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An Introduction to John Paul II's Theology of the Body
Father Richard M. Hogan |
George Weigel in his book, Witness to Hope, suggests that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is a “theological time bomb set to go off, with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the Church.”[1] While completed in November 1984, until recently, the Theology of the Body has not elicited much comment or interest. In fact, only a handful of Catholics had ever heard of the Theology of the Bodybefore Weigel’s book was published. Weigel’s remark and his discussion of the Theology of the Bodyare partly responsible for a renewed interest in this significant papal work.
The Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II is a series of addresses given at the Wednesday papal audiences in Rome from September 1979 to November 1984. (There were some rather lengthy interruptions in this series, e.g., during the Holy Year of the Redemption in 1983, the audiences were devoted to other topics.) The Wednesday papal audiences are given as an opportunity for visitors and pilgrims to Rome to see and hear the Pope. Previous Popes of the second half of the twentieth century have given addresses at these audiences as Pope John Paul II does. However, John Paul II’s predecessors have not tried to give a series of addresses devoted to one theme in successive audiences. Rather, each address stood on its own and treated a subject matter appropriate to that particular Wednesday, e.g., on a saint’s feast day, Pope Paul VI might have spoken about that particular saint; or during the Easter season, Pope John XXIII might have addressed the joys of Easter and the promise of the resurrection of the body implicit in Christ’s resurrection. John Paul II has decided to use the Wednesday audiences to give a series of addresses devoted to one central theme. The first of these series was the Theology of the Body. A series, given once a week to totally different audiences over several years, is not the easiest task to attempt. Each address needs to stand on its own and make sense to the particular audience who hears it. Still, it also must fit into the series and be part of a much larger effort to address the central theme. The Theology of the Body comprises 129 individual addresses. These are divided into six different cycles. The first three cycles are reflections on the remarks of Christ pertaining to marriage. In the first cycle (nos. 1-23) John Paul discusses Christ’s answer to the Pharisees when they ask him about whether a man can divorce his wife.[2] The second cycle (nos. 24-63) are a reflection on Christ’s remarks in the Sermon on the Mount about adultery, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”[3] The third cycle (nos. 64-72) discusses the resurrection of the body. In this cycle, John Paul analyzes Christ’s answer to the Sadducees when they come to him and ask him about a woman who had married seven brothers. They want to know which brother will be the man’s wife in heaven. (The fictional case the Sadducees posed to Christ rested on the so-called Levirate law. If a husband died without children, his brother was supposed to marry the widow and father a son who would be considered the son of the dead brother.[4] In the case presented by the Sadducees, a particular woman married the first brother and he died before fathering any children. A second brother married the widow and he also died without children. Eventually, the woman married each of the seven brothers and never had any children. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the body. They were posing the question in order to “trick” Christ who, they knew, taught the resurrection of the body.) The second set of three cycles do not rest on particular words of Christ, but are the application of the points previously discussed to celibacy and virginity, marriage, and contraception. The fourth cycle (nos. 73-86) applies the conclusions of the first three cycles to celibacy and virginity for the sake of the kingdom. The fifth cycle (nos. 87-113), a particularly vital one, is an extensive analysis of the fifth chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in light of the conclusions previously reached in the first three cycles of the Theology of the Body. In this chapter, Paul compares the mystery of the Church to marriage, especially in light of Christ’s elevation of marriage to the level of a sacrament. The sixth cycle (nos. 114-129) applies the conclusions of the first three cycles to the teaching of the Church regarding contraception. From the very first words of the Theology of the Body, one realizes that John Paul’s approach to theology differs from those taken by the great representatives of the Catholic theological tradition: Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Saint Augustine represents the first attempt in the West to develop a unified presentation of the faith through the use of a particular philosophical system. In adapting Plato’s philosophical thought to the data of Revelation, Augustine formulated a synthesis of the Catholic faith. This synthesis was the way the faith was taught from Augustine’s death in 430 until the thirteenth century. |
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