Cathecism of the Catholic Church

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A Hypertext Catechism of the Catholic Church

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. You will have to reload all over again. You can seehow long it takes!What follows is an English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in hypertext format. The textis taken substantially from that on theWeb page of the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle,Right Reverend Dom Ambrose Griffiths, O.S.B, Bishop, with some editing and additions from various availableprinted texts. For more information about this document and its use, please see theIntroduction.Observant readers will note the British spellings of some words of the text. I had considered changing toAmerican spelling, but translation of any text of the Catechism is reserved to thethe Holy See, so I'd best notmess with it.Readers are cautioned that this is not an official website of the Catholic Church and is therefore notauthoritative. The authoritative text is contained in printed editions of the Catechism of the Catholic Churchwhich are available fromAmazon.comand other sources. Reprint of these editions is reserved tothe Holy See. Also, the hypertext links in this document are not part of the official Catechism, and are therefore to beused with caution. They are included here to assist those who may be interested in further research. Only linksto official websites, such as those of the Vatican, should be considered authoritative. There is also thepossibility that, in some cases, the links may not be appropriate to the meaning of the text. I have tried toassure correctness and faithfulness to authorized texts, but some typographical and other errors may stillremain. If you find any, pleaselet me know.I am still working on this.Scattered along the right side of this document are little "cross reference symbols" (

†

). Clicking on one of these will take you to the top of the "cross reference by subject" index. If you get lost, the little "Catechismsymbols" (©) will take you to the top of the main text of the Catechism.Also, there are little "return symbols" (®) in the Index of Citations. They refer to the numbered footnotes(

[123]

) in the text. If you are reading the text and want to look at a footnote, click on the footnote, take a look at it, and then click on the®symbol next to it, which will take you back to where you were. The footnotemay have another reference, but you are on your own from there. References to the Bible will open a windowto the reference in the New American (Catholic) Bible at the National Council of Catholic Bishops website.You can look at the Bible reference and then close the window when you're done. References to documentsidentified by abbreviation will have an asterisk (*) as part of the link. This link will take you to theabbreviation. The abbreviation will have another link which will open the referenced document in its ownwindow. The abbreviation will not have a "return" link (®), so don't go there unless you know where in thetext you came from or don't want to get back. A reference to an external document will open that document inits own window, so you can close that window without moving in this one. You can also scroll around to findwhat you are looking for or click on the©symbols to go back to the beginning of the text.Finally, there are paragraph cross references along the right side of the text. Clicking on one of these will takeyou to that paragraph where, hopefully, there will be a reference to the paragraph you just came from. I didn'tcheck this, because the cross references are part of the Catechism and I didn't want to change what the Churchfathers put there.

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It will reload the whole document!I have attempted essentially to maintain the format of the printed text, but the conversion to hypertext doesnot facilitate exact formatting. Different browsers will produce slightly different presentations. Someaccommodations were necessary to provide the reader with additional hypertext links and references. I amindebted to the Rev. Francis Theriault, S.V.D, for help with some of the citations, but any discrepanciesbetween this document and authorized (British) printed texts are mine alone.In a few cases I have made comments or included information which I think might help the researcher. Theyare brown and in curly brackets{like this}and, of course, are not part of the Catechism of the CatholicChurch..Comments, opinions, suggestions, criticisms, etc., especially from those not of my faith, are most welcome.Feel free toe-mail me..God Bless.

John H. Lindorfer

February 10, 2003

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION

FIDEI DEPOSITUM

ON THE PUBLICATION OFTHE

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

PagePara

PROLOGUE

71 I.The Life of Man - To Know and Love God71

†

©II.Handing on the Faith: Catechesis84 III.The Aim and Intended Readership of This Catechism911 IV.Structure of This Catechism913 V.Practical Directions for Using This Catechism1118 VI.Necessary Adaptations1123

PART ONE: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

1326 SECTION ONE: "I BELIEVE" - "WE BELIEVE"1326 CHAPTER ONE: MAN"S CAPACITY FOR GOD1326 I.The Desire for God1327 II.Ways of Coming to Know God1431 III.The Knowledge of God according to the Church1636

Transferinterrupted!

eak about God?1739 IN BRIEF1844 CHAPTER TWO: GOD COMES TO MEET MAN1950 ARTICLE 1: THE REVELATION OF GOD1951 I.God Reveals His "Plan of Loving Goodness"1951

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II.The Stages of Revelation2054 III.Christ Jesus - "Mediator and Fullness of All Revelation"2265

†

©IN BRIEF2368 ARTICLE 2: THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVINE REVELATION2474 I.The Apostolic Tradition2475 II.The Relationship between Tradition and Sacred Scripture2680 III.The Interpretation of the Heritage of Faith2784 IN BRIEF2996 ARTICLE 3: SACRED SCRIPTURE30101 I.Christ - The Unique Word of Sacred Scripture30101 II.Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture31105 III.The Holy Spirit, Interpreter of Scripture32109 IV.The Canon of Scripture34120 V.Sacred Scripture in the Life of the Church37131 IN BRIEF37134 CHAPTER THREE MAN"S RESPONSE TO GOD39142 ARTICLE 1: I BELIEVE39144 I.The Obedience of Faith39144 II."I Know Whom I Have Believed"40150 III.The Characteristics of Faith41153 ARTICLE 2: WE BELIEVE45166 I."Lord, Look upon the Faith of Your Church"46168

†

©II.The Language of Faith46170 III.Only One Faith47172 The Credo49184 SECTION TWO: THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH51185 THE CREEDS51185 CHAPTER ONE: "I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER54198 ARTICLE 1: "I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OFHEAVEN AND EARTH"54199 Paragraph 1. "I Believe in God"54199 I."I Believe in One God"54200 II.God Reveals His Name55203 III.God, "He Who Is," Is Truth and Love58214 IV.The Implications of Faith in One God60222 IN BRIEF61228 Paragraph 2. The Father62232 I."In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the HolySpirit"62232 II.The Revelation of God as Trinity63238 III.The Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Faith66249