26. Morality, freedom and human dignity

26. MORALITY, FREEDOM AND HUMAN DIGNITY
CHRISTIAN LIFE AND MORALITY, LEAD TO, RATHER THAN TAKE AWAY FROM TRUE FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS
Compendium 357-369 Matthew 5:1-11
1. Everyone wants to be happy. Sometimes happiness is sought in all the wrong places. Lust for money, power and illicit pleasure cannot bring lasting happiness. Jesus teaches us the source of true and lasting happiness in the Beatitudes. Christian morality can transform us into living images of Jesus.
2. The Beatitudes are the self portrait of Jesus who demonstrates how to be fully human and by living them we become like him.
3. Good intentions do not guarantee good results.
4. True Freedom and happiness requires taking responsibility for our actions.
5. The end does not justify the means.
6. Freedom is God's gift to humanity and is not endowed by any human institution.
7. Human dignity requires correct choices with a priority towards the common good and social justice and order, and taking responsibility.
8. Killing innocent human beings is an example of objective evil.
9. Our moral choices are a decision for or against God and freedom.
10. Wrong choices diminish our freedom and can enslave us to drugs, alcohol, and sex, money, power, worldliness and pleasure.
11. Freedom requires that we free ourselves from ourselves in order to transcend the limitations of this life and gain the eternal freedom Christ has won for us.