The Catholic Church teaches that each human being is most fundamentally a beloved daughter or son of God, created in God’s own image and likeness. Unlike angelic persons, who are spirits without bodies, God creates the human person to be a unity of body and soul. The integral unity of the body and soul is fundamental to identity of the human person. The Church teaches that “the human body shares in the dignity of ‘the image of God’” (CCC, 364). The body cannot exist separately from the soul and the soul and body together constitute the self. A human person does not just have a body — he or she is that body. We express this idea when we ask a child, “Did you hurt yourself?” or when someone says, “Don’t touch me!” What happens to our bodies happens to us.

Catholic teaching on the human person and the importance of the human body is very different from the dominant view in popular culture, which reduces the person to “will” or desire and treats the body as a thing to be used. For an overview of Catholic teaching and points of contrast with common cultural assumptions, please view the video below. 

The Person and Identity Project (PIP) assists the Catholic Church in promoting the Catholic vision of the human person and responding to the challenges of gender ideology.  Visit their website (click on their logo below) for more information.

Also available is an EWTN Mini Series on the Transgender Movement and What Catholics Need to Know. This is available on demand by clicking the link below.