BOOK REVIEW: A Modern Sinner’s Guide for the Third Millennium

Award winning journalist Angelo Stagnaro offers a version of the Venerable Louis de Granada's The Sinner's Guide, for the internet age. Introducing himself as an experienced yet repentant sinner, he explains the foundations of Catholicism's harmartiology (theology of sin), a theology that takes sin seriously as an offence against life, love and logic, an insult to God and his creation, as something to be avoided at all costs. Stagnaro does not mince words in this book: "There is no way to earn Heaven, but a million ways to merit Hell" (p. 40). God's gracious mercy is stressed but never taken for granted and he never soft-pedals on matters such as Original Sin which commonly bewilders and alienates moderns. Careful explanations of Purgatory and Indulgences, of Vincible and Invincible Ignorance are provided. The reader is treated to a comprehensive overview of the Catholic context on sin before getting down to sin's detailed branches. Continue reading here.