Here is a quick overview of the 'controversy'. A more detailed analysis can be found here:
www.fisheaters.com...
(from that site)
When the Commandments are listed, they are often listed in short-hand form, such that, for ex., verses 8, 9, 10 and 11 concerning the Sabbath become
simply "Remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy." Because Latin Catholics group 3, 4, 5 and 6 together as all pertaining to the concept "Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me," we are accused of having "dropped" the commandment against idols. That Eastern Catholics list the Commandments
differently never enters the equation for people who think this way; they are simply against those they probably call the "Romish popers" and
that's that (I hope it doesn't bother them that Jews would accuse them of totally forgetting the First Commandment, or that Latin Catholics could
accuse some Protestants of skipping lightly over the commandments against lust. And why don't the Protestants who have a problem with our numbering
system go after the Lutherans for the same thing, anyway?).
Bottom line:
* chapter and verse numbering in the Bible came about in the Middle Ages
* the Catholic Church (which includes Eastern Catholics, too) has two different numbering systems for the Commandments given, one agreeing with
the most common Protestant enumeration;
* the Latin Church's numbering is the most common in the Catholic Church and is the one referred to by Protestants who, ignoring Eastern Catholic
Churches, accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped a Commandment;
* no Commandment has been dropped, in any case, but the Latin Church's shorthand for the Commandments looks different than the typical Protestant
version because of how the Commandments are grouped;
* everyone knows how to find Exodus 20 in the Bible, anyway -- even us stoopid Latin Catholics; and
* we don't care how they are grouped together; we only care that they are understood and obeyed -- not because we are under the Old Testament
Moral and Ceremonial Law with its legalism and non-salvific ritual (we aren't!), but because we are to obey God as children of the New Covenant,
whose moral law includes the Two Great Commandments (to love God and to love our neighbor) which surpass the Decalogue, and whose Sacraments surpass
empty ritual, being media of grace.
