Some time ago, the media reported that the Vatican had published some “new” so-called “driving ten commandments,” and others recently speculated on the coming publication of “ecological ten commandments.”
The church has never created “new” commandments, and the Ten Commandments we know are still the same, as given to us by God, taken to perfect realization by Jesus Christ, and still taught by Catholicism.
The so-called “new commandments” are nothing but common sense rules that apply the immutable principles set forth in the Ten Commandments to the reality of our times.

Therefore, the Commandments are still fully valid, from the first — You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind — to the tenth: You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
Covetousness and envy have not been eliminated from the list of sins. They are still two of the seven sins we call “capital,” because they engender other sins, other vices. The way they are expressed these days has certainly changed: envy is frequently hidden by the “spirit of competition,” and covetousness is presented as efficiency.

In this way, in many corporate cultures, these vices are not opposed but they are even rewarded.

For these reasons it is so important and urgent to follow the Tenth Commandment. A commandment that asks us to move away from an unbridled desire to obtain for oneself the goods of others, as well as from the sadness one experiences at the sight of another’s goods or wellbeing.

The Tenth Commandment perfectly closes the cycle of the Commandments, because it is intimately related to the first.

In fact, we reject all disordered desire for others’ goods, and resist feeling sad or angry at others’ success, because we have accepted that God is greater than everything and he must be our first love.

Jesus never left his disciples with any doubt in their minds that their love for him must be put before everything and everyone.

In fact, as the Compendium of the Catechism explains, “Detachment from riches — in the spirit of evangelical poverty — and self-abandonment to divine providence free us from anxiety about the future and prepare us for the blessedness of the ‘poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’” Mt 5:3 (Compendium 532)

Because we are human persons, blessed with a body that God has given us, we have material needs we must satisfy. Moreover, if others depend on us, we must also provide and care for their needs.

However, the Tenth Commandment, and, as a whole, all the Commandments, remind us that what is essential is to love God, because every human being, and the entire human existence, needs God. As the Compendium of the Catechism of the Church puts it so beautifully, “The greatest desire of the human person is to see God. ‘I want to see God’ is the cry of our whole being.” (Compendium 533)

When this world passes away, we will have no material need. We will be alone before God with only one need: to contemplate him and be united with him. But if our options today, in this life, put material goods and fleeting pleasures before all else, then, on the final day, our being will be corrupt, damaged for that final encounter.

As John Paul II explained it to the young people, the teachings are a great “yes” to life. “But that great ‘YES,’” the pope said, “involves some strong ‘NOs.’”

Most of the Commandments, in fact, are stated in the negative. But those are the “NOs” that are part of the great “YES” from God to human beings. At the same time, the faithful fulfillment of the Commandments is a great “YES” of everyone to God.

The church then, does not prescribe through the Commandments, a set of negative rules, nor does it reject the right and proper place of earthly goods and temporal pleasures. On the contrary, those goods have been created by God for our fulfillment.

But it is a matter of priorities: as the Apostle Paul said, “All belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.” (1 Cor 3:22-23)

The fleeting material goods are ours; we belong to Christ. Therefore, God is the supreme value that sets the right order for everything in our lives.

Let us ask for the grace to love the Commandments as God’s gift to the human race.