Week 17: The Ten Commandments: Part II (¶2052-557)

Fourth Commandment: “Honor your father and mother.”

1. Positive command: Respect authority.

a. Family life is an image of the Trinitarian communion and a reflection of God’s work of creation (¶2205).

2. Two dimensions: (1) respect for parents/family, and (2) respect for civil authority
3. Question: What is the relation between the family and society? Where do the rights of parents end and the rights of children begin? What is the justification for and the limits of “civil disobedience”?

Fifth Commandment: “You shall not kill.”

1. Positive command: Respect life.

a. Respecting life and peace is an imitation of Christ’s own life of nonviolence (¶2262) and a reflection of Christ as the “Prince of Peace” (¶2305).

2. Three dimensions:

a. Respect for life: personal and civil defense, abortion, euthanasia, suicide
b. Human dignity: physical health, scientific research, the problem of terror and torture
c. Safeguarding peace: necessity of peace and avoidance of war, Just War theory

3. Questions: Is there any killing which is justified according to the Church? Why does the Church reject abortion? Is the use of science and technology morally neutral? Why or why not? What does the Catholic faith have to say to the issue of using torture on those deemed to be enemies of the state? What qualifies as a “justified” war? What is the nature of peace?

Sixth Commandment: “You shall not commit adultery.”

1. Positive command: Practice chastity (or, respect the human body).

a. Chastity and conjugal fidelity is an imitation of the Creator’s generosity and fecundity (¶2335).

2. Dimensions of chastity: ordered toward right human relations, moral virtue of temperance, dignity and integrity of the human person, conjugal fidelity and fecundity
3. Questions: What is chastity? What forms can it take? What is the Church’s stance on homosexuality? Why is birth control “intrinsically evil”? Why does the Church take a position against artificial insemination if fecundity (childbearing) is the proper “end of marriage”?

Seventh Commandment: “You shall not steal.”

1. Positive command: Respect the goods of others, and so respect the common good.

a. The stewardship of the common good is a reflection of God’s providential stewardship over creation, and our preferential love of the poor is an imitation of God’s own compassion in Christ for the least of his brethren (¶2402, 2417, 2427, 2448).

2. Dimensions of the common good: universal “destination” of the goods of creation, protection of private property, protection of the environment, protection of social relationships and economic justice, protection of the poor
3. Guidelines in the social teaching of the Church:

a. relationships should not be determined entirely by economic factors;
b. profit must not be the final norm and end of economic activity;
c. the disordered desire for money is the cause of many social disorders; and
d. individual rights must not be subordinated to a collective.

4. Questions: What does the Church mean by the “universal destination of goods”? Why is environmental protection part of this commandment? How does the social doctrine of the Church view Western capitalism? What is the spiritual value in human labor? Why does the Church command “works of mercy”?

Eighth Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness.”

1. Positive command: Respect the truth.

a. Honoring the truth is an image of God as the source of all truth (¶2465).
b. Jesus Christ is the “truth” (John 14:6); Satan is the “father of lies” (John 8:44).

2. Questions: Why is lying an act of violence? What kind of threat does mass media pose to a respect for the truth? Why is art treated more fully here in the command against lying than in the first commandment against graven images?

Ninth Commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.”

1. Positive command: Purify your heart (of lust for the flesh).

a. Purification of the heart is an imitation of Christ’s own purity of heart in obedience to the Father.

2. Dimensions of purity: charity, chastity, and truth/orthodoxy (¶2518); purity of intention and purity of vision; prayer and modesty (¶2520-22)
3. Questions: What is concupiscence? What is modesty? What is the relationship between purity and vision?

Tenth Commandment: “You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s.”

1. Positive command: Purify your heart (of lust for the goods of another).
2. Dimensions of purity: rejection of greed, avarice, and envy; pursuit of the desires of the Spirit; and poverty of heart
3. Questions: Why does St. Augustine call envy “the diabolical sin”? Why is “poverty of heart” a requirement of entrance into the Kingdom of heaven?