The Catholic Church's Pointless Survey

Well, things must be quiet at the Vatican at the moment. Maybe they have bought off all their child-abuse cases, and the dust is settling and they are sat around a bit bored. Normally I would imagine they create a bunch of saints, or issue a Papal Bull {is there a word missing after "Bull"?} but today they have decided to become market researchers and statisticians...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7897034.stm

Apparently men and women "sin in different ways"..

Am I alone in thinking that this could potentially be the most utterly pointless survey in the history of pointless surveys? Leaving aside that sin is an invented concept, and that doing a survey about it surely has ethical problems (do we think that when in confession, each participant was asked if they minded their data being used for market research purposes?) what "sins" are people "guilty" of? Read the report for the full peer reviewed statistical analysis of the scientifically gathered results.

One of the key ones I can never get my head around is "pride". Why is it a sin to be proud of your achievements? Surely taking pride in ones work is a motivational force - possibly even diminishing the amount of another sin - sloth?

And why are gluttony and greed separated? Surely greed covers gluttony? Doesn't it?

What do I know? I'm not a Catholic.