428 WHAT IS THEFT?

YOUCAT Lesson 428

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

428  What is theft, and what falls under the Seventh Commandment?

Theft is the unlawful appropriation of goods belonging to another.  [2408-2409]

Devastation at St. Maarten Island is easily seen in this photo. Here, as in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands, people must forage and take food, water and shelter for basic survival of families and the community wherever it is found. Wikipedia photo. ..... 428

 Appropriating someone else’s goods unjustly is a sin against the Seventh Commandment even if the act cannot be indicted under civil law.  What is unjust in God’s sight is unjust.  The Seventh Commandment, of course, applies not only to stealing, but also to the unfair withholding of a just wage, the keeping of found items that one could give back, and defrauding in general.  The Seventh Commandment also pertains to the following: setting employees to work in inhumane conditions, not abiding by contracts into which one has entered, wasting profits without any consideration for social obligations, artificially driving prices up or down, endangering the jobs of colleagues for whom one is responsible, bribery and corruption, misleading dependent coworkers into illegal actions, doing shoddy work or demanding inappropriate remuneration, wasting or negligently managing public property, counterfeiting or falsifying accounting records, or tax evasion.

In his social encyclical Populorum Progressio (PP), Pope Paul VI established the central principle that “programs designed to increase productivity should have but one aim: to serve human nature” (PP 34).  He rejects all notions of “profit as the chief spur to economic progress, free competition as the guiding norm of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right, having no limits or concomitant social obligations.”

  

[2408-2409]

 2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one's disposal and use the property of others. (Compare Gaudium et Spes 69 § 1.)¹⁹¹  –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

 2409 Even if it does not contradict the provisions of civil law, any form of unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment: thus, deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another. (Compare Deuteronomy 25:13-16; Deut 24:14-15; James 5:4; Amos 8:4-6.)¹⁹² –CCC

 The following are also morally illicit: speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; corruption in which one influences the judgment of those who must make decisions according to law; appropriation and use for private purposes of the common goods of an enterprise; work poorly done; tax evasion; forgery of checks and invoices; excessive expenses and waste. Willfully damaging private or public property is contrary to the moral law and requires reparation. --CCC