The Seven Social Sins

I read today that the Pope will announce seven new deadly sins when he visits DC next month. I learned all about the original sins in school but, really, the only thing I remember is from the movie. Which is why I propose the Vatican should fund my sequel to Seven. Don’t pull punches, either. It has to be just as horrific as the original.

So let’s review the sins, and how the film (tentatively titled Fourteen), will play out.

By the way – the Pope is unveiling these sins at the exclusive mass blessing the new stadium here in DC. I think I speak for all rational humans when I ask: What the fuck? I mean, first of all, where’s he going to park the Popemobile? Is he going to Metro down to the stadium? We do have the mysterious “White Line” in place for just such events. Private trains for the power-hungry creators of the “Seven Social Sins.”

The first sin is “Bioethical Violations.” We’ve got problems right out of the gate. Greed, sloth, envy… That’s easy. But Bioethical Violations? Come on. What’s that mean? And why does it make me think of Jurassic Park? (That would be very John Paul II of him: condemning Jurassic Park in the middle of a baseball stadium.)

The Vatican defines Bioethical Violations as birth control and other related things. So, in Fourteen, the killer goes around forcing women to get on the pill and complain about gaining weight. Then the victim has to sit around and listen to all of the women agonize about the side effects of birth control but never actually put out.

Next up is “Morally dubious experiments.” Okay, Popey, lesson one: Don’t have a bunch of shit on the list that needs explanation and examples. In college, I masturbated onto a plate and watched how my sperm behaved throughout a hot day. Is that a morally dubious experiment? It is, certainly, a scene from the movie. But here the Pope is talking about stem cell research and, again, the creation of a Jurassic Park.

With the third sin, we finally get something easy: “Drug Abuse.” That’ll hit home since everybody in that baseball stadium will be on some nefarious prescription drug in order to address their made up mental illnesses in our sad, sick society. In Fourteen, the killer will pose as a Physician’s Assistant for Kaiser Permanente who prescribes antibiotics, Prozac, and Wellbutrin to every patient regardless of their complaint, then, behind the clinic, he’ll collect suitcases full of cash from pharmaceutical companies. The killer will escape our heroes because, when they’re just about to catch him, they’ll round the corner and find all of the doctors collecting suitcases full of cash. It’ll be like the end of the updated Thomas Crown Affair.

From the crying Indian in the 80’s to the goddamned Pope – the fourth new sin is “Polluting the Environment.” Which leads one to examine the environmental impact of the Pope’s visit, from the gas-guzzling Popemobile right down to DC’s happy Cleaner Coal!!!(tm) powering the stadium. Speaking of which, it’s about time for the coal council (where the killer in Fourteen works) or whoever they are to start putting up posters all over the city desperately telling us how coal power is the “way of the future.” About this time every year, the Metro is plastered with smiling people from an assortment of friendly races assuring us that coal is clean and good to eat. It doesn’t change the fact that you used to be able to see DC from Sugarloaf Mountain and, now, the only thing you can see is the smokestack from the power plant.

The last three sins seem to obsess a little bit about money. At number five is the long winded sin: “Contributing to the divide between the rich and the poor.”

At the moment, I’m not able to find an explanation on what that sin means. I think it’s one of those written six beers in while guzzling the seventh, followed by a gushing declaration about how good it is to have friends like the people you’re drinking with, even if you just met them three hours ago.

I’m assuming that sin is ordering us to stop stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, which is something I’ve long been doing. I wake up at 5am on Sundays, hide in the bushes outside of St. Mary’s, and then tackle old ladies and steal their food stamps and rape whistles. Then I post the stamps and whistles to all the rich people I know. It’s real life work like that which inspires writing similar scenes for the killer in Fourteen.

Sin number six seems to be just a bit out of bounds given our current economic collapse. The sin is, simply: “Excessive Wealth.”

Popey, this is fucking America you’re talking to. Excessive wealth is the whole motherfucking point. Next you’ll be telling us not to obsessively push westward and rape Indian children. (The killer in Fourteen is a 49er guiding a wagon train across the country and becoming embroiled in endless disputes with ranchers and Indians.)

Either way, saying that Excessive Wealth is a sin is a little bit dated. Maybe the Pope is trying to get in bed with poor people so as to better encourage them to blindly follow the church and pay up front. Hell, the Vatican’s website is more of a shop than Amazon.com these days. Here’s the Peter’s Pence page. Ugh.

And then going on about Excessive Wealth as we’re all watching our money tumble down the drain. A dozen restaurants in DC started accepting the Euro yesterday, and that’s something popping up in cities through the country. Which is what the killer in Fourteen is going to do: Convince McDonald’s to switch to the Euro.

The seventh new deadly social sin is: “Creating Poverty.” I have no idea how to work that into the movie. Maybe the killer is going to go to some low income housing units and steal their Christmas presents all Grinch-like or something.

Except the poor are a powerful bunch. Even with nothing, they’ll dance around the fallen star and sing their Whoville songs. And it’s precisely that kind of excessive wealth that we need to nip in the bud by controlling the birth rates of our lower classes and using their DNA to make dinosaurs.