What is sin?

A Church employee was on the road to Jericho when he found a young boy lying at the side of the road.   He stopped to speak to the boy.  "I have left home" the boy said.  "Why?" the official asked him.     "My mother and father were divorced, probably because of me, and she brought in another man I was to call uncle, he did not like me and I did not like him,  he abused me so I have run away". "Dear, dear" said the Church employee "what a terrible world we live in, but perhaps it is better to live at home than die in the streets,  go home and I will pray for you"   Then a priest came along and saw him.  He also approached the boy and heard the same story.  "I am so sorry that this has happened to you but then your parents are just humans and we only have an ideal world to live in where nothing is perfect.  But remember Jesus loved you, he died on the Cross for you and so take comfort in that.   He went  on his way feeling he had given good advice.     Then a layperson came by and heard the story.  "Come with me" he said.

The layperson took the boy to the bishop, told the bishop the boy's story and asked "Why are you allowing such lawlessness in your diocese?"   What are you talking about?" asked the Bishop.  "Why are you not teaching the words of our saviour on adultery and chastity?   Why are you not preparing young people for the Sacrament of Marriage?   Why are you not preaching against the evil that divorce has brought on this young man and millions of others?  "Look it is not that easy" replied the Bishop.  "People do not like judgemental priests and bishops, they go to Church to worship God and we do our best to keep them coming - is that not the important thing"

The parable of the Good Samaritan has many forms and it is not just about looking after the poor and the sick.    Spiritual poverty as Mother Teresa pointed out is the worst kind of poverty, yet the Church in England keeps many of her children in spiritual poverty.   The young boy is a casualty of divorce and remarriage but there are thousands and thousands of children who in one way or another share the misery of the boy.   It is not good enough for them for a priest to just say "Jesus loves you".   They many boys and girls cannot see this to be true.   There is the twelve year old at a Catholic school who said "I do not believe in God for if he existed my family would not be in such a mess"  She needs more reassurance that the bland statement "God loves you"   Domestic violence is now at a level that the police are finding it hard to cope; there are thousands of children in Care with no parent or adult figure to guide them, only staff moving on with their career who are there one minute and gone the next, they are almost assured of poverty in later life and a horrifying statistic is that 75% of prostitutes have been in care as children; there are children of broken homes who move from the natural fathers house to the mothers house and vice-versa.  They lose so many of their friends.  Then there is contraception.  The clever ones in the Church tell us the Church is not going to tell them what to do - their eyes and indeed their ears are blind to what contraception has done to young people and why Pope Paul warned that it would lead to the break up of marriage.   Yes, we can talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan and give money and Aid to the popular and traditional causes but the new poverty which is just beyond the front door, we have blinded ourselves to since perhaps we are not ready to take responsibility.    Sin has consequences and since we have a Church afraid to preach morality we have a state where so many evil things  are called good; and so many good things called evil.