Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. In this way, the Catechism reflects a view known as “gender essentialism” which is closely connected with the idea of the complementarity of the sexes:Įveryone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Rather, the distinction (and equality) of the sexes is part of the divine plan. 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.'” (2335). It is in the union of man and woman that Trinitarian love is imaged: “Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. This is what John Paul II called the “nuptial meaning of the body.” This capacity for self-gift is described in the Catechism and also reflected in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body as integrally connected to the importance of gender.

The human person is made from the beginning for love, for self-gift. Sexuality is an integral part of what it means to be made in the imago Dei.

In addressing the commandment, the Catechism begins on an anthropological note: the human person, created in the image of the Trinitarian God who is is love, is made to love (2231).

The Sixth Commandment “you shall not commit adultery” pertains not only to sexual infidelity but encompasses the whole of human sexuality (2336), and is thus perhaps the most controversial commandment among the Decalogue for a contemporary audience.

Sixth commandment catholic