Catholic Doctrine Regarding The Ten Commandments - Sixth Commandment

Sixth Commandment

According to the Church, humans are sexual beings whose sexual identity extends beyond the body to the mind and soul. The sexes are meant by divine design to be different and complementary, each having equal dignity and made in the image of God. Sexual acts are sacred within the context of the marital relationship that reflects a "complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman." Sexual sins thus violate not just the body but the person's whole being. In his 1995 book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II reflected on this concept:

After all, young people are always searching for the beauty in love. They want their love to be beautiful. If they give in to weakness, following the models of behavior that can rightly be considered a 'scandal in the contemporary world' (and these are, unfortunately, widely diffused models), in the depths of their hearts they still desire a beautiful and pure love. This is as true of boys as it is of girls. Ultimately, they know that only God can give them this love. As a result, they are willing to follow Christ, without caring about the sacrifices this may entail.

Like Orthodox Judaism and Islam, the Catholic Church considers all sexual acts outside of marriage to be grave sins. The gravity of the sin "'excludes one from sacramental communion' until repented of and forgiven in sacramental confession."