The Catholic Ten Commandments

According To The Baltimore Catechism

1. Catholic Ten Commandments List

The Ten Commandments are:

1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me.

2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

3. Remember thou keep holy the Lord's Day.

4. Honor thy father and thy mother.

5. Thou shall not kill.

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

2. Ten Commandments Printables

Free PDF Printable Coloring Pages

PDF Printable Ten Commandments Worksheets (Cursive and Manuscript)

The Roman Catholic Ten Commandments tell what you should and should not do. They're our Instruction Manual For A Happy Life - Here And Now.

Children can easily learn the Ten Commandments with our First Communion and Confirmation audio recordings and printable worksheets.

Bible Quote About The Ten Commandments:

3. Catholic Ten Commandments Songs

24 Catholic Songs And The Ten Commandments Song

• Catholic Ten Commandments Coloring Pages
• Also see Ten Commandments worksheets in our First Communion and Confirmation downloads.

Learning the Ten Commandments is important for being able to make a good confession.

Usually, one learns the Ten Commandments before his First Confession while he is preparing for First Holy Communion.

Another time to review or memorize the Commandments is in preparation for Confirmation.

This 24 Catholic Songs CD and the matching coloring book have a sweet Ten Commandments Song.

The coloring book has the same words printed on a sheet in the back. Our children have enjoyed this immensely and they have been very helpful remembering several lists as with the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Learn the Ten Commandments Song using this CD. Our children learned several Catholic lists from this CD, like the Works of Mercy, etc.

The 24 Catholic Songs For Children coloring book at Our Lady of Victory School has the words printed in the back. 

The better disposed you are to receive the sacraments, the better you will persevere in the Faith.

Frequently this means that the better you study or know the Roman Catholic beliefs the easier it is to keep the Faith. The Catholic Ten Commandments are your short cut. :-)

4. The Catholic Church Ten Commandments List

The Roman Catholic Church defined which commands made the list.

Actually, there are many more than the ten "Thou shalt nots" in the book of Exodus XX.

The Decalogue as seen in the Baltimore Catechism is extracted from Exodus 20 in a concise way so as to convey the meaning in an easy to memorize way.

Also, remember that the Douay-Rheims Bible Old Testament says "Sabbath", yet many Baltimore Catechisms use the term "Lord's Day" since the Lord's day of rest became Sunday, not Saturday, in honor of Easter, the Resurrection, and Pentecost.

Whenever there is a difference in Catholic answers the morally safer course is to use the more precise terms, especially those in use for over one hundred years.

St. Anne's Audio Catechism CDs also use the term "Lord's Day" in the habit of using specific terms. The verbatim text is also printable and reprintable from the very same enhanced CD!

NOTE: See more at the Catechism of the Council of Trent about the Sabbath.

5. Protestant vs. Catholic Ten Commandments

A visitor asks:

"Why are the Catholic Ten Commandments different from those in Exodus 20:1-17? Even Catholic Bibles have the same commandments as protestant Bibles, but you have omitted the Second Commandment ("You shall not make for yourself an idol", NRSVCE) and divided the Tenth Commandment ("You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor") into two.

This is unBiblical. Why do you do this?"

The short answer is that Catholics call these the Ten Commandments because the Catholic Church does, and has done so throughout the centuries.

Sections 6 through 11 below give more answers that explain what the Catholic Church teaches. Thank you for asking, as it was fun finding these answers.

Buy Our Saint Anne's Helper Ad-free PDF Catholic Coloring Pages to Print

If you use the Baltimore Catechism, you'll love Saint Anne's Helper!

6. Ten Commandments In The Catholic Bible: Exodus 20:1-17

Here is what the classic Catholic Bible, the Douay-Rheims Bible, says in Exodus chapter 20, verses 1-17 as per the old TAN Books version:

1. And the Lord spoke all these words:
2. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
4. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.
5. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:
6. And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain.
8. Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.
9. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works.
10. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates.
11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be longlived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee.
13. Thou shalt not kill.
14. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15. Thou shalt not steal.
16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his." -- Ten Commandments, Douay-Rheims Bible

7. The Catechism of the Council of Trent Quotes St. Augustine

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (CCT) quotes St. Augustine in saying that the:

• Decalogue is the summary and epitome of all laws: 'Although the Lord had spoken many things, He gave to Moses only two stone tablets, called "tables of testimony," to be placed in the Ark. For if carefully examined and well understood, whatever else is commanded by God will be found to depend on the Ten Commandments which were engraved on those two tables, just as these Ten Commandments, in turn, are reducible to two, the love of God and of our neighbor, on which "depend the whole law and the prophets."

In this last quote, St. Augustine is repeating the words of Jesus Himself.

Whichever way the Commandments are divided; they can be combined into two laws, to love God and thy neighbor as thyself.

See how comprehensive the Commandments are in Section 10 below.

8. Christian Decalogue vs. the Bible's Jewish Decalogue

The best explanation of the difference between the Catholic Ten Commandments and the Protestant Commandments is in The Catechism Explained on page 307:

"We must here remark that the Catholic Church, acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has slightly altered the Decalogue in a Christian Sense. The Jewish Decalogue, given on Mount Sinai, consists of these precepts: (1). The command to worship no God but the true God. (2). The Prohibition against the worship of images. (3). The prohibition against taking God's name in vain. (4). The command to keep holy the Sabbath. (5). The command to honor one's parents. (6). The prohibition against murder. (7). False witness. (8). Theft. (9). False witness. (10). Coveting other men's goods (Exod. XX. 1-17). The Catholic Church has joined the Second Commandment, forbidding the worship of images, to the first, and divided the tenth into two separate commands, in order that the Christian wife may be duly respected (vide Ninth Commandment)." –The Catechism Explained, An Exhaustive Exposition of the Catholic Religion; by Rev. Francis Spirago, edited by Rev. Richard F. Clark, S.J.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent says on page 373 that: 

"Some, supposing these words which come next in order to constitute a distinct precept, reduce the ninth and tenth Commandments to one. St. Augustine, on the contrary, considering the last two to be distinct Commandments, makes the words just quoted a part of the first Commandment. His division is much approved in the Church, and hence we willingly adopt it. Furthermore a very good reason for this arrangement at once suggests itself. It was fitting that to the first Commandment should be added the rewards or punishments entailed by each one of the Commandments."

9. The Second Commandment is Separate

The Second Commandment is separate in the Catholic Ten Commandments and is explained in The Catechism of the Council of Trent on page 382:

"on account of the importance of the obligation, God wished to make the law, which commands His own divine and most holy name to be honored, a distinct Commandment, expressed in the clearest and simplest terms."

Why Sunday is the Lord's Day

Msgr. Paul Glenn says in his Tour of the Summa (excellent book for 11th and 12th grade and adult RelEd) that the obligation to keep the Sabbath was ended at the Old Testament and was fulfilled when Jesus died on the Cross.

Many denominations have chosen to go back to the Jewish Decalogue, yet they might ought to wonder at this since the Christian holy day is Sunday. Where does this originate?

Turn to The Catechism Explained which says further on the same page that the Lord's Day is Sunday. This is the reason that Christians worship the Lord on Sunday not Saturday which had been the Jewish Sabbath:

"The command to keep holy the Sabbath is changed into the precept to sanctify Sundays and holydays." 

On page 398 the Catechism of the Council of Trent says:

"The observance of the Sabbath was to be abrogated at the same time as the other Hebrew rites and ceremonies, that is, at the death of Christ."

Further down the same page the CCT says:

"The Apostles therefore resolved to consecrate the first day of the week to the divine worship, and called it the Lord's day. St. John in the Apocalypse makes mention of the Lord's day; and the Apostle commands collections to be made on the first day of the week, that is, according to the interpretation of St. Chrysostom, on the Lord's day. From all this we learn that even then the Lord's day was kept holy in the Church." 

There is more in this chapter on the term Sabbath that makes for interesting reading, too.

10. Politics, Ethics, And The Commandments

The Study Of Politics Requires The Study Of Ethics

From years of teaching catechism, homeschooling, and thereby reading many good Catholic books, I have learned that politics are actually quite simple.

I love to say it this way:

1. Politics is a subset of ethics.
2. Ethics is a subset of the Ten Commandments.
3. The Commandments apply to every moral question.

Which Commandments Are Most Important?

The Ten Commandments are hierarchical.

• The first three Commandments are most important as they relate to God Himself. 
• The last seven are also hierarchical one to the other with the 4th and the 5th being higher than the others. 

As a nation and throughout the world, we cannot agree politically on the first three because there are so many religions.

The Fourth is undermined by divorce laws, "education", and such. The first Commandment that most of us can agree on is the Fifth. 

THIS is why the right to life is the most important political issue upon which most people can work together politically.

May God spare us all. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

11. Keeping The Commandments

Catholic Beliefs

Simply put, the Catholic Church teaches what the Apostles' Creed, Catholic Ten Commandments, and the Catholic Bible teach. 

See more about the basic Catholic beliefs here.

Catholic Saints

Catholic saints are the ones who heroically did what the Church has always taught. Read about them to learn how to live the Faith.

The Commandments In Real Life

Once you know the basics of Catholicism you can better judge what the truth is.

• Mass? Holy Eucharist? First Commandment.
• Abortion? Fifth Commandment.
• Divorce? Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
• Evolution? Creation? First Chapter in the Bible, Genesis 1:1-31.
• Economy? Ecology? Environment? Climate? First chapter in the Bible and the Seventh Commandment.

Genesis 1:28-30 "And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done."

Living a good life is easier once you know the principles as God formed them in the Ten Commandments. The Commandments are the main Roman Catholic beliefs.

Teaching The Ten Commandments

St. Anne's Helper has Catholic audio books to help make this study easy and interesting. Our Catholic ebooks also offer resources that can be immediately downloaded! Beautiful Catechism Copybooks are also available.

Both the Audio CDs and the Copybooks have the same verbatim text which can really boost the memory when studying the Commandments.

The Copybooks aid beautiful Catholic penmanship practice as well.

• The First Communion Copybook is in both beautiful manuscript and cursive writing on lined pages that are fully reproducible.
• The Confirmation Copybook is also in beautiful cursive on lined pages that are also fully reproducible. It is also in beautiful manuscript print.

See hundreds of Free Catholic Coloring Pages To Print amongst them are pages that are related to the Ten Commandments and Bible stories!

You can be certain to learn or teach the Catholic Ten Commandments when you use St. Anne's Audio Catechism CDs for both First Communion and Catholic Confirmation. It is handy to be able to use "repeat one" to review when memorizing them!

• Audio Catechism
• Catechism Worksheets

Once you know the principles it becomes easier to choose a book with the best Catholic answers!

Baltimore Catechism Ten Commandments

Next after teaching the Commandments the First Communion audio catechism CD and its Copybook use the Ten Commandments from the Baltimore Catechism book Jesus Comes.

It has a very nice expansion with very clear "tells and forbids" questions and answers for each Commandment.

They may be a bit much for little ones to memorize, but they are great for review before receiving the sacrament of Penance in order to better understand which acts are sinful.

When using a Baltimore Catechism be sure that its Bible quotes use the most reliable Catholic Bible - the Douay. It tells the story around the Catholic Ten Commandments faithfully. There is no certitude like seeing or hearing the whole story!

This is our main Catholic Bible page.

Audio Baltimore Catechism, Catholic Worksheets, Catholic eBooks, and Catholic Coloring Pages:

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Order our Baltimore Catechism worksheets. Choose your favorite fonts, colors, and SIZES on our fillable digital interactive worksheets and coloring pages. Paperless or printable.

First Communion Preparation Baltimore Catechism No. 1 For Children And Adults - Or get the bundle.

Baltimore Catechism Confirmation Preparation: Audio, Worksheets, eBooklet - or all 3 bundled.

All for the love of You, my God!