Catechism index

2121 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things. 53 To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter …
2122 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" The minister should ask nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by the competent authority, always being careful that the needy are not deprived of the help of …
2123 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" "Many . . . of our contemporaries either do not at all perceive, or explicitly reject, this intimate and vital bond of man to God. Atheism must therefore be regarded as one …
2124 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" The name "atheism" covers many very different phenomena. One common form is the practical materialism which restricts its needs and aspirations to space and time. Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be …
2125 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion. 61 The imputability of this offense can be significantly diminished in virtue of the …
2126 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" Atheism is often based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point of refusing any dependence on God. 63 Yet, "to acknowledge God is in no way to oppose …
2127 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" Agnosticism assumes a number of forms. In certain cases the agnostic refrains from denying God; instead he postulates the existence of a transcendent being which is incapable of revealing itself, and about …
2128 III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" Agnosticism can sometimes include a certain search for God, but it can equally express indifferentism, a flight from the ultimate question of existence, and a sluggish moral conscience. Agnosticism is all too …
2129 IV. "You Shall Not Make For Yourself a Graven Image . . ." The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you …
2130 IV. "You Shall Not Make For Yourself a Graven Image . . ." Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark …
2131 IV. "You Shall Not Make For Yourself a Graven Image . . ." Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother …
2132 IV. "You Shall Not Make For Yourself a Graven Image . . ." The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates …
2133 IN BRIEF "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut 6:5).
2134 IN BRIEF The first commandment summons man to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him above all else.
2135 IN BRIEF "You shall worship the Lord your God" (Mt 4:10). Adoring God, praying to him, offering him the worship that belongs to him, fulfilling the promises and vows made to him are acts …
2136 IN BRIEF The duty to offer God authentic worship concerns man both as an individual and as a social being.
2137 IN BRIEF "Men of the present day want to profess their religion freely in private and in public" (DH 15).
2138 IN BRIEF Superstition is a departure from the worship that we give to the true God. It is manifested in idolatry, as well as in various forms of divination and magic.
2139 IN BRIEF Tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony are sins of irreligion forbidden by the first commandment.
2140 IN BRIEF Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the first commandment.