United States Catholic Catechism for Adults

Chapter 30. Sixth Commandment: Marital Fidelity • 411

FROM THE CATECHISM

1. What is the divine plan for marriage? Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and ten derness 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 fecun dity. (CCC, no. 2335) 2. What is the link between charity and chastity? 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. (CCC, no. 2346) 3. What is the marital covenant? The covenant which spouses have freely entered into entails faithful love. It imposes on them the obligation to keep their marriage indissoluble. (CCC, no. 2397)

guarantee successful married life, as has been revealed in the painful experience of many, and is detrimental to future commitment. Polygamy (having more than one spouse at a time) violates the understanding of the equal dignity that a man and woman bring to mar riage and contradicts the unitive purpose of marriage. Attempts to justify same-sex unions or relationships or to give them matrimonial status also contradict God’s plan—as revealed from the beginning both in nature and in Revelation—for marriage to be a life long union of a man and a woman.