The Fourth Commandment: Honor Your Father and Mother

465. When is a citizen forbidden to obey civil authorities?

A citizen is obliged in conscience not to obey the laws of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts of the Apostles 5:29).

The Fifth Commandment: You Shall Not Kill

469. What kind of punishment may be imposed?

The punishment imposed must be proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Given the possibilities which the State now has for effectively preventing crime by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm, the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” (Evangelium Vitae). When non-lethal means are sufficient, authority should limit itself to such means because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good, are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person, and do not remove definitively from the guilty party the possibility of reforming himself.

The Fourth Commandment: Honor Your Father and Mother

460. What are the duties of parents toward their children?

Parents, in virtue of their participation in the fatherhood of God, have the first responsibility for the education of their children and they are the first heralds of the faith for them.

The Fourth Commandment: Honor Your Father and Mother

455. What does the fourth commandment require?

It commands us to honor and respect our parents and those whom God, for our good, has vested with his authority.

The 3rd Commandment: Remember to keep holy the Lord's day (continued)

452. For what reason has the Sabbath been changed to Sunday for Christians?

The reason is because Sunday is the day of the Resurrection of Christ. As “the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2) it recalls the first creation; and as the “eighth day”, which follows the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by the Resurrection of Christ. Thus, it has become for Christians the first of all days and of all feasts. It is the day of the Lord in which he with his Passover fulfilled the spiritual truth of the Jewish Sabbath and proclaimed man’s eternal rest in God.