The Ten Commandments are listed twice in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Decalogue (“The Ten Words”), the definitive summary of the Law of Moses, is so important that both Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 quote it in full.

When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus Christ summarized the Law rather differently-"The first is this: 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength'; the second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:28-29). And yet the Great Commandment (love of God and neighbor) does not contradict the Ten Commandments, but gives them their focus. As Saint Paul wrote to the Romans, "the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, (namely) 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Romans 13:8-9). Likewise, worshiping God alone, having no other gods before him, avoiding idolatry and keeping his name and day (Sabbath) holy are summed up in the saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."

If we look closely at the Ten Commandments, in the light of the Law of Love, we find something interesting: most of them concern actions, what the People of God should and should not do. But at the end of the list we read "Thou shalt not covet..." (In the Catholic tradition, this commandment is divided into two; in the Hebrew tradition it is counted as a single commandment.) And coveting is not an external action, but rather an internal disposition. Covetousness is, in fact, the underlying sinful disposition that lies at the root of the sinful actions forbidden by other commandments.

The First Letter of Saint John hits the nail on the head: "For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world" (1 John 2:16). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2514) interprets this passage from 1 John: "Saint John distinguishes three kinds of covetousness or concupiscence: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life."

We have been warned

Coveting what is not ours leads to disaster. It is, moreover, an ungrateful insult to the God who has made us and endowed each one of us with certain gifts, but not others. And yet our culture has spent the last few decades wallowing in an orgy of covetousness, of concupiscence, with horrific effects on our economic, political and moral lives. What part of "Thou shalt not covet" did we not understand? Or did we understand all too well that obedience to God's commandments would crimp our style, inhibit our consumer economy and limit our freedom-actually, our licentiousness-to do as we please.

Seen from this perspective, most, if not all, of the trials through which this society is passing stem directly from our unwillingness to fight concupiscence, to stifle our covetousness, for our own good and the good of others.

One obvious example is the economy. At least since the Second World War, the American economy has been rightly characterized as a waste economy, in the sense that it emerged unscathed from the war, while our trading partners were devastated and in no condition to purchase American imports at the level required to keep the U.S. economy functioning at war-time levels. To avoid a severe recession so soon after the Great De­pression, a consensus soon emerged that the domestic market should be emphasized, which meant enticing Americans to increase their purchase of goods and services beyond what they actually needed. The decades after the war were years of great but artificial prosperity in this country. "Planned obsolescence" became a general strategy, as machinery (such as automobiles) was designed to wear out in a few years and have to be replaced. Fads and fashions were encouraged in everything from clothes to cars, creating a desire, a coveting, for "this year's model," for "new, improved products" that were almost always indistinguishable from the old ones. A certain amount of inflation was tolerated, to keep the economy rolling along, fueled in part by a steady expansion of credit. "Keeping up with the Joneses" became a catch-phrase that neatly summed up and sugar-coated the pervasive covetousness of the past half-century. Sacrificed were thrift, balanced budgets, the ethic of selling quality products at a fair price and doing a full day's work for a fair wage. Workers demanded higher wages, whether or not they were more productive, and executives contrived to be paid obscene fortunes for their cleverness.

That the whole Ponzi scheme would come crashing down was always inevitable. That it would crash so quickly, beginning last September, was admittedly a shock.

But what has happened to the economy over the past half-century is only part of the story. The post-war years were also dominated by the sexual revolution, in which the "Playboy philosophy" triumphed over the Christian understanding that lust of the flesh is a powerful force that must be kept in check for its proper goals (the propagation of the species and the increase of marital love) and otherwise strictly disciplined. The sanctity of marriage was undermined by such measures as "no-fault divorce," the development of a vast array of contraceptive devices, pills and techniques freed women to adopt a Playboy sexual ethic, and the cynical practice of abortion was promoted and then legalized (by judicial fiat) to deal with the predictable consequences of the sexual revolution.

By downplaying or denying the destructive power of covetousness, we have created an economy of greed that has come crashing down, with many casualties, and a culture of lust that has mutated into a culture of death, with many more victims.

We need to take seriously, very seriously indeed, the Lord's command: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him."

-DKC