stewards.  It also takes courage and fidelity to the Christian message.  We must be stewards of the faith.   We must step outside our comfort zones.  That’s what the saints did.  God calls us all to be saints.  

You see, not all sins are the result of personal acts, intentions, or thoughts. Some sins are acts of omission, of not doing what we “ought” to do.  How many of us confess those sins?  I’d suggest to you today that those sins are often greater than our sins of commission.  They are the result of apathy.  The demon of apathy within us needs to be exorcized.   

I contend that in America today the vast majority of us don’t need more things and securities.  We need less.  To be truly human, we need to live closer to the Christian message.  We need to give more and take less. That must become habitual through deliberate acts of unselfishness, because our fallen natures pull us in the other direction.      

Until we have the courage to look ourselves in the eye and stop making ourselves the center of our existence, our relationship with God will never be right.  Nor will our relationships with each other.   Until we have the courage to stand up against evil, we will simply allow ourselves to wallow in it.  In doing so, we and our culture will die a slow and ugly death.  And isn’t that what America is doing today?

Are Adam and Eve in heaven or not?  I fully believe they are.  I hope all of our relatives are in heaven.  But to me, the eighth deadly sin is being apathetic while, all along, thinking we have a cake walk into heaven.  That’s called the sin of presumption.  

I fully understand that we could never do enough to “earn” our own salvation.  Only Jesus could and did do that.  But we do have a participative role in our own salvation and that of the world.  We are called to join our efforts to Christ’s sacrifice.      

I’d suggest that the cardinal virtue that destroys both sloth and apathy is zeal.  It’s zeal for the glory of God.  Most Catholics and other Christians generally need a whole lot more of it.  It comes through being good stewards of the faith. 

Many years ago, I memorized a poem by Robert Frost.  It concludes, “The woods are beautiful, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”  How about you?