Commandments 4–10 · Loving your neighbor

Choose an option and you are told at once whether it was right. The answer and the reason wait behind “Show the answer”.

A watercolor of lambs holding up a gray-blue blanket as a roof over a tiny lamb, with a sliced loaf of bread, a small bird, and a sapling in front

What divides the first three of the Ten Commandments from the seven that follow?
1. The first three hold love toward God, the last seven love toward our neighbor
2. The first three deal with grave sins, the last seven with lighter ones
3. The first three belong to the Old Testament, the last seven to the New
4. The first three were given to the clergy, the last seven to all the faithful
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Answer ① The first three hold love toward God, the last seven love toward our neighbor
Jesus gathered the whole law into two commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, and the Ten Commandments follow that same order. Sorting them by the weight of the sin, as the second choice does, or splitting them between the Old Testament and the New, as the third does, is a common mistake.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2067, 2196
The commandment to love your neighbor was first made by Jesus, so it is not found in the Old Testament.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
Leviticus already commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What Jesus made new was not the invention of a commandment nobody had heard before, but the widening of its reach as far as our enemies, and the setting of his own love as its measure.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2055, 2196
Why does honoring your father and mother stand first among the commandments about our neighbor?
1. Because parents slip up more easily than other neighbors and so call for special care
2. Because children are people who belong to their parents
3. Because the family is the first cell of society, and parents are the first channel through which God handed life on
4. Because in earlier times parents were the ones who passed property down
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Answer ③ Because the family is the first cell of society, and parents are the first channel through which God handed life on
The family is the first place where a society is built, and parents are the channel through which life and faith came down to us. That is why the commandments about our neighbor begin with them. The second and the fourth choices shrink the reason for honor down to ownership or to self-interest.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2197, 2207
How does the fourth commandment remain for grown children who have left home?
1. The obedience owed while living under one roof comes to an end, but honor and the duty to help remain for life
2. Once you are grown, the fourth commandment is finished altogether
3. As long as your parents are alive you must follow their wishes in everything
4. It remains only if the parents have faith
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Answer ① The obedience owed while living under one roof comes to an end, but honor and the duty to help remain for life
Obedience under the same roof ends as children grow, but honor lasts a lifetime and carries on into the duty of caring for parents in their old age, in material things and in the heart alike. The third choice confuses obedience with honor, and the fourth ties the commandment to believing households only.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2214-2220
What should a Christian do when authority commands something contrary to the law of God?
1. Authority comes from God, so whatever it commands has to be obeyed
2. Disagreeing inwardly is enough; outwardly you may go along with it
3. Authority like that collapses of itself, so nothing needs to be done
4. In conscience, refuse to obey that command
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Answer ④ In conscience, refuse to obey that command
Obedience to authority is not unconditional. Faced with a command that goes against the law of God and the basic rights of people, the Christian answers, “We must obey God rather than men.” The first choice makes authority absolute; the second shuts conscience away inside a person's private thoughts.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2242
Parents have the right to choose their children's profession or their marriage partner.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
Parents have a duty to guide their children and to advise them, but choosing the road of one's own life and one's own spouse is the right and the duty of a grown child. It is exactly here that the Catechism warns parents to take care not to put pressure on them.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2230
From what moment must a human life be protected?
1. From the moment of conception
2. From the moment the heart begins to beat
3. From birth onwards
4. From the moment it can feel pain for itself
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Answer ① From the moment of conception
Human life is to be respected absolutely from the moment of conception. The remaining choices take a stage of development as their measure — a heartbeat, birth, the capacity to feel — and once you do that, human dignity is left hanging on conditions.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270
The Church has laid down a particular penalty for anyone who procures an abortion.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. For anyone who procures an abortion the Church has laid down an excommunication that is incurred automatically, by the act itself. It is not there to cast a person out but to make plain how grave the matter is, and the road back through repentance and confession always stays open.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2272
How does stopping treatment that has grown too burdensome for a dying patient differ from euthanasia?
1. They are the same thing, and neither is permitted
2. So long as the patient asks for it, neither one raises a problem
3. They are the same thing, and both are permitted if they are for the patient's good
4. Stopping treatment that burdens without helping is accepting death, whereas euthanasia takes death itself as its purpose
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Answer ④ Stopping treatment that burdens without helping is accepting death, whereas euthanasia takes death itself as its purpose
The parting of the ways lies in what is being intended. Euthanasia aims at death, while stopping treatment that burdens without helping is accepting that human power has its limits. Care that eases pain is even encouraged, as long as it is not aiming at death.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2277-2279
Anyone who takes their own life is necessarily shut out of salvation.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
Suicide is a grave wrong, but illness of the mind, or fear and suffering that have grown severe, can greatly lessen a person's responsibility. The Church teaches us not to give up hope for the eternal salvation of such people, and prays for them.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2282-2283
How does the Church regard someone who caused the death of an attacker while defending their own life?
1. A person was killed, so in any case it is the same as murder
2. Defending your own life is legitimate, and where the intention was to protect yourself it is not murder
3. It is free of sin only if the other person drew a weapon first
4. It is not allowed for your own sake, only when you are defending somebody else
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Answer ② Defending your own life is legitimate, and where the intention was to protect yourself it is not murder
Defending one's own life is legitimate, and where the intention was self-protection the death that follows is not the same as murder. The first choice reads the fifth commandment as an order never to resist, and the fourth is a half-truth turned upside down — for anyone responsible for the lives of others, legitimate defense is a grave duty rather than a concession.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2263-2265
Every Christian is called to live chastity according to their state in life.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Chastity is not a virtue for religious alone. Married people, those who live single and those who are consecrated live one and the same virtue, each in the way that belongs to their state.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2348-2349
What two meanings does the bodily love of a married couple carry?
1. Pleasure and health
2. The union of the spouses and openness to life
3. Property and children
4. Duty and rights
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Answer ② The union of the spouses and openness to life
The love of husband and wife is a total gift of each to the other and at the same time open to life. These two meanings are not ours to pull apart. The other choices narrow marriage down to pleasure, to a contract, or to interests.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2363, 2366
How does reading the body's own rhythms and abstaining differ from using contraception?
1. There is no difference at all — if the purpose is the same, so is the method
2. The only difference is that the former is hard and the latter easy
3. The former respects the rhythms the body already has and holds back; the latter cuts the openness to life out of the marriage act
4. The Church forbids any planning of births whatever
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Answer ③ The former respects the rhythms the body already has and holds back; the latter cuts the openness to life out of the marriage act
The difference lies not in how many children a couple has but in what is being done. Responsible planning of a family is something the Church itself recognizes. The first choice is the idea that the means do not matter as long as the end is right, and the fourth is the common misunderstanding that the Church blocks all planning.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2368, 2370
The Church teaches that a married couple may never live apart under any circumstances.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
Where a situation has grown unbearable, separating while the bond of marriage stays in place can be legitimate. But this does not mean the marriage has ceased to exist, and separation is no key to untying it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2383
Which of these matches what the Church teaches about private property?
1. Private property is evil in itself, so everything ought to be held in common
2. The right to private property is absolute and admits no limit at all
3. The Church teaches nothing about questions of property
4. The right to private property is legitimate, but it stays bound to the fact that the earth and its goods were meant from the beginning for everyone
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Answer ④ The right to private property is legitimate, but it stays bound to the fact that the earth and its goods were meant from the beginning for everyone
The Church holds two truths together — private property is legitimate, for the sake of human freedom and responsibility, and yet it does not rub out the purpose for which goods were given in the first place. The first choice treats property itself as a sin, and the second makes property absolute.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2401-2403
What duty remains for someone who has stolen, even after repenting?
1. Repenting and going to confession settles it
2. What was stolen has to be given back, or its worth repaid
3. Giving the same amount to the poor is enough; nothing need be repaid to the owner
4. If enough time has passed and it has been forgotten, nothing need be done
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Answer ② What was stolen has to be given back, or its worth repaid
Forgiveness does not take away the duty of justice. Whoever holds what belongs to another has to give it back, and where the thing itself is gone, its worth has to be repaid. The third choice is the common mistake of putting charity in the place of justice.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2412
The Church does not count it as theft when someone starving uses another person's food to stay alive.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Since goods were meant from the beginning for everyone, in a need on which life itself hangs the owner's consent can be presumed. This is not to say that hardship makes stealing permissible; it holds only for a clear and pressing necessity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2408
What does the seventh commandment ask of the way we treat animals and the natural world?
1. Animals hold exactly the same rights as human beings, so they come before people
2. Animals too are creatures of God and are to be cared for well, and tormenting them for nothing is contrary to human dignity as well
3. Animals are only things, so they may be handled however we like
4. How we treat nature has nothing to do with faith
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Answer ② Animals too are creatures of God and are to be cared for well, and tormenting them for nothing is contrary to human dignity as well
Animals are creatures of God entrusted to us, not objects to be used at will. The first choice swaps the places of people and animals, and the third treats creatures as things to handle carelessly. The Catechism adds that pouring out on animals the love and the money that should go first to human beings is also out of order.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2415-2418
By what is the gravity of a lie measured?
1. The weight of the truth it distorts, the circumstances, the intention of the one lying, and the harm suffered by those deceived
2. How many times the lie was told
3. The age and the standing of the person who lied
4. How many people heard it
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Answer ① The weight of the truth it distorts, the circumstances, the intention of the one lying, and the harm suffered by those deceived
The gravity of a lie is measured by the weight of the truth it distorts, by the circumstances, by the intention of the one telling it and by the harm suffered by those deceived. It is not reckoned by how many times it was told, by the age of the teller, or by how many were listening. That is why a single word that looks small can turn heavy, depending on the situation.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2484
What is it called when someone discloses another's faults — true ones — to people who have no need to know them, and so cuts down that person's good name?
1. Calumny — harming another by making up what never happened
2. Rash judgment — settling on the worst about someone without solid grounds
3. Detraction — disclosing another's faults, true though they are, to people with no need to know them
4. It is no fault at all — if it is true, you may say it
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Answer ③ Detraction — disclosing another's faults, true though they are, to people with no need to know them
Even when it is true, disclosing another's faults to people who have no need to know them unjustly cuts down their good name. The “if it is true, you may say it” of the fourth choice is the commonest excuse. Calumny is making up what did not happen and rash judgment is deciding without grounds, so the three are not the same thing.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2477
If you know the truth, you must always make it known to everyone.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
There is a duty to bear witness to the truth, but not everyone has a right to know everything. Before the curiosity of someone with no claim to it, silence is the right answer, and what was learned in confession may never be disclosed in any circumstance whatever. This is not permission to lie; it is the freedom to say nothing.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2488-2491
What does the ninth commandment deal with?
1. Outward acts only
2. The desire of the heart — what has already begun in a look and a thought
3. Greed for a neighbor's possessions
4. Stealing what belongs to somebody else
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Answer ② The desire of the heart — what has already begun in a look and a thought
Jesus said that to look at someone with lust is already to commit adultery in the heart. The ninth commandment deals with the heart, before the act. The third choice belongs to the tenth commandment and the fourth to the seventh.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2514-2517, 2528
What is the modesty that chastity calls for meant to protect?
1. What is inmost in a person, so that nobody can look at them as a thing
2. Hiding yourself away so that nobody notices you
3. Treating the body as something shameful and bad
4. Keeping to the Church's rules about dress
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Answer ① What is inmost in a person, so that nobody can look at them as a thing
Modesty guards the mystery of a person and shelters them from a look that is not love. The third choice is the old misunderstanding that treats the flesh as sin, and the fourth shrinks modesty into a dress code.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2521-2524
The tenth commandment deals with envy as well as with coveting what belongs to others.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Wanting what another person has runs straight on into envy, the sorrow felt at another's good. The Catechism counts envy among the seven capital sins and names goodwill and humility as its remedy.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2538-2540
What is the poverty of heart that the tenth commandment leads us toward?
1. Owning no property at all
2. Not being ashamed of being poor
3. Not being tied to what you have, and setting your heart on God
4. Deciding to earn less than other people
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Answer ③ Not being tied to what you have, and setting your heart on God
Poverty of heart is not a question of how much you own but of where your heart is tied. So someone who has a great deal can be poor in heart, and someone who has little can be held fast by greed. The first and the fourth choices turn this virtue into a matter of quantity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2544-2547