According to Vatican official Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, environmental pollution is one of the most dangerous ‘new sins’, alongside genetic manipulation, excess wealth, drug trafficking, morally debatable experimentation, inflicting poverty on people, and violations of human rights. Girotti’s sins occupy a different moral plane to the seven deadly sins. His list was thrown together as part of a public relations exercise. The invention of new sins through a brainstorming session reveals much about the Church’s opportunistic attitude to doctrinal issues. Traditional sins were part of a moral universe that focused on the relationship between human beings and God; the new updated list is a cultural statement about what is ‘acceptable behaviour’. The most striking thing about the new list of sins is that it reverses the moral relationship between Church and society. Historically, the Church’s mission was to provide teachings that could offer moral guidance to society. In recent times, however, the Church has been forced on the defensive – and now, instead of converting people to its moral outlook, it has started to absorb many of the fashionable secular values of our times. Of course, religion has always adapted to new conditions. But today it does not simply adapt; it takes its cue from the secular imagination rather than from the divine. The new sins are good examples of secular values that the Church has co-opted in a desperate bid to stay relevant. For some time now, the Catholic Church and other Christian churches have been painfully aware of how difficult it is for them to exercise moral authority. The Church often appears uncertain and defensive about moral issues. So, for example, protesters have threatened to cause a stink during the proposed papal visit to Ireland unless Pope Benedict XVI agrees to meet people who were sexually molested by priests. Here, the victim of abuse, rather than papal authority, lays claim to the moral high-ground. In many parts of the Western world, Catholic officials have been forced to ban priests from having private contact with children, in response to pressure and public mistrust. A powerful sense of moral defensiveness, combined with an awareness that its teaching seems out of touch with the modern world, means the Church finds it difficult to assert its authority with any conviction. As a result, many churches feel increasingly uneasy about preaching the seven deadly sins to their flocks. The Catholic Church seems to believe it can revitalise its relationship with its worshippers and the public by preaching the virtues of environmental responsibility instead. Reportedly, the Pope plans to use his first address to the United Nations to warn the world about global warming and to promote ‘saving the planet’ as a moral duty for all Catholics (1). The Pope has actively tried to associate himself with green issues. And now we have, from the very heart of the Vatican, the proposal that sin itself should be closely linked to environmental awareness and responsibilities.Such a moral outlook is even more confused than the theology of the Dark Ages.