College Principal’s Report Those of my age and older can look back to their schooling and recall being taught very clear notions of right and wrong, goodness and evil, the stark alternative of a state of grace or a state of sin, and a final, eternal option of heaven or hell. Following the Second Vatican Council which formally closed on December 8th, 1965, the emphasis was placed more on the positive expression of God’s love and less on sins. The notion of specific sins was gradually blurred into a general state of sinfulness. Writing in the early eighties, Dan Mintie described the dilemma of the seventies in these terms: “In the decade following the Second Vatican Council many notions about sin did go out the window - the general consensus being “happily so”. A “laundry list” notion of evil, an introspective “examination” of conscience, a whole geography of heaven and hell and the stopovers in between went out with a whoosh. By the early 1970s, however, thoughtful people throughout the Church began to realize that many more issues had been raised than had been resolved. Suddenly Catholics found themselves facing some tough questions about human nature, evil and the quality of their Christian lives. People are again yearning for some kind of yardstick against which to measure their experience.” One consequence of this yearning in the eighties and nineties has been the rise of fundamentalism — the literal interpretation of the Bible and the false presupposition that the Bible teaches a scientific understanding of the world in the cosmos. The increase in the number of Christians of all denominations who are fundamentalist has been quite startling. Genuine faith, however, must rise above such simplistic notions to the central truth of a God who loves us, who became human in the person of Jesus and died in the greatest act of love, an act that gives us hope. It is a mistake to try to oversimplify our notions of the God who is beyond all understanding. How we act towards others is the central issue. Good people have a fundamental disposition to love others and treat them kindly.
If we are not that way, our values are distorted. Nontheless, in the wake of the financial crisis that has dominated the second half of this year, I have found myself once again thinking about what has happened to the notion of conscience and sin. Many people no longer think in terms of right or wrong but live by a code that “anything is okay if it works for me”. The focus has become that “I can do what I like with my life” rather than one of my wider obligations to fellow human beings who are made in the image and likeness of God. Is it really surprising we have a world financial crisis when so many people act out of personal greed dressed up as “good business acumen”. In a very insightful article, Jesuit writer, Andrew Hamilton, recently had this to say: Sin is popularly seen simply as the breaking of God’s laws. But at a deeper level sin is the pursuit of values that sell your humanity short…. The root of the financial crisis was greed — seeking individual financial gain in ways that did not respect the common good. The symbols of greed were spectacular. Monstrous salaries of CEOs, for example, and takeovers that transferred fees to the engineers and debt to the companies. But greed was not confined to the top end. Funds demanded that companies produce short-term profits, led in turn by their members who wanted spectacular superannuation growth. The way in which greed saps the humanity of the greedy and injures the welfare of ordinary human beings, and of societies, is evident enough. It is less recognised that unfettered greed destroys the conditions under which the market itself can function and under which the greedy can reward themselves.
If they are to function, financial markets require confidence. They are based on credit, and we give credit only to people whom we believe to be credible, and only if we believe creditable the processes by which we give credit. If we believe that people in the market are trying to rip us off and can rely on shonky processes to do so, we shall refuse credit. Without credit financial markets collapse. Greed alone does not destroy trust and confidence. But it breeds a fatal lack of responsibility. We accept responsibility for our own gains but refuse responsibility for others’ losses…. Greed is an old notion. It was listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins by Pope Saint Gregory the Great (Gregory I, pope from 590 to 604). Gregory is acclaimed as one of the four Latin Fathers of the Church and also as one of only 33 saints who have been proclaimed “Doctors of the Church”. The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices, are a list of sinful tendencies in people which destroy the life of grace and create the threat of eternal damnation. There have been some variations in the names
