TOB Tuesday: When you just can't get what the documents are saying

I had an interesting conversation on Google Plus a few weeks ago. I had posted a link to one of Father Samuel Medley's "Love and Responsibility" videos, the one on contraception.

"Stephen" replied: "I read Humanae Vitae three times and did not find it persuasive. Pope Paul VI may be right, but he speaks in a language and in concepts that fail to resonate with modern man."

Here's what I posted:
Humanae Vitae was published in 1968; Love and Responsibility in 1960. They may be "true," but the philosophical approach just doesn't resonate, unless you are a philosopher (or very, very dedicated). Try reading some of Christopher West's books for an approach that is more directed to the contemporary situation. Start with "Good News for Love and Marriage."

Pope John Paul spent 5 years presenting his Theology of the Body, which is an extremely rich "worldview" approach that integrates human experience and the Bible (from Genesis to Revelation, with special attention to the Song of Songs and the Letter to the Ephesians). Clearly, it's not a quick read! Still, I highly recommend it as a resource you would be unlikely to exhaust in a lifetime.

Just some topics JP2 covers: "Naked without shame"; Adam's "original solitude"; my favorite--the "law of the Gift"--that no human being can find fulfillment outside of a sincere and complete gift of self.

JP2's most original contribution was, I think, seeing the fact of human sexual differentiation as a sign/sacrament of the Trinitarian life; that the image God is most fully expressed in the created, material world, in the "unity of the two."

He also spent a few months, at the end of it all, in parsing out Humanae Vitae in the light of his own biblical teachings, taking HV to a different level than was possible in 1968.



For more TOB reading, and some great testimonials, visit the Theology of the Body Institute! Then, when you're ready, take one of their courses--it will be a real retreat experience, believe me!

TOB Tuesday

I'm sorry I missed this guest post on the CNN blog when it first appeared in the days after the HHS contraception mandate. Valerie Pokorny, a marriage prep mentor in San Antonio, writes, "I’m all for the progress of woman. Let’s just make sure in promoting her progress, we don’t reject something that is inherently part of her in the first place." As someone whose first reaction to the Theology of the Body was how "pro-woman" it was, I think Valerie's comments are especially pertinent. The administration, in effect, doesn't really like women too much.

The [current] administration’s primary talking point on this issue is that 'Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health.' I agree. 100 percent. But from there, the defense sounds like slick advertising for the contraceptive industry: To be a healthy woman, you need contraception. All the successful women use it. You can’t live without it. Should I so easily accept the implication that I need to alter a part of myself that’s working properly in order to be free or fulfilled? I find this premise tremendously offensive. To me, this exerts pressure tantamount to that felt by women who purge after eating to attain or maintain a particular body image. It encourages women to think that their value is somehow intrinsically tied to how sexually available and desirable they are. I thought the whole moral obligation to fulfill a husband’s sexual needs was a thing of the past... but alas, it’s been repackaged for a new secular generation. Women are still evaluated heavily on the basis of their uninhibited sexual availability, which contraception ensures precisely by severing women from their fertility. (When a woman uses “contraception” for medical reasons other than preventing a pregnancy it's not technically contraception, and the Catholic Church doesn't necessarily prohibit these uses.) My fertility is not a disease. It does not need to be repressed, manipulated, or rejected. It ought to be accepted and respected accordingly, by individuals and by society as a whole.

Read the full post here.