Opus Dei

A new doctrinal outline in the "Summaries of Catholic Teaching" series. Many people have found these helpful for getting to know the Catholic faith better and explaining it to others.

Personal sin is an “action, word or desire contrary to the eternal law."

Christ taught that to be saved we must carry out the commandments, which express the core of the natural moral law. The first commandment is twofold: love for God and love for neighbor out of love for God.

Scott Hahn talks about Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, the Statue of Liberty, and the joy of the faith. Bishop del Portillo is the first successor to Opus Dei's founder, Saint Josemaria Escriva, and was declared "Venerable" by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance to offer us a new possibility of converting and recovering, after Baptism, the grace of justification

Christ died for our sins, to free us from them and redeem us from the slavery that sin introduced into mankind’s life.

The liturgy is an “action of God” that unites us to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit (cf. "Sacramentum Caritatis," no. 37).

The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Paschal mystery, making present his unique sacrifice in the liturgy of the Church.

The Holy Mass is a true sacrifice because it makes present, in the “today” of the Church’s liturgical celebration, the unique sacrifice of our redemption carried out on the Cross.

The Church continues to make Christ present in human history. In the history of the Church, we find the divine and the human closely intertwined.