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Faith of Our Holy Fathers:

Putting the Theology of the Body in Historical Perspective

by Dawn Eden 

Some well-meaning people seem to make a habit of knocking my grandfather and my great-grandfather.

Oh, they don’t mean to do it. They only mean to tell me how wonderful my dad is. But somehow, in their zeal to boost him, they end up damning his forebears with faint praise. It’s as if they have to put the others down in order to make him look good.

“Your father,” they say, “did such a better job of parenting than any other fathers in your family ever did.”

 “Oh,” they add, “your grandfather and great-grandfather tried hard. But they were limited by the antiquated mentality of the world in which they lived. Your father, on the other hand, is enlightened with a special charism. Compared to earlier generations, his paternal wisdom and insight were radically advanced.”

All right, people don’t really speak that way of my dad. Some well-meaning Catholic apologists do, however, speak that way of my late Holy Father, John Paul II, in comparison with his predecessors. They praise his pronouncements on marriage and sexuality by insinuating that, prior to the Second Vatican Council, no pope possessed such an advanced level of insight into the mystery of the human person. John Paul II’s theology of the body is important to such apologists precisely because it is “new,” “dramatic,” “daring,” and “revolutionary,” in contrast with a preconciliar Church that was “juridical,” “negative,” or even “silent” about sexual matters.

Such generalizations are false on their face. Pius XII, for example, gave 79 instructional talks to married couples that sought his blessing; these were later published in a 269-page book, Dear Newlyweds.  As I write, dozens of other examples of preconciliar papal teachings on marriage and sexuality are before me in Education in Human Sexuality, a recent doctoral dissertation by Father Phillip Chavez, SOLT, on magisterial teaching on chastity. The dissertation’s bibliography lists ten documents from Pius XI and 63 from Pius XII. Far from being juridical lists of prohibitions, these teachings are filled with beautiful and often frank insights, like Pius XII’s statement that marital happiness requires more than mutually satisfying sex:

“There are some who would allege that happiness in marriage is in direct proportion to the reciprocal enjoyment in conjugal relations. It is not so: Indeed, happiness in marriage is in direct proportion to the mutual respect of the partners, even in their intimate relations; not that they regard as immoral and refuse what nature offers and what the Creator has given, but because this respect, and the mutual esteem which it produces, is one of the strongest elements of a pure love, and for this reason all the more tender” (“Allocution to Midwives,” October 29, 1951).

I fail to see how characterizations of the preconciliar Church as stodgy or out-of-touch serve the faithful, let alone how they support the legacy of John Paul II. Instead, they are reminiscent of the claims of liberals who assert that the “open windows” of Vatican II forged a “radical break” that let “fresh air” inside a stale and fetid Magisterium.

In like manner, the assertion that John Paul II’s teachings are “revolutionary” implies the Church’s sacred deposit of faith is not fully contained in Scripture and Tradition, but, rather, progresses with the passage of time—like a child growing through puberty and into adulthood. That is not only an error officially condemned by the Church; it also prevents the faithful from appreciating the real significance of the theology of the body.

John Paul II, in the last of his Wednesday audiences devoted to the teaching, described the theology of the body as “an ample commentary on the doctrine contained in the encyclical Humanae Vitae” -- the 1968 document by Pope Paul VI affirming the Church’s teaching against contraception. However much his own knowledge and gifts (not least his personalist philosophy) informed and enlivened his approach, his goal was to support prior papal teaching, not supersede it.

Truth be told, there is something “new” about John Paul II’s teachings on marriage and sexuality, but it is not the newness of radicalism, revolution, drama, or daring. To borrow the words of G.K. Chesterton, the theology of the body is new because it is part of a Catholic faith whose “very antiquity preserves an attitude of novelty.” Its newness is that  of ancient truths shining ever bright in the face of a world that is “passing away” (1 John 2:17). And it is very much needed in this age—because we have forgotten the wisdom of our fathers.

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)