CSDC 129

Therefore, man has two different characteristics: he is a material being, linked to this world by his body, and he is a spiritual being, open to transcendence and to the discovery of “more penetrating truths”, thanks to his intellect, by which “he shares in the light of the divine mind”²⁴³ Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 15: AAS 58AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1036.. The Church affirms: “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”²⁴⁴ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 365.. Neither the spiritualism that despises the reality of the body nor the materialism that considers the spirit a mere manifestation of the material do justice to the complex nature, to the totality or to the unity of the human being.