Attention Deadly Sins Are Not the Same As Mortal Sins

Attention: Mortal sins are not to be confused with the deadly sins. The latter are not sins but rather categories of sin or vice, corresponding to weaknesses in human nature. Mortal sins may also be called "grave", "grievous" or "serious" sins.

Deadly Sins are also called Capital sins." Capital" here means that these sins stand at the head of the other sins which proceed from them.

In the perfect world every Priest would be hooked up to a Vatican Fax machine service. That is everytime the Vatican speaks and it something that is bound to get misreported by the secular press then an Fax alert would go out.

Then the priest can bone up on the subject and mention ithat his homily. The Church seems to have a habit of making such statements on Friday by the way allowing a whole weekend for the situation to get out of hand. The whole International Theological Commision study on what happens to unbaptized babies comes to mind as a example.

I posted earlier on the 7 new Deadly Sins. As the blogger I link indicated the press is calling these new Seven Deadly sins "mortal sins" which of course they are really not.(note the article is confusing and It is not clear what exactly is said.) Well the situation seems to be getting out of hand as thousands of bloggers are repeating the same mistake. Including many Evangelical sthat wish to use this as a platform for the whole Faith and works debate!!! Still there is a distinction between the term "mortal sin" and on the other "Deadly or Capital Sin" that must be noted

A little history here. Where do these Deadly Sins come from? Well they are found talked about way way back by Saint John Cassian. He was a Christian theologian celebrated in both the Western and Eastern Churches for his mystical writings. He is known both as one of the "Scythian monks" and as one of the "Desert Fathers." The Catholic Encycopedia has a entry here that is well done and states that favourite disciple of St. John Chrysostom

He is writing about these eight principal obstacles to perfection encountered by monks That is gluttony, impurity, covetousness, anger, dejection, accidia (ennui), vainglory, and pride.

His thought can be read located here at JOHN CASSIAN ON THE INSTITUTES OF THE COENOBIA, AND THE REMEDIES FOR THE EIGHT PRINCIPAL FAULTS.

Later Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) described the Seven Deadly Sins in his Moralia in Job. You can read that here.

This article quotes Saint and Pope Gregory in the before mentioned work:

The seven deadly sins/vices can be traced back to the early church period. The Didache, an early 2nd century church document, contains a list of five. Origen produced a sevenfold list. At the end of the 4th century Cassian amended the sevenfold list.

This list was almost exactly followed by Gregory the Great, two hundred years later, in his Moralia in Job (a commentary on the Book of Job). In chapter 35 Gregory gives the list of seven vices which has become the classic exposition of the subject: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust. Gregory likens the capital vices to captains laying waste a conquered city and leading after them a band of following vices. Gregory writes:
"An army in truth follows those captains because there spring up from them importunate hosts of sins. - These several sins have each their army against us. - Seven principal vices produce from themselves so great a multitude of vices that when they reach the heart they bring, as it were, the bands of an army after them"

We were of course off the races then. Dante for instance makes use of this

The Catechism has this to say(read the whole link for the whole overview of sin)
1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called "capital" because they engender other sins, other vices.[138] They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.

Just wanted to clear that up . That being said I would like clarification on this. I really think the new 7 are just a product of the old 7 if you ask me. For instance are not these new 7 still opposed by the & Cardinal Virtues? Those being chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility? Again it is not clear to me if Church is trying to add & new Categories or indeed talk about sins that can be "mortal" or both. In a sense some of this not new. I supose Dumping PCP in the local river has always been sinful for instance