Theology of the Family

Kevin Tierney has a short but clear-headed piece at Catholic Exchange entitled What the Theology of the Body is Really All About. Hint: it's not all about sex.

Indeed, one of Tierney's most compelling quotes is this ...

When you limit TOB to primarily something about sex, you run into a glaring problem. According to Blessed John Paul, the two individuals (outside of Christ) who lived the theology of the body perfectly were Mary and Joseph, and their union was emphatically non-sexual. (General Audience 3/24/82)

This is really a pretty big glaring clue that the pop-Catholic excitement about TOB as sex-sex-sex-and-did-we-mention-sex? comes from our modern secular madness and not from what the Church actually teaches.

Tierney admits that sex plays a role in what JP2 was saying in his Wednesday audiences, but that John Paul put sex in context, as the Church always does, and as we sinners never want to.

And what is the context?

Babies. The family. Mutual sacrifice. All that stuff that we don't find sexy.

Comments

Barrett Turner said…

"Every good of marriage, then, was realized in those parents of Christ: offspring, fidelity, sacrament." (St. Augustine, Marriage & Desire, I.13)

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