Opus Dei

A revised version of this doctrinal outline, incorporating recent clarifications by Pope Francis regarding the Church's teaching on capital punishment. "Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator."

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.

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

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.

Grace “is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1999).

“Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man’s true good and thus express the voluntary ordering of the person towards our ultimate end: God himself.”

God created us with the great gift of freedom. The natural law has the force of law as the voice and interpreter of the 'higher reason' of the divine Lawgiver.

“God himself is the author of marriage.” The intimate conjugal union between a man and a woman is sacred, and is structured according to laws established by the Creator and independent of human choice.

The sacrament of Holy Orders confers a participation in Christ’s priesthood. The ministerial priesthood is essentially distinct from the common priesthood of the faithful.

For a Christian sickness and death can and should be a means to seek holiness and to redeem with Christ. This is the purpose of the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.