Explore what the Catholic Church teaches about the afterlife. Explain the difference between the body and soul, mortality and immortality, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.
The Catholic Church teaches that each human is made of the body and the soulThe spiritual part of a human being. It is believed by many that the soul is eternal., and that these are the two parts which make one whole person.
The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: 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.
— Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 365
The faith teaches that the main distinction between the body and soul is that the body is mortalBeing subject to death. and the soul is immortalThe idea that the soul lives on after the death of the body..
This means that the body is finiteSomething that has a limited number of uses before it is depleted. For example, oil is a finite resource. , and at death the body ceases to exist.
The Catholic Church teaches that the soul will live on after death and go on to the afterlife.
