The media has been beside itself with glee reporting that the Vatican has come up with a list of an additional 7 deadly sins.  Of course, in reality, the list is simply mentioning problematic behaviors that have surfaced in recent history.  The one presenting the greatest difficulty is “accumulating excess wealth.”  People I normally love to listen to have immediately jumped to the (somewhat logical) conclusion that the Vatican sees all personal wealth as bad, and that it advocates using the police power of government to confiscate it.

A Father Ray Beck was on Glenn Beck’s TV show on CNN last night (no relation by the way) and he clarified that taken in proper context, the sin of “accumulating excess wealth” in fact is when there is no charity involved.  He explained that the Vatican understands that charity by force is not charity at all, but that the hording of money without using it to improve your fellow man’s situation is where the problem lies.  Personally, I can’t find the text anywhere, so I can’t read it in context.  But it’s interesting nonetheless, and I hope Fr. Beck’s explanation is indeed what the Vatican means.

I’m on my guard about this, because on a fairly regular basis one of the prayers of the faithful at Mass at my church is “that governments will work for a fair distribution of wealth, we pray to the Lord,” and that scares the fire out of me.

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