Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Catholic wisdom of the people... provides reasons for joy and humor even in the midst of a very hard life.

Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them: by participating directly and voluntarily in them; by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; by protecting evil-doers. [1868]

1883. ...The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

1862 ...although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

1951. Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. All law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. Law is declared and established by reason as a participation in the providence of the living God, Creator and Redeemer of all.

1877. The vocation of humanity is to show forth the image of God and to be transformed into the image of the Father's only Son. This vocation takes a personal form since each of us is called to enter into the divine beatitude; it also concerns the human community as a whole.

To live, grow, and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith;45 it must be “working through charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.46 (2089, 1037, 2016, 2573, 2849)

Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.

The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it 2540 is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion:

O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.102

Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.

The Liturgy itself is prayer; the confession of faith finds its proper place in the celebration of worship.

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.

Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

The differences among persons belong to God’s plan, who wills that we should need one another. These differences should encourage charity.

concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him.”18 (206)

It is possible to offer fervent prayer even while walking in public or strolling alone, or seated in your shop,…while buying or selling,…or even while cooking.

In the words of St. Augustine, “I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.

Man and woman were made “for each other”—not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons,

Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We

The Church has no other light than Christ’s; according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.

What Revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn toward what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator.

Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice, and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it. (2846,

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living.”73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, “open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures.”74

Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.

Goods of production—material or immaterial—such as land, factories, practical or artistic skills, oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that will benefit the greatest number. Those who hold goods for use and consumption should use them with moderation, reserving the better part for guests, for the sick and the poor.

In the words of St Augustine, ‘I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.

By advancing and progressing “from glory to glory,” the light of the Trinity will shine in ever more brilliant rays.

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.

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”141 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 2333 circumstances can they be approved.