I was browsing on the St. Paul Cathedral website to see if anything exciting was going on tomorrow when I wanted to go do some St. Paul site seeing and clicked a link on the Catechism of the Day. I have many Catholic friends so this is no dig on them... I just found my self absolutely confused when trying to read the catechim:
D. Para. 364: The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit (Cf. 1 Cor 6:19-20; 15:44-45).
Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day (GS 14 § 1; cf. Dan 3:57-80).
Para. 365: The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body (Cf. Council of Vienne [1312]: DS 902): i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
Wouldn't it be more simple to say it like this?
All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Each individual is a spirit child of Heavenly Father and existed as a spirit before this life on earth. During this life, the spirit of the individual is housed in a physical body, which was born of mortal parents.
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