Wasteful individuals beware: the Catholic Church has decided that polluting and genetic experiments are sins that rank right up there with adultery and murder. The head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti named the "new sins" in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

He cited “violations of the basic rights of human nature” through genetic manipulation, drugs that “weaken the mind and cloud intelligence,” and the imbalance between the rich and the poor.

“If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that’s especially social, rather than individual,” said Girotti, whose office deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution.

Representatives for the Vatican point out that Girotti is hardly the first Catholic to speak out against pollution; Pope Benedict XVI has demonstrated his environmental consciousness by planning some Holy See buildings that will use solar energy.

» MSNBC