Human Sexuality in the Language of the Body

Prophecy and Diplomacy, 1999

In sacramental sexuality, the body reveals the person, and the person reflects the glory of God. In the debate over the proper reading — John Paul calls it the "rereading" of the body — there is a contest of Gestalts. If the body is a word of God, whose meaning is determined more by God's creative activity than by the scope of human freedom, then sharp limits are imposed on the use of the body in sexual activity. If the body is not a sacrament of God, then it is wholly at our disposal to do with as we please.

Brill | Nijhoff eBooks, 2024

Forum Teologiczne, 2023

This paper presents the question of the dynamics of the sacrament of marriage arising from the wedding vows according to the rite celebrated in the Catholic liturgy. The aim of the paper is to explain what it means to celebrate the sacrament of marriage every day, not only on the wedding day. The theme is developed based on the concept of ritual as a phenomenon involving the activities of introducing a person to a new state of life in society. According to researchers, ritual perpetuates certain values in culture and human consciousness. In the light of theological sources, in Christian rituals, marriage is a theological reality. This means that the sacrament of marriage involves the rite of a man and a woman making four promises concerning their future life together and including their relationship with God. These pledges are a promise of fidelity, love, honesty and accompanying the other person for the rest of their lives, which means 'dialogue of life'. Sacramentality, on the other hand, signifies a guarantee of access to God's grace, which is necessary to build a family community according to the Gospel. The sacrament of marriage appears here as a Christian ritual celebrated that commemorates every moment of life together, with references to the grace given by God. Looking at the sacrament of marriage as a ritual makes it possible to see two dimensions of the dynamics of the marital relationship: a horizontal relationship, involving the dialogue between the spouses, and a vertical relationship, involving the dialogue of the spouses with God. Viewed in this way, Christian marriage is a reality unfolding in the individual lives of persons, as well as socially and ecclesiastically.

The Personalist Basis of the Church's Teaching on Human Sexuality and the Natural Law in the Work of John Paul II. Part I 1, 2023

Responding to Pope John Paul II's call to give the "ethical grounds and personalistic reasons" behind the Church's teaching on sexual morality, this reflection written over the span of two articles analyzes the norms of the natural law related to human sexuality from a personalist perspective. The key ideas of this study are drawn from two passages: one from Gaudium et spes which states that "The sexual characteristics of man and the human faculty of reproduction wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life", the other from Humanae vitae stating that "Conjugal love reveals its true nature and nobility when it is considered in its supreme origin, God, who is love … and it is of supreme importance to have an exact idea of these." Part I provides an overview of natural law theory, explaining what it means that the natural law is not arbitrary, but rather that the moral norms governing our actions in relation to the beings in the world are rooted in the nature and value of those things. Second, on the background of John Paul II's idea that "the body is the person," this article brings to light a type of bodily act (which I call an "embodying act") that is not only bodily, but one that forms an organic union with an act of the spirit. Finally, we examine here the nature of love as consisting of two dimensions: of mutual self-giving as well as the fruitfulness arising from mutual self-gift. The analysis of "embodying acts" together with the analysis of love will be crucial for arriving at one of the main conclusions in Part II, namely, that the Church's moral norms governing the use of the spousal act are not grounded in the biological structure of sex, but in the laws of love.

Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, 2008

On the one hand, the patristic period was not, as a whole, a period characterized by sustained reflection on the sacramentality of marriage. The idea of marriage as a "sacrament," in the more technical sense of the term we find developed in medieval and contemporary theologians, had not explicitly arisen. On the other hand, there was a continuous appreciation of marriage since the time of Jesus himself as we can see reflected in the canonical Gospels, and there can be found among the Fathers increasing attention to the meaning of Christian marriage, culminating in the late fourth and early fifth century reflections of John Chrysostom in the East, and of Augustine in the West. We have to be careful not to underestimate the contribution of the Fathers even if they did not speak the technical language of later ages. Their rich use of imagery and analogy in the context of exhortation and pastoral counsel is the basis for later developments and it can still serve as a resource for us. To the extent that Christian marriage is understood in terms of the love of Christ for the Church, inspired by Eph. 5.31-32 and related passages, to that extent it is, I would argue, understood as sacramental in this period. In the theology of the Fathers, there seem to be two complementary approaches. The first one might call the "ascetic" approach. It begins from a philosophical starting point. In the ancient world philosophy was a way of life, an ascetic path of self-control and discipline in the pursuit of the virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and courage. Marriage was a matter of ordering one's own passions and one's household according to the restraint and moderation proper to the philosophical pursuit of virtue. This ideal was "Christianized," with varying degrees of success, by authors as diverse as Clement of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. To the extent that the classical virtues come to be redefined in terms of

Caliope, 2017

2008

The CIC/83, the living law (ius vigens) of the Latin Catholic Church, contains 110 canons on marriage in cc. 1055–1165.[The 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches contains a similar section, cc. 776–866]. The sacred canons, in general, are a compilation of ...

The anthropologist Mary Douglas, in her book Natural Symbols, boldly states:

FORUM TEOLOGICZNE XXII, 2021

Both the Roman Catholic Church and the canonical Orthodox Churches, or Churches associated with the Union of Utrecht, include marriage in the seven sacraments. Nevertheless, there is no agreement between them regarding the minister of the sacrament, the possibility of a second marriage after divorce or clergy marriage. In recent years, tensions in individual ecclesial communities have also been exacerbated by canonical legalization of same-sex relationships. This issue concerns, in particular, the Churches whose bishops are part of the International Conference of Old Catholic Bishops. In the West European Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht there is full agreement that homosexual orientation is one of the variants of human nature. Old Catholics Theologians believe that the condemnation of homosexuality which we find in Scripture resulted from the state of knowledge at the time and related cultural connotations. They point out that modern science shows this phenomenon in a completely different perspective, based on the results of scientific research unknown to either the Biblical tradition or the Tradition of the early Church. The consequence of this was the opening of the debate on their nature and on the possibility of blessing same-sex relationships.