Unlike inanimate objects, plants, and animals, man is a person endowed with a spirit. This characteristic unites him with God more than with his visible fellow creatures. [355-357, 380]
Man is not a something but rather a someone. Just as we say about God that he is person, so too we say this about man. Man can think beyond his immediate horizon and measure the whole breadth of being; he can even know himself with critical objectivity and work to improve himself; he can perceive others as persons, understand them in their dignity, and love them. Of all the visible creatures, man alone is “able to know and love his creator” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes [GS] 12, 3). Man is destined to live with him in friendship (John 15:15).
