Local News
Conference Looks At 'Theology Of The Body'
Published: August 5, 2004
ATLANTA—A seasoned bishop and a youthful theologian proclaimed the good news about the Catholic path to authentic sexual liberation at a July conference on “Sexuality, Marriage and the Family in the Third Millennium.”
Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine, Fla., and theologian Christopher West, author and lecturer at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, challenged Catholics, many of whom they say can no longer be distinguished from non-Christians with regard to sexual ethics, to lead a counter sexual revolution and seek victory in Christ by embracing Pope John Paul II’s “theology of the body.”
At the conference held July 23-24 in Atlanta, they spoke of a deceptive, counterfeit version of selfish love that is prevalent in modern culture and of the huge pendulum shift in the 20th century from the Victorian age, when public display of a woman’s ankle was scandalous, to “Victoria’s Secret,” an era of legitimized licentiousness. The sexual revolution claimed to be liberating, but has left American society plagued with evils that include high rates of abortion and divorce and more pornography, they said.
“The problem of our culture is not that it overvalues sex,” West said. “The problem of our culture it that it has no clue how valuable sex is. That’s what I mean when I say the Catholic Church has the goods on sex. The foundation of human life, the deepest foundation of ethics and culture stands or falls on how it lives sexually. Sex, marriage and the family are the driving forces of culture, which is why culture wars (we are) now engaged in are always founded on sex.”
“There will be no renewal of the family without a return to God’s plan for the union of the sexes. That won’t happen unless we can go into the world proclaiming (the Gospel) boldly . . . If we are to build a culture of life in the 21st century, the most difficult task is to reclaim the full truth of the Christian sexual ethic,” West said.
The pope’s theology of the body, which was outlined in 129 general audience talks delivered early in his pontificate, integrates the human body with the soul and spirit of the person. One aspect is that God’s life-giving design for sexuality and marriage reflects the life of the Trinity and mirrors Christ’s gift of himself and his inseparable bond with the church. Some groups have formed around the country to read and discuss the theology.
Bishop Galeone and West were opening speakers at the second annual national conference focusing on the pope’s teaching, held at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Atlanta. It was co-sponsored by the Atlanta Archdiocese, the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., and Catholic Family Honor, a nonprofit organization in South Carolina focusing on chastity and other family education programs. The conference drew about 450 people, largely from Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, but also from Rome, the Philippines and South Africa. Other speakers included Mary Beth Bonacci, Kathleen Raviele, M.D., and Deal Hudson, publisher of Crisis magazine.
Speakers strove to reveal the richness of some of the church’s least popular teachings, asking people to look beyond a list of do’s and don’ts and experience sexual liberation and the fullness of God’s love and plan for them, whether as a single or married person. They said the pope’s writing reveals Christ’s call for each believer to know the dignity of all people, live chastely and fully give of oneself in love, in order to live out one’s highest calling and experience life as a foretaste of heaven. While married couples fully give of themselves to one another in their marital covenant, singles have a special calling to witness to and build up God’s kingdom.
Bishop Galeone declared that 20th century activists accomplished their mission to rid the world of the Christian sexual ethic, but the task now is to reclaim that sexual ethic in its fullness, leaving behind an attitude of repression or denial of God’s gift of sexuality.
“Here in America we like to think of ourselves as a Christian nation. When I was still a young priest, yes! But now I feel we are living in a post-Christian era. For starters, I’d like to ask, ‘How do we differ from our non-Christian neighbors?’ They watch pornography, and so do we. They cohabit before marriage and so do we. They get sterilized and so do we,” he said. “Jesus challenged his disciples to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Namely, he wants us to be thermostats, regulating the moral temperature of our culture. Instead, most of us are only thermometers, registering the values of a decadent society. We no longer heed what St. Paul told the Romans: ‘Do not be conformed to the behavior of this world. Rather, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’”
He listed the four Fs of marriage—that it must be free, faithful, fruitful and forever. Sex must be a total giving of oneself physically to one’s spouse and must be open to new life, just as God’s love is unconditional and creative. He linked openness to children and the church’s ban on artificial contraception to the national debate on legalizing same-sex marriages. American culture has broken the link between the dimensions of the marital act—established by God himself—between making love and making babies. Until that link has been reestablished, “the nation will continue to have pandemic abortions, divorces and brazen homosexuality,” he said. “After all if sex is meant only for pleasure, why limit it just to marriage? And why just to heterosexuals? We will continue to have divorce, abortion and the homosexual agenda as long as we continue to foster marital contraception.”
He said, despair not, but rather work to restore family values.
“Perhaps you and I have been placed where we are for just such a time as this! And let us never forget, ‘When the night is the darkest, the stars shine the brightest.’ That said, I propose that the main task facing us is this: to bring our fellow citizens, and even fellow Catholics—back to the basics. Yes, we must re-teach the basics of family life.”
“The family ought to be a place where the Gospel is transmitted and from which the Gospel radiates to other families and to the whole of society,” he concluded. “Catholic parents must learn to form their family as this domestic church, a church in the home where God is honored, his law is respected, prayer is a normal event, virtue is transmitted by word and example and everyone shares the hopes, the problems and the sufferings of everyone else.”
West elaborated on the qualities necessary for a Catholic marriage to reflect Christ’s love fully.
He spoke of how the human body was redeemed through God himself taking on human flesh, and that both men and women through their bodies proclaim the mystery of God. Sexual desire is part of the natural longing for intimacy.
“The call to be one flesh, this is a great mystery and it refers to Christ and the church. This is what every human being on the planet is starved for, this love. And this is why we are so darned interested in sex,” he said.
“We have lost sight of the mystery our bodies proclaim and bought into a version of counterfeit love. When you hear the word sex, what comes to mind? Is it the great mystery of Christ and the church as proclaimed in Ephesians or is it something a little less sacred than that? Why is it that the way we understand sex, why is it scandalous to talk about God and sex in the same sentence?”
He called American Catholics to have an authentic Catholic worldview.
“The authentic Catholic view of sex is not ‘don’t do it.’ The authentic Catholic view of sex is glorious, stupendous,” he said. “Theology of the body helps us to untwist what sin has distorted. Far too many Christians in response to lies of the sexual revolution have just repressed their sexuality. We often think of our sexuality as an obstacle to the spiritual life.”
Single or married, “your body proclaims a great mystery of Christ’s love . . . At the core of the Gospel is a call for a sincere gift of ourselves. This call to be a gift is inscribed in our bodies. The meaning of life is found in the giving and receiving of love and in this light human sexuality and procreation reach their true and full significance.”
He added that his message is not meant to cast blame on persons, as many have yet to truly understand the beauty of church teaching, and those who disagree should always be respected and never condemned.
“He loved us to the last, no reservations. If our love is to image Christ’s it has to be free, total, faithful and fruitful. Christ says I will never leave you. I have come into the world so that my bride might have life and have it to the full,” he continued. “Love of Christ for the church must be the model of what marriage is, otherwise it’s not Christian marriage.”
Family Honor program director Ann Nerbun, a registered nurse, spoke about the responsibility parents have in a Christian marriage to educate their children in chastity and love and not to tolerate immoral or inadequate formation outside the home.
“Parents must reclaim their task of educating in human love, sexuality and chastity,” she said.
The church encourages parents to maintain connectedness, keep an open dialogue with and encourage responsibility in their children and be able to say “no” when needed, while respecting their need to find their own identity and stand on their own.
“Children can be taught and trusted to evaluate the culture. When presented with positive role models, suitable ways to use their energy, encouragement to discriminate the right use of media, they are truly capable of standing up to the forces of culture that are negative,” Nerbun continued. “We are convinced and rest our hope in believing that the truth about sex, love and marriage has the power to set us and our children and no less than the world free. Free of the evil which threatens to destroy the goodness of sex, love, marriage and free of evil that threatens to obliterate the dignity of the human person.”
Interviewed between sessions, Father Pedro Barrajón, LC, a theology professor of Christian anthropology in Rome, said that he found out about the event online and came to learn. He plans on organizing a similar conference next year in Europe. In a class he taught last year on the topic, he recalled, a Slovakian student told him, “If I knew this theology of the body before, my relationship with my boyfriend would be different. It’s a new perspective on relationships.”
Family Honor executive director Brenda Cerkez believes the theology of the body is not well known and there is a long road to travel to educate Catholics. “We’re created in God’s image and called to love in a way that respects the dignity of the human person.”
She believes that society has come to devalue motherhood and women who choose to be homemakers rather than have careers. “We need to reclaim the value of motherhood. Raising up images of God, being co-creators with God of new life, it’s an incredible gift.”
Kim Baker, a member of St. Benedict Church, Duluth, manned an exhibitor’s booth for the family apostolate Familia. She recalled how her husband Mark took her to Mass, and she was drawn to the Eucharist, which led her to convert to Catholicism. They strive to put Christ at the center of their marriage.
“We tried to start having children from the very beginning and didn’t put Christ first and didn’t get pregnant. Not until we really put Christ and the Eucharist in the center were we blessed with our children,” she said. This vision of marriage “makes such sense. It changes how you look at your husband and what it is to live your marriage vows.”
Mark Baker noted that this vision of sexuality “ helped me with purity in thought. We’re barraged with so many wrong images of sex. To understand this vision of sex, it makes so much sense to me.” He doesn’t believe in using birth control because “in a relationship there has to be some sacrifice. If I use contraception I’m saying I’m not willing to work within the parameters God gives us.”
Myya Rhodora Jacoba, 32, lives in the Philippines, where she’s a theology professor and youth educator on Christian sexuality. While predominantly Catholic, the Philippines has been heavily influenced by Western sexual attitudes, she said, including the debate about same-sex marriage. She thinks she has focused too much on telling teens what not to do.
“I really want to use a more positive approach in dealing with sexuality. Right now I’m concentrating more on proclaiming the truth, more to encounter God through our sexuality,” she said.
The conference gave her a deeper appreciation of marriage. She hopes to marry one day, and noted how difficult it can be to resist sexual temptation.
“It’s so easy to compromise to not offend them. It’s so easy to go along with them sometimes when I know (it’s not right) deep in my heart,” she said. The conference “made me want to wait for the right person, wait for the right time and do it the right way, God’s way.”
