Greed is the core dynamic functioning on many levels, both overtly and covertly in these post-post-modern times. Greed is the umbrella under which gluttony (over indulgence of food, alcohol and other life-deadening elements), lust (getting lost in any intense desire; for pleasure, power or fame) and sloth (spiritual laziness or acedia—absence of caring) poison both the individual and the collective.

The Seven Deadly Sins are not biblically based. Gregory the Great established them in the sixth century. One could look at these seven sins in three categories: perverted love (pride, envy and anger) defective love (sloth) and excessive love. Catholic theology defines greed—and the other sin derived from it—as loving good things, but loving them in a “disordered” way. Simply put, greed is getting lost in excess. When that happens we lose our focus on what is truly important. Repeating the traditional word “love” clouds what we need to see: this so-called “love”—attachment may be more accurate—of earthly things becomes the focus of unreflective people living unexamined lives. Ultimately, this separates us from Divine Presence. We lose the core of who we are, and what we stand for by numbing ourselves through addictions, hoarding to prove we are secure or allowing fear to cut us off from another’s suffering. This can be an individual sin, but must be seen in the context of our culture as well.

Pope Gregory initiated the Seven Deadly Sins, but Dante Alighieri, in his Divine Comedy, made them famous by presenting agonizing visual pictures that shocked the human imagination. The severity of punishment Dante meters out depends upon whether the sin is a “hot” sin, or a “cold” sin. The hot sins had much more attention during the Middle Ages, just as they do at present. We are much more animated around who commits adultery (such as led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings) as compared to George Bush who—through his lies—heaps suffering, loss and death on millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention other parts of the world. Hot sins have to do with the flesh, cold sins with indifference and a cold-hearted disconnection from others. This cold, collective greed is threatening our planetary existence. Our inability to care for others who face starvation daily is a result of greed. The insidious short-term thinking that ignores what our grandchildren will need to sustain their lives on this planet originates in the blindness of greed.

In the Divine Comedy, those who committed the sin of greed had their hands bound behind their backs and were laid face down on the ground to symbolize that they had focused too much on temporal, concrete earth-bound things. What would be the punishment in our times? Perhaps we should blind fold and strap corporate leaders who prove themselves greedy to trees in an old growth forest. Then, when the trees are cut, the person risks being crushed underneath their majestic weight. Hopefully the last second uncertainly would challenge them to let go of all attachments. Or, perhaps we should burn their money and possessions in their presence, like books being burned when ideas become unpopular. Perhaps these greedy people should be made to drink the water from our rivers that their factories pollute? As I write this, none of these Dante-like scenarios prove satisfying and run counter to my sensibilities. Perhaps the spiritual question we need to solve is this: how do we wake up the collective mind-set up to grasp the peril we are in?