TOB: As Timely as Ever

In the week since I've been back from the retreat house (and before I go back again, next time for my actual retreat), Theology of the Body issues have been back in the news.

Marc Chagall, The Four Seasons, det. (Chicago)

There was a veritable storm on #CatholicTwitter over changes at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Rome, which as of 2017 is being completely restructured (under a Motu Proprio from Pope Francis). In fact, the Institute founded by Pope John Paul has been dissolved, and a new one with a slightly broader name and mission (John Paul II Theological Institute for Matrimonial and Family Science) has been established in its place. Students who were already enrolled in studies will be able to finish their degrees according to the former program ("if they wish"!), keeping their same doctoral advisors.

At this stage, all of the earlier Institute's professors have been terminated, a few positions and one major course area eliminated, and there is general consternation over the future of the Institute. Those changes will obviously also eventually affect the Institute's branches in other parts of the world (including the US). Current and prospective students are in dismay. Since very little was coming from the official media office (at least in English), this left a lot of room for speculation, most of it on the negative side. I must confess that the response from the official media office in answer to the criticisms on social media did not really encourage my confidence, but it has increased my prayers. In the end, God is always in charge, no matter the human machinations.

Then there was the story of the baby on the doorstep. Ten days ago, a Florida man answered a knock at the door, and found the police there with a newborn baby. The infant had been left on the doormat of his apartment. A note with the child gave the time and place of birth (5:45 pm, in the bathroom) and asked that the baby be taken to the hospital, a safe haven. (Unfortunately this was not done, since neighbors had heard the baby crying and called 911 earlier.)

That mother, a victim of domestic violence, gave birth alone and unaided.  Alone and unaided, still under threat of unspeakable violence, she tenderly washed her baby and fed him, swaddled him in a t-shirt, and when the coast was clear, brought him to the attention of a neighbor she hoped she could trust with the baby's life. The note explained that the father "is a dangerous man" who "tried to kill us both," and asked that everything be kept secret.

And then there is the story of the sixth wife of the fabulously wealthy Emir of Dubai. According to yesterday's news, she asked a British court that a "forced marriage protection order" be applied to one of her two children, and that both children be made "wards of the court."

Pope John Paul said over thirty years ago: Woman is "the master of her own mystery" [TOB 110:7-9].

With the Bible, Pope John Paul insists that "The 'language of the body' reread in the truth goes hand in hand with the discovery of the inner inviolability of the person." This is precisely what we see those two women in the news intuitively and so rightly defending. The Pope goes on: "When the bride [in the Song of Songs] says, 'My beloved is mine,' she means at the same time, 'It is he to whom I entrust myself'... The freedom of the gift is the response to the deep consciousness of the gift expressed in the bridegroom's words" which had acknowledged her self-possession: "A garden closed, you are, my sister, my bride; a garden closed, a fountain sealed" (Songs 4:21). "One can say that both metaphors express the whole dignity of the woman, who, as a spiritual subject, possesses herself and can decide not only the metaphysical depth, but also the essential truth and authenticity of the gift of self that tends toward the union about which Genesis speak" [TOB 110:4].

Clearly, as in the two women's stories, this is not the way the world actually is. But the Pope's words are more than wishful thinking or the theme of the next Disney princess story. According to Pope John Paul, who clearly remembered the scores of couples who had bared their souls to him across the decades, this is the way we were made: this is God's real plan for us. To the extent that we live according to it, the family and society flourish. The farther we depart from it, the more the family (and each member of it) suffers.



How can we help society awaken from its delusions about atomized, individualistic freedom (apart from the "sincere gift of self" that is the secret of human fulfillment) and from the loss of a sense of the reality of the body?