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Day 218 - How does the Church help us to lead a good life? // Why does the Church also make declarations on ethical matters?

How does the Church help us to lead a good, responsible life?

In the Church we are baptized. In the Church we receive the faith that the Church has preserved intact down through the centuries. In the Church we hear the living Word of God and learn how we must live if we want to please God. Through the sacraments that Jesus entrusted to his disciples, the Church builds us up, strengthens, and consoles us. In the Church there is the blazing fire of the saints, by which our hearts are kindled. In the Church the Holy Eucharist is celebrated, in which Christ's sacrifice and strength are renewed for us in such a way that, united with him, we become his Body and live by his strength. Despite all her human weaknesses, apart from the Church no one can be a Christian.

Why does the Church also make declarations about ethical questions and about matters of personal conduct?

Believing is a path. One learns how to stay on this path, in other words, how to act rightly and to lead a good life, only by following the instructions in the Gospel. The teaching authority (Magisterium) of the Church must remind people also about the demands of the natural moral law.

There are not two truths. What is humanly right cannot be wrong from the Christian perspective. And what is right according to Christianity cannot be humanly wrong. That is why the Church must teach comprehensively about moral issues. (YOUCAT questions 343-344)

Dig Deeper: CCC section (2030-2040) and other references here.