Conference looks at sexuality using pope's 'theology of the body'

Published: 2004-08-02

ATLANTA (CNS) -- A seasoned bishop and a youthful theologian proclaimed the good news about the Catholic path to authentic sexual liberation at a July conference in Atlanta on "Sexuality, Marriage and the Family in the Third Millennium." Bishop Victor B. Galeone of St. Augustine, Fla., and theologian Christopher West, author and lecturer at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, challenged Catholics to lead a sexual counterrevolution by embracing Pope John Paul II's "theology of the body." Both speakers said many Catholics are no longer distinguishable from the rest of society when it comes to sexual ethics. "The problem of our culture is not that it overvalues sex," West said at the July 23-24 conference. "The problem of our culture it that it has no clue how valuable sex is. ... The foundation of human life, the deepest foundation of ethics and culture, stands or falls on how it lives sexually."

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