New sins for our times

Today's Australian prints ( p3) an abridged version of a piece by Richard Owen in The Times about the Vatican's revised list of deadly sins.

The Oz, as it often does with items from The Thunderer, has cut some of the more interesting parts, including a list of "seven holy virtues" (chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility) and the punishments for the original seven deadly sins:

Pride: Broken on the wheel
Envy : Put in freezing water
Gluttony: Forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes
Lust : Smothered in fire and brimstone
Anger: Dismembered alive
Greed : Put in cauldrons of boiling oil
Sloth : Thrown in snake pits

Source: The Picture Book of Devils, Demons and Witchcraft; Ernst and Johanna Lehner.

Do these "punishments", I wonder, not count as torture because they have, or may have had, ecclesiastical imprimatur? I'm surprised we've not heard this argument, casuistical though it is, advanced by the US authorities.

The Mufti speaks

The comments of Sheik Hilali have been reported not only in the Australian media, eg this "edited transcript" from The Australian but also internationally, eg the BBC, Al Jazeera, CNNand The Guardian.

I find it difficult to get inside his mind, and in particular wonder why he is not fluent in English after 20+ years' residence here.

While the Mufti is reported as apologising for his remarks, he has apparently not retracted them, and has exacerbated matters by claiming, as The Age and the ABC among others have reported, that he will only resign "when the world is clean of the White House first". This will only intensify the anti-Islamic feeling among non-Islamic Australians and perhaps some Islamic ones as well.