When considered in this structural way, the Seven Deadly Sins provide a very serious challenge to people of conscience. If attitudes of pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth become normal and socially acceptable, they are more deadly than when found scattered among individuals. There is a significant exception to this rule. Atheists claim their behavior is always “reasonable,” meaning they have little obligation other than to act in self-interest. They can be just as mean as mean can be – (their blogs often prove this point) – and what would be sinful for believers is “realistic behavior” for them. People of faith have no such luxury: they are bound to a “higher authority.” If they act in accord with the “spirit of the world,” sin looms as the consequence.

In this election year, I am particularly concerned about the appearance of sinful structural attitudes among the presidential candidates. We can be sure that the press will pay attention to anything dealing with lust, such as appears to have torpedoed the campaign of Rudolph Giuliani. But what about the other sins? With the Republican candidates in particular, I am concerned with the anger (or is it envy?) with which they regularly castigate Hillary Clinton. The very people who are apt to classify Democrats as “Bush haters” shower much more vitriol on “the Clintons.” The same sort of hatred has poisoned discussion of immigration reform. Any reasonable measure is categorized as “amnesty,” as if there was something wrong about forgiveness, pardon or even just plain common sense about the costs of deporting millions of people.

I also worry about the canonization of greed that is taking place among Republican presidential candidates this year. The country is $9 trillion in debt, the U.S. dollar has lost half of its value against the euro, the largest banks are selling themselves to foreigners in order to stay afloat, and a majority of the people in the U.S. face economic uncertainty, loss of quality of life and a plummeting standard of living. Yet the talk is of cutting taxes to benefit the super rich and large corporations (when not also giving them “corporate welfare). This exaltation of greed constitutes the structural acceptance of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It goes against the teachings of my religion, if not also most religions, to reward the rich and punish the poor: yet the current crop of GOP leaders foster the concept of increased capitalist exploitation as a standard for social behavior.

I am not about to make an exhortation for people to vote for a Democrat – this column is about faith, not politics. But I am convinced that in this historical moment, there is a moral choice involved in political decisions. I would not like to see structural support for any of the Seven Deadly Sins translate into electoral victory.