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Article 149 — Catechism of the
Catholic Church SeriesParagraphs 2110-2132
In this article we continue to reflect on the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3). Did you know that certain activities considered hobbies or pass-times by some are actually sins that break this First Commandment? It is common practice, for example, for many people to check their “horoscopes” each day, often on the Internet but still available in most newspapers, too. When a person becomes fixated on such things, this “thing”, according to the Catechism, can easily become a “false god.”
Palm reading, astrology, and tasseography (reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine stains left in an empty glass) are likewise accepted as a source of entertainment. When people become fixated on such activities, however, they may also be committing the sin of superstition, also against the First Commandment.
The Catechism highlights superstition as “the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes” (ccc 2111). It “represents a perverse excess of religion” (ccc 2110). As an example, “when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary” (ccc 2111), this can become a doorway into superstition. Silly superstitions may include avoiding walking under an open ladder or passing a black cat on a patch of grass; but, more serious activities, like those described above, are ways people could be breaking the First Commandment.
Idolatry is likewise highlighted as an ongoing obstacle to true faith which breaks the First Commandment. It “consists in divinizing what is not God” (ccc 2113). We commit this terrible sin when we “honor and revere a creature in place of God, whether this be [other] gods or demons [for example, satanism], power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc….Many martyrs died for not adoring ‘the Beast,’ refusing even to simulate such worship” (ccc 2113).
The Catechism teaches: “All forms of divination are to be rejected” (ccc 2116). The list includes:
• recourse to Satan or demons,
• conjuring up the dead, or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future,
• horoscopes,
• astrology,
• palm reading,
• interpretation of omens and lots,
• the phenomena of clairvoyance, and
• recourse to mediums
All of these things, says the Catechism, “conceal a desire for power over time, history and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers” (ccc 2116). To engage in these activities “contradict[s] the honor, respect and loving fear that we owe to God alone” (ccc 2116).
The next paragraph also highlights activities related to magic and sorcery that we are told to avoid so that we do not break the First Commandment. This is especially true when “one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others even if this were for the sake of restoring their health” (ccc 2117). When accompanied by “the intention of harming someone or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons” these are “even more to be condemned” (ccc 2117). Other reprehensible activities include wearing evil “charms,” traditional cures (using lizard skins and especially using parts taken from endangered animals such as rhino horns, bear organs, elephant tusks and tiger bone) and invocation of evil powers.
Other serious sins against the First Commandment are also discussed, including “tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony” (ccc 2118). “Tempting God consists in putting his goodness and almighty power to the test by word or deed” (ccc 2119). “Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us” (ccc 2120). For those who do not know, simony is the act of “buying or selling” Church offices and functions or “the buying or selling of spiritual things” (ccc 2121). It is named after Simon Magus, who is described in the Acts of the Apostles as having offered two disciples of Jesus payment in exchange for their empowering him to impart the power of the Holy Spirit to anyone on whom he would place his hands.
Atheism and agnosticism are also covered in this section as sins against the First Commandment. Atheism “falsely considers man to be ‘an end to himself, and the sole maker, with supreme control, of his own history’” (ccc 2124). Since it “rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the virtue of religion” (ccc 2125). The Catechism even blames believers for the rise of atheism because many have been “careless about their instruction in the faith, or present[ed] its teaching falsely, or even fail[ed] in their religious, moral, or social life” (ccc 2125). Believers are therefore said “to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion” (ccc 2125) to potential converts who unfortunately remain atheists.
The “agnostic makes no judgment about God’s existence, declaring it impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny” (ccc 2127). In conventional or everyday terms, while atheists do not believe in the existence of God, agnostics believe in a supreme being, but this supreme being is a remote one with no dealing in human affairs and certainly incapable of a having a personal relationship with us.
The final paragraphs in this section discuss the veneration of “graven images.” The Catechism is quick to distinguish between worshipping idols and the Christian veneration of images, whereby “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype” (ccc 2132). In other words, in a Christian context, “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it” (ccc 2132), and not the image itself. We do not venerate a stone statue of Jesus or Mary. Rather, the image reminds us of God’s love for us and how we are meant to share that love in our personal interaction with others…something that we need to always remember.
Father Hillier is Director, diocesan Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, the Office for Persons with Disabilities, and Censor Luborum