The Root Cause!

Friday, February 27, 2026

Ez 18:21-28; Mt 5:20-26

Today’s Gospel initiates a discussion into the root cause of the sin of murder.

The Catholic Moral Theology holds seven sins – pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth – as ‘capital’ sins (from Latin Caput, meaning ‘head’). Some of us might be surprised not to find killing or murder (or other grievous sins like adultery, idolatry, etc.) among the list and be wondering if anger is more grievous than killing or murder.

This is where the explanation for capital sins is helpful. It is because of the greatness and power of their influence that they are called capital sins and not because they are the greatest of all sins. In other words, it is not the gravity of sin in itself that makes it capital but rather the fact that it gives rise to many other sins.

St. Thomas Aquinas defined capital vice as that which ‘has an exceedingly desirable end,’ driving a person to commit many other sins to satisfy that desire. More than being severe, these vices are the principal ones from which many other sins arise. Viewed in military terms, these seven vices act as the ‘generals’ that deploy an army of other sinful actions. 

We must pay attention to the word ‘vice’ by Aquinas. Establishing vice as the opposite of virtue, he defined it as a ‘habit’ that inclines one to sin and described it as a disorder in the soul chiefly because passions override reason. Hence, these vices are considered ‘habitual dispositions’ that incline a person towards selfish desires rather than God. 

By discussing anger under killing (Thou shall not kill), Jesus shows that since anger is the root cause of murder, it is even the same as murder. In other words, if murder is the ‘fruit,’ then anger is the ‘root.’ For Jesus, while the human courts can only judge an external act of murder, God will judge the inner anger. 

Thus, what often goes unseen, the anger harboured in the heart, leads to dehumanization and exploitation of others. Anger is dangerous precisely because it leads us to treat other humans as worthless (calling them ‘fools’) rather than as dignified beings created in the Imago Dei. Thus, for Jesus, more than external obedience, righteousness of the heart must be prioritized. 

It is with this view that Jesus invites his disciples to worry not just about manifestations of sin but its root cause. By directing us to detect the very root cause of any sin, Jesus wishes that his disciples treat the disease and not just the symptoms. 

Let us pray that we be vigilant to the root cause of any sin and strive for the righteousness of our heart. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar