I have to admit that, like most young adult Catholics I know, it's been some time since I pulled out my copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and reviewed what exactly is a mortal sin.

So while most media outlets have mocked the Vatican's statement on new social sins --- such as polluting the environment, drug trafficking, and genetic manipulation and other experiments conducted within the "greatest danger zone" of bioethics --- I actually appreciated the reminder of what sin looks like today because not every young adult can make the cognitive jump between yesterday's sins and modern immorality.

For example, not until I read an incisive article by Christian author Kathleen Norris did I understand the grave sin known as sloth to be anything other than laziness. In her "Christian Century" piece, Norris writes: "Sloth is so much more than laziness. It is an inability to concentrate on serious matters, and profound weariness of soul.

As Evelyn Waugh once wrote, "The malice of sloth lies not merely in the neglect of duty (though that can be a symptom of it) but in the refusal of joy. It is allied to despair."

Yikes. Really? My soul is weary a lot, and these reflections made me think, which was exactly the intention of Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, when he described to the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano how globalization impacts morality.

"You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos," he said in the March 8 interview.

Granted, most major newspapers and television networks have a ball with this kind of stuff, implying, "Those Catholics, they are so old-fashioned."

But the whole point of the Vatican's statement was to communicate that sin isn't old-fashioned. It is very real and organic in the decisions we make on a daily basis.

My friend, Father James Martin, associate editor at America magazine, said this during a National Public Radio interview: "I think [Bishop Girotti] is reminding people that sins are not just individual ... that there's also social sins ... sins that affect the community at large and sins that an institution can engage in."

Perhaps Bishop Girotti was merely articulating the same message that Pope John Paul II wrote in his 1979 apostolic exhortation, "On Catechesis in Our Time":

"Fashion changes, but a profound reality remains. Christians today must be formed to live in a world which largely ignores God or which, in religious matters, in place of an exacting and fraternal dialogue, stimulating for all, too often founders in a debasing indifferentism, if it does not remain in a scornful attitude of 'suspicion' in the name of the progress it has made in the field of scientific 'explanations.'

"To 'hold on' in this world, to offer to all a 'dialogue of salvation' in which each person feels respected in his or her most basic dignity, the dignity of one who is seeking God, we need a catechesis which trains the young people and adults of our communities to remain clear and consistent in their faith, to affirm serenely their Christian and Catholic identity, to 'see him who is invisible' and to adhere so firmly to the absoluteness of God that they can be witnesses to him in a materialistic civilization that denies him."

Therese J. Borchard is a columnist with Catholic News Service.