ten-commandments-scotus
Stone tablets depicting the Ten Commandments are shown outside the Supreme Court in Washington June 27, 2005, placed there during a vigil by a religious group. In Louisiana, Public school classrooms will now be required to display the Ten Commandments by the start of 2025 as part of a new educational reform law signed by Gov. Jeff Landry June 19, 2024. Credit: OSV News photo/Jason Reed, Reuters

In the July/August 2025 issue of America, Richard J. Clifford, S.J., observed that “the Bible itself contains the most powerful argument against making the Ten Commandments a moral guide for all citizens.” He argued for the status of the Ten Commandments as “a solemn covenant, a legal agreement, between the Lord and the people,” necessarily relevant in its “narrative context,” and wrote that posting the commandments in public school classrooms would also violate the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Not all of our readers agreed.

The Ten Commandments are an expression of the natural law, which is universal and applicable to all people, regardless of religion or no religion. The catechism states that the principal precepts of natural law are expressed in the Ten Commandments. In fact, our U.S. laws (local, state and federal) are based upon the Ten Commandments (e.g., “Do not kill,” “Do not steal.”) All laws are. So displaying the Ten Commandments is a way of showing students the basis for all of our secular laws.
C. Marcus

Is no one else concerned as to the end-of-the-line relativism where this kind of thinking leads? The same rationale used to say you can’t post the Ten Commandments in schools can be used for literally everything. It’s just downright hilarious that people will reject something because of historical context but then get mad when others do something they deem to be nonsensical or “wrong.” 
Gracjan Kraszewski

The Ten Commandments are not very useful, honestly. Each commandment requires a library’s worth of translation, explication, apologetics, theological knot-tying and context-setting to even begin to mine value from it. They are more like the rough beginning of a conversation about morality where you end up crossing off much of the list. We can make a much better and clearer list after having a mature adult conversation about morality.
Brian Seiler

Please put me in the “No Ten Commandments on the wall” team. I prefer the advice of Rabbi Hillel, who lived in the first century of the Common Era. A pagan visited the patient and gentle scholar and asked him to explain Judaism while standing on one foot. Rabbi Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to another.” Then he stood normally and said, “The rest is commentary. Go and study!”
Kim Mallet

If only the new-fangled modern Christians believed in the Golden Rule. They believe in the gold, but not the rule.
Gail Sockwell-Thompson

If anything were to be posted, I would prefer the Beatitudes, but that also would violate our collective First Amendment rights. I do not want any government telling me how I should worship. If I feel as strong as I do about it, then it is incumbent on me to protect the rights of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and every other faith observed here in the United States.
Stephen Healy

I was hoping for something easily digestible that I could offer up to people that would explain in simple terms why the Ten Commandments should not be posted in public schools. This article is great for philosophical discussions, but how do you explain all that to a school board in Oklahoma?
D. R. Maurillo

I respectfully disagree with Father Clifford and with the scholars he cited. While the Ten Commandments were first revealed for the Israelites, in the Nevi’im and Ketuvim subsequent Jewish writers indicated that these laws would apply globally in the future. Jesus called for his followers to obey the Ten Commandments, and to do so more assiduously than their fellow Jews. While some of the other Mosaic laws were not expected of his followers, there is no reference to the Ten Commandments being eliminated or even subordinated.

While I agree with you that the public posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools is probably a breach of the First Amendment, I think it is a matter that should be settled in individual schools, by the parents of students currently attending. Any other way of dealing with this is undemocratic and disrespects the religious sensibilities of most Americans.
Peter Terry

This article appears in September 2025.