Catechism of the Catholic Church

1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.…
2 So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the…
3 Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News…
4 Quite early on, the name catechesis was given to the totality of the Church's efforts to make disciples, to help men believe that Jesus is…
5 "Catechesis is an education in the faith of children, young people and adults which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine…
6 While not being formally identified with them, catechesis is built on a certain number of elements of the Church's pastoral mission which…
7 "Catechesis is intimately bound up with the whole of the Church's life. Not only her geographical extension and numerical increase, but…
8 Periods of renewal in the Church are also intense moments of catechesis. In the great era of the Fathers of the Church, saintly bishops…
9 "The ministry of catechesis draws ever fresh energy from the councils. The Council of Trent is a noteworthy example of this. It gave…
10 It is therefore no surprise that catechesis in the Church has again attracted attention in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, which…
11 This catechism aims at presenting an organic synthesis of the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine, as regards both…
12 This work is intended primarily for those responsible for catechesis: first of all the bishops, as teachers of the faith and pastors of the…
13 The plan of this catechism is inspired by the great tradition of catechisms which build catechesis on four pillars: the baptismal…
14 Those who belong to Christ through faith and Baptism must confess their baptismal faith before men. First therefore the Catechism expounds…
15 The second part of the Catechism explains how God's salvation, accomplished once for all through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, is made…
16 The third part of the Catechism deals with the final end of man created in the image of God: beatitude, and the ways of reaching it -…
17 The last part of the Catechism deals with the meaning and importance of prayer in the life of believers ( Section One ). It concludes with…
18 This catechism is conceived as an organic presentation of the Catholic faith in its entirety. It should be seen therefore as a unified…
19 The texts of Sacred Scripture are often not quoted word for word but are merely indicated by a reference ( cf. ). For a deeper…
20 The use of small print in certain passages indicates observations of an historical or apologetic nature, or supplementary doctrinal…
21 The quotations , also in small print, from patristic, liturgical, magisterial or hagiographical sources, are intended to enrich the…
22 At the end of each thematic unit, a series of brief texts in small italics sums up the essentials of that unit's teaching in condensed…
23 The Catechism emphasizes the exposition of doctrine. It seeks to help deepen understanding of faith. In this way it is oriented towards the…
24 By design, this Catechism does not set out to provide the adaptation of doctrinal presentations and catechetical methods required by the…
25 To conclude this Prologue, it is fitting to recall this pastoral principle stated by the Roman Catechism : The whole concern of doctrine…
26 We begin our profession of faith by saying: "I believe" or "We believe". Before expounding the Church's faith, as confessed in the Creed,…
27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself.…
28 In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and…
29 But this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" (GS 19 § 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such…
30 "Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice." Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek…
31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are…
32 The world : starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the…
33 The human person : with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with…
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they…
35 Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real…
36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from…
37 In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of…
38 This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by God's revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but…
39 In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to…
40 Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting…
41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. The manifold perfections of…
42 God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or…
43 Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God…
44 Man is by nature and vocation a religious being. Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by…
45 Man is made to live in communion with God in whom he finds happiness: When I am completely united to you, there will be no more sorrow or…
46 When he listens to the message of creation and to the voice of conscience, man can arrive at certainty about the existence of God, the…
47 The Church teaches that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty from his works, by the natural light of human…
48 We really can name God, starting from the manifold perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses of the infinitely perfect God, even…
49 Without the Creator, the creature vanishes ( GS 36). This is the reason why believers know that the love of Christ urges them to bring the…
50 By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot…
51 "It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will. His will was that men should have…
52 God, who "dwells in unapproachable light", wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as…
53 The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously "by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other" and shed…
54 "God, who creates and conserves all things by his Word, provides men with constant evidence of himself in created realities. And…
55 This revelation was not broken off by our first parents' sin. "After the fall, [God] buoyed them up with the hope of salvation, by…
56 After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the…
57 This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity…
58 The covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, until the universal proclamation of the Gospel. The Bible…
59 In order to gather together scattered humanity God calls Abram from his country, his kindred and his father's house, and makes him Abraham,…
60 The people descended from Abraham would be the trustee of the promise made to the patriarchs, the chosen people, called to prepare for that…
61 The patriarchs, prophets and certain other Old Testament figures have been and always will be honored as saints in all the Church's…
62 After the patriarchs, God formed Israel as his people by freeing them from slavery in Egypt. He established with them the covenant of Mount…
63 Israel is the priestly people of God, "called by the name of the LORD", and "the first to hear the word of God", the people of "elder…
64 Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all,…
65 "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." Christ,…
66 "The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be…
67 Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church.…
68 By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that…
69 God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and in words.
70 Beyond the witness to himself that God gives in created things, he manifested himself to our first parents, spoke to them and, after the…
71 God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and with all living beings (cf. Gen 9:16). It will remain in force as long as the world lasts.
72 God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and his descendants. By the covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them…
73 God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. The Son is his Father's definitive…
74 God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth": that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all…
75 "Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had…
76 In keeping with the Lord's command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways: - orally "by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of…
77 "In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave…
78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely…
79 The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: "God, who spoke in the…
80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out…
81 " Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit." "And [Holy] Tradition transmits…
82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all…
83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus' teaching and example and what they…
84 The apostles entrusted the "Sacred deposit" of the faith (the depositum fidei ), contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole…
85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been…
86 "Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine…
87 Mindful of Christ's words to his apostles: "He who hears you, hears me", the faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives…
88 The Church's Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it…
89 There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas. Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and…
90 The mutual connections between dogmas, and their coherence, can be found in the whole of the Revelation of the mystery of Christ. "In…
91 All the faithful share in understanding and handing on revealed truth. They have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who instructs…
92 "The whole body of the faithful. . . cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of…
93 "By this appreciation of the faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching…
94 Thanks to the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the understanding of both the realities and the words of the heritage of faith is able to grow…
95 "It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church…
96 What Christ entrusted to the apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to…
97 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God" (DV 10) in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim…
98 "The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she…
99 Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more…
100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and…

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