The sin of stealing is of many kinds. Its most obvious and, therefore, least dangerous form is the direct taking of what belongs to another. But this filching of gold or of precious things, the ordinary method of burglary, is recognized as sinful and reprobated by the common conscience of society. Therefore it is that in all probability men are not on the whole likely to commit it. Sometimes, it is true, I may have a terrible temptation to take some trifle that is lying about, especially if there is little chance of any subsequent detection. But at any rate I am perfectly conscious this is wrong, and though mere knowledge of evil is not sufficient to deter us from it, it is an immense help. But there are very many ways in which this blatant burglary is hidden away under all sorts of names, and does not seem to receive, though it more justly merits, the severe judgment of public opinic }. The chief way in which it occurs can be grouped under the name of business, commercial relations, trade, custom, etc.; and this, not merely in the sense of keeping back from people what is due to them, but as damaging what belongs to another. I do not steal only when I retain their goods, but also when I harm their goods. Thus it is in business transactions I can commit theft by the substitution of false measures and weights, by the adulteration of the commodities I pretend to supply, by wasting the time that is paid for by another, by scamping work for which I have received a competent wage; for in these ways, though T do not keep what is due to another, I am doing damage to something which does not belong to me. And the same thing comes also into prominence in the various ways in which a man is defrauded of something owed him.
Perhaps in no way is this principle more steadily violated and more highly censured than in the payment of debts. Somehow one's compassion is always extended to the debtor and never to the creditor, whom one imagines to have somehow or other craftily got the better of the other. A man who lends money is always presumed to be a rascal, and the same idea holds the field where no money has been lent, but a bill left long unpaid. It has become sometimes a boast of certain folk that they do not attempt to pay their bills. Similarly, too, in pious persons the same defect is shown, but in another way; for with them it is with the best wishes in the world that they give large sums in charity and yet do nothing to ease their creditors; or, rather, they consider that the poor come before their tradesmen. Really, of course, people who are actually starving and who have no other means of obtaining relief, have the first claim upon us; but apart from this, to give in charity is always secondary to giving in justice. I may give alms, but I must first pay my debts. I may build churches to the honour of God, but not to the despite of my brother's just claims on me. The idea, therefore, that it is the creditor who always has gained in the transaction is widespread, but untrue. Indeed, it is far more common in the modern system of capitalistic enterprise to find the creditors poor and the debtor rich. The wholesale way in which companies are fraudulently or at least recklessly floated is a crying scandal of stealing. The extraordinary fashion which will make men gamble with what is not their own is very prevalent.
I have therefore to take more heed in all my commercial transactions to see, not simply that I am not legally at fault, but also that morally too, what I do is approved. This should be well worth serious meditation the attitude of my soul in the face of the rights of others, whether my conscience is sufficiently alive, sufficiently delicate. Ruin may have come to another through my reckless expenditure, extravagance, neglect. For all these in God's eyes I am responsible. The very fact of society, whereby we are all parts of one great whole, makes personal relationships a necessary but a serious thing. The interplay of rights and duties gives loophole for so much harm, so much damage done to those about me, for I cannot echo the cry of Cain - "Am I my brother's keeper?" - without meriting also his condemnation. Nor is it sufficient for me to bewail my mistakes and promise amendment. There remains always the duty of restitution. What I hold that belongs to another must be restored; what damage I have done to another's person or property or repute, I must to the best of my power make good. Even if for the moment I cannot repay, I must have the intention of so doing at the earliest opportunity. It is this strait view of theft that our Blessed Lord came to insist upon. His whole life and death were spent on the rigorous justice of God. His Blood that ransomed us made us one, and therefore forbade even more sternly all attempts on my part to injure my brother. I must look upon what belongs to him as a sacred thing, a thing that is his by the high sanction of Heaven; and I must be watchful always lest I lose the Christian attitude of soul "rendering to every man what is his due."
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.