Catechism Lesson 10: The Ten Commandments (Part 3)
The Sixth Commandment: You shall not commit adultery.
The married couple forms the intimate partnership of life and love established by the Creator and governed by His laws; they are no longer two, but one flesh. The covenant they freely contracted imposes on them the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble. (2364) Adultery is marital infidelity; when two persons, of whom one is married to another person, have sexual relations, they commit adultery. (2380)
All baptized persons are called to chastity; at the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to conduct his affections in chastity. All Christians are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. (2348) Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence; they should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married couples. (2350)
Other grave sins against the Sixth Commandment are as follows: Lust is the disordered desire for inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure; sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself; in other words, when sex is used outside of its procreative and unitive purposes. (2351) Fornication is the carnal union between unmarried persons; it is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and human sexuality which is naturally ordered for the good of spouses and the procreation and education of children. (2353) Masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action; the deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside of marriage is contrary to its purpose. (2352) Pornography consists of removing sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners and displaying them to third parties; it perverts the conjugal act and injures the dignity of persons. (2354) Tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered; they are contrary to the natural law; they close the sexual act to the gift of life; they do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. (2357) All persons, heterosexual or homosexual, are called to chastity before marriage. By self-mastery, prayer and sacramental grace, they can approach Christian perfection. (2359)
The Seventh Commandment: You shall not steal.
The Seventh Commandment forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of others and wronging him in anyway with respect to his goods. (2401) The Seventh Commandment also forbids theft, which is the usurping of another person’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. (2408) A person must make reparation or restitution for stealing goods. (2412)
Other sins against the Seventh Commandment include deliberate keeping of borrowed goods or lost objects, business fraud, paying unjust wages, price-fixing and taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of others, doing poor work, evading taxes, excessive expenses and wasting resources, and damaging other people’s property. (2409)
Promises must be kept and contracts strictly observed to the extent that the commitments made are morally just. All contracts must be agreed to and executed in good faith. (2410)
The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated with Communism or Socialism. The Church has likewise refused to accept Individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives with a view to the common good are commended. (2425)
The respect for human dignity requires the practice of the virtue of temperance, so as to moderate attachment to this world’s goods; the practice of the virtue of justice, to preserve people’s rights and render him what is his due; and the virtue of solidarity, which is the sharing of material and spiritual goods. (2407, 1948)
Questions:
- _________ is when two unmarried persons have sexual relations with each other.
- True or False. Masturbation and pornography are not sins because they do not harm anyone.
- True or False. The bible permits homosexual acts.
- True or False. A person who goes to Confession for stealing does not have to make reparation or restitution for the stolen items.
- True or False. The Church accepts the ideologies of Communism and Socialism.