PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION TWO
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
CHAPTER TWO
"YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF"
ARTICLE 6
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT
- You shall not commit adultery.113 You
have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say
to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart.114
* I. "MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM . . ."
2331
"God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving
communion. Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God inscribed
in the humanity of man and woman the
vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility,
of love and communion."
115
"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them";
116 He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply";
117
"When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and
female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they
were created."
118
2332 Sexuality affects
all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It
especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate,
and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion
with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual
identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual
difference and
complementarity are
oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family
life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the
way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the
sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity."
119 "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."
120
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The
union of man and woman
in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity
and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and
cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."
121 All human generations proceed from this union.
122
2336
Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the
Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's plan strictly: "You have heard
that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that
every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery
with her in his heart."
123 What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
124
The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality.
II. THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY
2337
Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the
person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual
being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological
world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is
integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the
complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
The integrity of the person
2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of
life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the
person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates
neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.
125
2339 Chastity includes an
apprenticeship in self-mastery
which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either
man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be
dominated by them and becomes unhappy.
126 "Man's dignity
therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved
and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in
himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when,
ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to
his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and
skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."
127
2340
Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist
temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge,
practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him,
obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and
fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered
together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into
multiplicity."
128
2341 The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of
temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.
2342 Self-mastery is a
long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life.
129
The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as
when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.
2343 Chastity has
laws of growth
which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by
sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up through his many free
decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages
of growth."
130
2344 Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a
cultural effort, for there is "an interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society."
131
Chastity presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in
particular the right to receive information and an education that
respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.
2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a
grace, a fruit of spiritual effort.
132 The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.
133
The integrality of the gift of self
2346 Charity is the
form of
all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of
the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self.
Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to his neighbor
of God's fidelity and loving kindness.
2347 The virtue of chastity blossoms in
friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends,
134 who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.
Chastity is expressed notably in
friendship with one's neighbor.
Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex,
friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual
communion.
The various forms of chastity
2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on Christ,"
135
the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a
chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the
moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective
life in chastity.
2349
"People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their
state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which
enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a
remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the
moral law, whether they are married or single."
136 Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence:
- There are three forms of the virtue of
chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and
the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the
exclusion of the others. . . . This is what makes for the richness of
the discipline of the Church.137
2350 Those who are
engaged to marry
are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time
of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in
fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should
reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married
love. They will help each other grow in chastity.
Offenses against chastity
2351 Lust is
disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure.
Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated
from its procreative and unitive purposes.
2352 By
masturbation is
to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in
order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in
the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful
have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is
an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."
138 "The
deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of
marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual
pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded
by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving
and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."
139
To
form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and
to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective
immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other
psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a
minimum, moral culpability.
2353 Fornication is carnal union
between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary
to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally
ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of
children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of
the young.
2354 Pornography consists
in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the
partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It
offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the
intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the
dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each
one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It
immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is
a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and
distribution of pornographic materials.
2355 Prostitution does
injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the
person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins
gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism
pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
140
Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also
men, children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added
sin of scandal.). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in
prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by
destitution, blackmail, or social pressure.
2356 Rape is
the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It
does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect,
freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a
right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is
always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children
committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of
the children entrusted to them.
Chastity and homosexuality
2357
Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who
experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons
of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the
centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains
largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents
homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,
141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."
142
They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the
gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual
complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have
deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination,
which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial.
They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every
sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These
persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are
Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the
difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359
Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of
self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of
disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and
should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
III. THE LOVE OF HUSBAND AND WIFE
2360
Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage
the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of
spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are
sanctified by the sacrament.
2361
"Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one
another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is
not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the
human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is
an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves
totally to one another until death."
143
- Tobias got out of bed and said to Sarah,
"Sister, get up, and let us pray and implore our Lord that he grant us
mercy and safety." So she got up, and they began to pray and implore
that they might be kept safe. Tobias began by saying, "Blessed are you, O
God of our fathers. . . . You made Adam, and for him you made his wife
Eve as a helper and support. From the two of them the race of mankind
has sprung. You said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; let
us make a helper for him like himself.' I now am taking this kinswoman
of mine, not because of lust, but with sincerity. Grant that she and I
may find mercy and that we may grow old together." And they both said,
"Amen, Amen." Then they went to sleep for the night.144
2362 "The acts in marriage by which the
intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and
honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the
self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude."
145 Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:
- The Creator himself . . . established
that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure
and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil
in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator
has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep
themselves within the limits of just moderation.146
2363 The spouses' union achieves the twofold
end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission
of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated
without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods
of marriage and the future of the family.
The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.
* Conjugal fidelity
2364 The
married couple forms "the intimate partnership of life and love
established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the
conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent."
147
Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are
no longer two; from now on they form one flesh. The covenant they freely
contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as
unique and indissoluble.
148 "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."
149
2365
Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one's given word. God is
faithful. The Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and woman to enter into
Christ's fidelity for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they bear
witness to this mystery before the world.
- St. John Chrysostom suggests that young
husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I
love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is
nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way
that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for
us. . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more
bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.150
* The fecundity of marriage
2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal
love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside
as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs
from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment.
So the Church, which is "on the side of life,"151 teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life."152
"This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the
Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God,
which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive
significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to
the marriage act."153
2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154
"Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit
human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they
are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility."155
2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation.
For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their
children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not
motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity
appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform
their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:
- When it is a question of harmonizing
married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of
the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of
motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria
drawn from the nature of the person and his acts criteria that respect
the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the
context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married
chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156
2369 "By safeguarding both these essential
aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in
its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward
man's exalted vocation to parenthood."157
2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods
of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile
periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158
These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness
between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In
contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal
act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural
consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render
procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:159
- Thus the innate language that expresses
the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid,
through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely,
that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to
a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of
the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in
personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and
moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle
. . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the
human person and of human sexuality.160
2371
"Let all be convinced that human life and the duty of transmitting it
are not limited by the horizons of this life only: their true evaluation
and full significance can be understood only in reference to man's eternal destiny."161
2372 The
state has a responsibility for its citizens' well-being. In this
capacity it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography
of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful
information, but certainly not by authoritarian, coercive measures. The
state may not legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses, who have
the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their
children.162 In this area, it is not authorized to employ means contrary to the moral law.
The gift of a child
2373 Sacred Scripture and the Church's traditional practice see in
large families a sign of God's blessing and the parents' generosity.
163
2374
Couples who discover that they are sterile suffer greatly. "What will
you give me," asks Abraham of God, "for I continue childless?"
164 And Rachel cries to her husband Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"
165
2375
Research aimed at reducing human sterility is to be encouraged, on
condition that it is placed "at the service of the human person, of his
inalienable rights, and his true and integral good according to the
design and will of God."
166
2376 Techniques that
entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a
person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate
uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial
insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of
a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage.
They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only
through each other."167
2377 Techniques involving
only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and
fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally
unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act.
The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by
which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts
the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and
biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin
and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in
itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to
parents and children."168 "Under the moral aspect procreation
is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit
of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the
spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings
of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make
possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."169
2378 A child is not something
owed to one, but is a
gift.
The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A child may not be
considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged "right to a
child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine
rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal
love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a person from
the moment of his conception."
170
2379 The Gospel shows that physical sterility
is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after
exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with
the Lord's Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give
expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or
performing demanding services for others.
IV. OFFENSES AGAINST THE DIGNITY OF MARRIAGE
Adultery
2380 Adultery refers
to marital infidelity. When two partners, of whom at least one is
married to another party, have sexual relations - even transient ones -
they commit adultery. Christ condemns even adultery of mere desire.
171 The sixth commandment and the New Testament forbid adultery absolutely.
172 The prophets denounce the gravity of adultery; they see it as an image of the sin of idolatry.
173
2381
Adultery is an injustice. He who commits adultery fails in his
commitment. He does injury to the sign of the covenant which the
marriage bond is, transgresses the rights of the other spouse, and
undermines the institution of marriage by breaking the contract on which
it is based. He compromises the good of human generation and the
welfare of children who need their parents' stable union.
Divorce
2382 The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.
174 He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law.
175
Between
the baptized, "a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved
by any human power or for any reason other than death."
176
2383 The
separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.
177
If civil divorce remains the only possible way of
ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the
protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a
moral offense.
2384 Divorce is
a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the
contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other
till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which
sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is
recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the
remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent
adultery:
- If a husband, separated from his wife,
approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman
commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress,
because she has drawn another's husband to herself.178
2385 Divorce is immoral also because it
introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder
brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the
separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of
its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.
2386
It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a
divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened
the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who
has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is
unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a
canonically valid marriage.
179
Other offenses against the dignity of marriage
2387 The
predicament of a man who, desiring to convert to the Gospel, is obliged
to repudiate one or more wives with whom he has shared years of conjugal
life, is understandable. However
polygamy is not in accord with
the moral law." [Conjugal] communion is radically contradicted by
polygamy; this, in fact, directly negates the plan of God which was
revealed from the beginning, because it is contrary to the equal
personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a
love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive."
180
The Christian who has previously lived in polygamy has a grave duty in
justice to honor the obligations contracted in regard to his former
wives and his children.
2388 Incest designates intimate relations between relatives or in-laws within a degree that prohibits marriage between them.
181
St. Paul stigmatizes this especially grave offense: "It is actually
reported that there is immorality among you . . . for a man is living
with his father's wife. . . . In the name of the Lord Jesus . . . you
are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. . . .
"
182 Incest corrupts family relationships and marks a regression toward animality.
2389
Connected to incest is any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on
children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is
compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral
integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives;
and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing.
2390 In a so-called
free union, a man and a woman refuse to give juridical and public form to a liaison involving sexual intimacy.
The expression "free union" is fallacious: what can
"union" mean when the partners make no commitment to one another, each
exhibiting a lack of trust in the other, in himself, or in the future?
The expression covers a number of different situations: concubinage,
rejection of marriage as such, or inability to make long-term
commitments.
183 All these situations offend against the
dignity of marriage; they destroy the very idea of the family; they
weaken the sense of fidelity. They are contrary to the moral law. The
sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of
marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from
sacramental communion.
2391 Some today claim a
"right to a trial marriage"
where there is an intention of getting married later. However firm the
purpose of those who engage in premature sexual relations may be, "the
fact is that such liaisons can scarcely ensure mutual sincerity and
fidelity in a relationship between a man and a woman, nor, especially,
can they protect it from inconstancy of desires or whim."
184
Carnal union is morally legitimate only when a definitive community of
life between a man and woman has been established. Human love does not
tolerate "trial marriages." It demands a total and definitive gift of
persons to one another.
185
IN BRIEF
2392 "Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being" (
FC 11).
2393 By creating the human being man and
woman, God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other. Each
of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual
identity.
2394 Christ is the model of chastity. Every
baptized person is called to lead a chaste life, each according to his
particular state of life.
2395 Chastity means the integration of sexuality within the person. It includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery.
2396 Among the sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography, and homosexual practices.
2397 The covenant which spouses have freely
entered into entails faithful love. It imposes on them the obligation to
keep their marriage indissoluble.
2398 Fecundity is a good, a gift and an end of marriage. By giving life, spouses participate in God's fatherhood.
2399 The regulation of births represents one
of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood.
Legitimate
intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally
unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or
contraception).
2400 Adultery, divorce, polygamy, and free union are grave offenses against the dignity of marriage.
