The Seventh Commandment: Thou shall not steal (CCC2408-2414)
Posted on February 9th 2009 in The catechism explained
The Church defines theft as ‘the usurpation of another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner’. There is no such thing as absolute property rights because ultimately everything belongs to God, and the goods of this earth have a universal destination. Therefore there can be situations, such as in a national emergency, wherein the essential needs of humanity, food, shelter and clothing take priority over individual ownership or corporate ownership.
The command not to steal extends into the world of work and commerce and so forbids the deliberate retention of goods lent by others, business fraud, corruption, work poorly completed, tax evasion, forgery, excessive expenses and waste.
The flourishing of economic and social life requires the keeping of promises and contracts, whether in buying or selling, or in the relationships between employer and employee. All these relationships are subject to what the Church describes as ‘commutative justice’, whereby the dignity and rights of the person are the intrinsic measure of every relationships. Hence employers must pay a just wage, and employees fulfil a fair day’s work, private property must be respected as the fulfilment of freely undertaken business contracts.
The infringement of commutative justice requires the restitution of goods stolen, an action commended by Jesus with regard to Zacchaeus who would return any property he might have gained through fraud. Likewise anyone who has benefited from stolen property should return them to its rightful owner.
The practice of slavery in whatever form is illegitimate, since it reduces an individual to being solely a source of profit and so cannot respect the dignity of the human person. St Paul, though not condemning slavery, explained to a Christian slave owner to treat his Christian slave no longer as a slave but as beloved brother. The later attempts by Bartolome de Las Casas, Bishop of Chiapas in South America, and of William Wilberforce to rid the world of slavery in its many forms comes from within the Christian faith itself, that sees the human person as at the heart of all social and economic activity.