First, I want to thank the many men and women — former students, married couples, catechists, theologians, seminarians, priests, deacons, religious, and bishops — who contacted me to offer their encouragement during this time.  Your prayers and support were a tremendous gift to me.  I would also like to thank those scholars and teachers of the faith who wrote in support of me, especially Janet Smith, Michael Waldstein, Michael Healy, Father Thomas Loya, Matthew Pinto, and, of course, Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Rhoades.  Your willingness to speak out on my behalf remains a profound consolation.

Second, I want to thank those of you who offered thoughtful critiques of my work and helpful suggestions on how to improve it.  I have taken them to heart.  Indeed, I have always weighed my critics’ observations carefully and prayerfully.  They have helped me refine my approach a great deal over the years and I remain very grateful for that.

That said, much of the criticism that appeared after the Nightline interview significantly misrepresented what I teach.  Rumors were repeated so often that subsequent commentators simply treated dubious accusations as fact.  Although I do not intend to respond point by point to the various criticisms, it seems I would be remiss as a teacher of the Theology of the Body (TOB) not to reflect briefly on what seems to be the pivotal point of the conversation.  It is “pivotal” in the sense that people’s perspective on this point pivots them in very different directions when evaluating my work.  This point is also critical in as much as it leads us to what I, and many others, consider to be “the pearl” of John Paul II’s TOB.

I offer these reflections in a spirit of humility and love for all those involved, not in an effort to “defend” myself.  I am well aware that those looking for flaws in me will always be able to find them.  I, like every interpreter of the Pope’s thought, bring my own personal perspectives, gifts, and shortcomings to the table.  That’s why I remind my readers and students often to “test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess 5:21).  The same applies to what follows.

Of Which Man Are We Speaking?

The pivotal question as I see it is this: What does the grace of redemption offer us in this life with regard to our disordered sexual tendencies?  From there, the questions multiply: Is it possible to overcome the pull of lust within us?  If not, what are we to do with our disordered desires?  If so, to what degree can we be liberated from lust and how can we enter into this grace?  Furthermore, what does it actually look like to live a life of ever deepening sexual redemption?

It is abundantly clear from both Catholic teaching and human experience that, so long as we are on earth, we will always have to battle with concupiscence – that disordering of our passions caused by original sin (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 405, 978, 1264, 1426).  In some of my earliest lectures and tapes, I confess that I did not emphasize this important point clearly enough.  The battle with concupiscence is fierce.  Even the holiest saints can still recognize the pull of concupiscence within them.  Yet, as John Paul II insisted, we “cannot stop at casting the ‘heart’ into a state of continual and irreversible suspicion due to the manifestations of the concupiscence of the flesh…  Redemption is a truth, a reality, in the name of which man must feel himself called, and ‘called with effectiveness’” (TOB 46:4).

Many people seem to doubt this “effectiveness” and thus conclude that the freedom I hold out is beyond the realm of man’s possibilities.  From one perspective, these critics are correct.  “But what are the ‘concrete possibilities of man’?” John Paul II asks.  “And of which man are we speaking?  Of man dominated by lust or of man redeemed by Christ?” (Veritatis Splendor 103). For those dominated by lust, what I hold out is impossible.  But those who enter the “effectiveness” of redemption discover “another vision of man’s possibilities” (TOB 46:6).

The Cry of the New Evangelization

I humbly invite all those who question what I teach about liberation from concupiscence to take a closer look at the teaching of John Paul II on the matter (see especially TOB 43:6, 45:3, 46:4, 46:6, 47:5, 48:1, 48:4, 49:4, 49:6, 58:7, 86:6-7, 101:3-5, 107:1-3, 128:3, 129:5).  It is a point of utmost importance.  Indeed, in a very real way, debates about what we are capable of in the battle with concupiscence take us to the crux of the Gospel itself.  “This is what is at stake,” John Paul II maintained, “the reality of Christ’s redemption.  Christ has redeemed us! This means he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence” (Veritatis Splendor 103).

Oh, what a powerful proclamation!  If we listen carefully to it, it seems we can almost sense John Paul II’s participation in the potency with which Christ proclaimed the words of the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, … to comfort all who mourn, … to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair” (Isaiah 61: 1-3; see also Lk 4:18-19).  John Paul II, it seems, was precisely the herald “anointed by the Lord” to bring the good news of liberation to our sexually enslaved world.  Let all who are thirsty come – come and drink the water of life (see Rev 22:17).

What is the alternative to an effective sexual redemption?  If man remains bound by his lusts, is he even capable of loving with a pure heart?  Marriage, in this view, comes to be seen and lived as a “legitimate outlet” for indulging our disordered desires and the celibate life comes to be seen and lived as a life of hopeless repression.  And we end up “holding the form of religion” while “denying the power of it” (2 Tim 3:5).  “Ne evacuetur Crux!” — John Paul II exclaims, “Do not empty the Cross of its power!” (see 1 Cor 1:17).  “This,” he said, “is the cry of the new evangelization.”  For “if the cross of Christ is emptied of its power, man no longer has roots, he no longer has prospects: he is destroyed” (Orientale Lumen 3).

Mature Purity

The teaching of John Paul II is clear: liberation from concupiscence — or, more precisely, from the domination of concupiscence (John Paul II used both expressions) — is not only a possibility, it is a necessity if we are to live our lives “in the truth” and experience the divine plan for human love (see TOB 43:6, 47:5).  Indeed, Christian sexual ethos “is always linked . . . with the liberation of the heart from concupiscence” (TOB 43:6).  And this liberation is just as essential for consecrated celibates and single people as it is for married couples (see TOB 77:4).

It is precisely this liberation that allows us to discover what John Paul II called “mature purity.”  In mature purity “man enjoys the fruits of victory over concupiscence” (TOB 58:7).  This victory is gradual and certainly remains fragile here on earth, but it is nonetheless real.  For those graced with its fruits, a whole new world opens up — another way of seeing, thinking, living, talking, loving, praying.  But to those who cannot imagine freedom from concupiscence, such a way of seeing, living, talking, loving, and praying not only seems unusual – but improper, imprudent, dangerous, or even perverse.

Why, we should ask ourselves, does such a cloud of negativity and suspicion seem to hover over the realm of sexuality?  The distortions of sin are, of course, very real.  But through the grace of redemption, can our sexuality not become in our practical, lived experience the realm of the sacramental and the holy?  Can it not become the realm of a truly sacred conversation?  “To the pure all things are pure,” St. Paul said (Titus 1:15).  But to those bound by lust, even the pure seems impure.  Oh, how tragic when we label as ugly that which is beautiful!

Some people say the redemption of the body is something reserved only for the resurrection at the end of time.  While it is certainly true that the fullness of our redemption awaits us only in the final resurrection, John Paul II insists that the “‘redemption of the body’ …expresses itself not only in the resurrection as victory over death.  It is present also in the words of Christ addressed to ‘historical’ man … [when] Christ invites us to overcome concupiscence, even in the exclusively inner movements of the human heart” (TOB 86:6).

And here we enter the tension of what theologians call the “already – but not yet” of redemption.  The not yet aspect means we must be cognizant of the many distortions of our fallen nature and the ease with which we can be lured into temptations.  The already aspect means there is also a power at work within us which is able to do “far more than we ever think or imagine,” as St. Paul said (see Eph 3:20).  Both truths must be held together.

When it comes to questions of sexuality, it seems that many teachers and spiritual advisors focus almost exclusively on the not yet.  We can hear so much about the “dangers” of sexuality that we conclude there is no escape from the ever present risk of sin.  John Paul II is very critical of this kind of “determinism in the sexual sphere,” as he called it in a pre-papal essay.  Such determinism tends “to limit the possibility of virtue and magnify the ‘necessity of sin’ in this sphere.”  John Paul II’s approach, however, entails “the opposite tendency,” as he himself wrote.  It upholds “the possibility of virtue, based on self-control and sublimation [which means to raise up, make sublime]” (“The Problem of Catholic Sexual Ethics,” Person and Community, p. 286).

The Journey of the Interior Life

Virtue, however, in the full Christian sense of the term, is only possible as we journey through the “purgative” way of the interior life and into what the mystical tradition calls the “illuminative” and “unitive” ways.  It is here, in these further stages of the journey, that we discover “mature purity.”  In the purgative stage, purity basically means “avoiding the occasion of sin” by “gaining custody of the eyes.”  This is a very important step on the journey.  But it is an essentially “negative” step, John Paul II says, in as much as it involves learning how to say no to lustful passions and learning how to abstain from unchastity.  John Paul II, in keeping with the authentic tradition of the Church, teaches that there is much more to the virtue of purity than this.

In the language of St. Thomas Aquinas, a person who can successfully restrain himself from sin is “continent” but not yet virtuous.  Continence falls short of virtue since virtue presupposes a right desire, and this is lacking in the continent person (see Summa, Prima Secundae, q. 58, a. 3, ad 2).  As the Catechism observes, “The perfection of the moral good consists in man’s being moved to the good not only by his will but also by his ‘heart’” and even “by his sensitive appetite” (CCC 1770, 1775).   Human virtues do not suppress or tyrannize our passions.  They “order our passions… They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life” (CCC 1804).

“The task of purity,” as John Paul II observed, “is not only (and not so much) abstaining from ‘unchastity’ and from … ‘lustful passions’.”  In the illuminative and unitive stages of the journey, we discover “another function of the virtue of purity… another dimension — one could say — that is more positive than negative” (TOB 54:3).  In this “positive” dimension, we come to experience “a singular ability to perceive, love, and realize those meanings of the ‘language of the body’ that remain completely unknown to concupiscence itself” (TOB 128:3).  We “come to an ever greater awareness of the gratuitous beauty of the human body, of masculinity and femininity” in such a way, John Paul II wrote, that other people “not only regain their true light… but, so to speak, they lead us to God himself” (Memory and Identity, p. 30).

This is “the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21) to which Christ invites us all.  Admittedly, it is a very different vision than that with which many Catholics are familiar.  Perhaps it’s simply that “unfamiliarity” that causes some to doubt its authenticity.  For those who have been formed to think primarily in terms of the “dangers” of sexuality and the “constant risk of sin,” I invite you to meditate prayerfully on the following hope-filled words of John Paul II.  Of course, they refer not only to the sexual sphere, but are certainly inclusive of that sphere, as he indicates.

With the passage of time, if we persevere in following Christ our Teacher, we feel less and less burdened by the struggle against sin, and we enjoy more and more the divine light which pervades all creation.  This is most important, because it allows us to escape from a situation of constant inner exposure to the risk of sin – even though, on this earth, the risk always remains present to some degree – so as to move with ever greater freedom within the whole created world.  This same freedom and simplicity characterizes our relations with other human beings, including those of the opposite sex… Christ, supreme Teacher of the spiritual life, together with all those who have been formed in his school, teaches that even in this life we can enter onto the path of union with God… [This union allows us to] find God in everything, we can commune with him in and through all things.  Created things cease to be a danger for us as once they were, particularly while we were still at the purgative stage of our journey (Memory and Identity, pp. 29-30).

In Conclusion

One of the most common responses I receive when I present this beautifully challenging and hopeful vision of human life and sexuality is this: I’ve been a Catholic my whole life – why haven’t I ever heard this!? The truth of the matter is that it is rarely taught, a fact that only underscores the urgency of sharing this vision with the world.  But we cannot give what we do not have.  As Pope Paul VI said in his apostolic exhortation on evangelization, “The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself” (Evangelii Nuntiandi 15).

The fundamental message of the TOB is nothing new.  In essence, it’s what the saints and mystics have been telling us for centuries about the “great mystery” of Christ’s infinite love for his Bride, the Church.  Yet John Paul II has penetrated that same Mystery with new clarity, new insight, new depth — giving us a new language with which to reach the modern world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Still, relatively few in the Church know enough about John Paul II’s “new language” to employ it in their efforts to communicate the faith.  It is my hope that the Nightline interview and the spirited debate it triggered will spur us all on as Catholics to study the TOB more intently, “receive” its contents more deeply, and share its liberating message more effectively.

I encourage those who find John Paul II’s text difficult to turn to those teachers and authors whose approach you find most helpful in making it accessible.  There are so many fine books and resources now available on the TOB, all with valuable contributions to make.  I certainly do not claim to be the definitive voice on the subject.  Thank God that there are different people and organizations doing this important work!  For the approach of others will reach people I never will, just as my approach will reach people theirs never will.  What is important is that we make a concerted effort to reach people.  The world is starved for the banquet presented in our late Pope’s teaching.  Woe to us if we do not take it up, make it our own, and share it with the world.

Mary, star of the New Evangelization, pray for us!

Part of Mary’s message in Fatima was that "Russia would spread her errors throughout the world." However, "In the end," she said, "my Immaculate Heart will triumph." When we hear of the errors of Russia, we rightly think of the spread of communism. But communism has roots that go deeper than Marxist economic theory.

As most of us learned in school, Marx considered class struggle to be the defining factor of history. But digging deeper, Marx also believed that the fundamental "class struggle" was found in monogamous marriage and, indeed, in the sexual difference itself. "The first division of labor," Marx co-wrote with Friedrich Engels, "is that between man and woman for the propagation of children." In turn, Engels affirmed that Marxist theory "demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society" (see The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State ).

It seems the deeper revolution — and, I would contend, the deeper "error of Russia" — is the one aimed at destroying marriage and the family. Indeed, those who seek to deconstruct sexuality in the modern world often draw straight from Marx. As feminist author Shulamith Firestone wrote in The Dialectic of Sex : "Just as the end goal of socialist revolution was … the elimination of the … economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be … the elimination of … the sex distinction itself [so that] genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally." Welcome to the deep-seated sexual confusion in which we’re now immersed.

But here’s the good news: Just as John Paul II’s vision of the human person inaugurated a new kind of revolution that led to the fall of communism, his TOB has also inaugurated a new kind of revolution that will, I believe, lead to the collapse of the dominant sexual ideology.

In his book The Last Secret of Fatima , Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone wrote: "The Communist system seemed invincible, and it looked as if it were going to endure for centuries. But then the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards." Perhaps we can expect the same with the deeper "error of Russia." Indeed, in the Book of Revelation, the "whore of Babylon" — that mysterious feminine figure who mocks the Bride of the Lamb — is brought to ruin in "one hour." And as she collapses, all the merchants who "gained their wealth from her" (think the porn industry, Planned Parenthood, etc.) "weep and mourn" (Rv 18).

And then comes the triumph of the New Jerusalem, the Bride who has "made herself ready" for her Bridegroom. She is dressed in "fine linen, bright and immaculate " (Rv 19:7-8). She is "clothed with the sun" (Rv 12:1). This radiant Bride, of course, is personified in Mary. "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph." What does this mean? In short, it means that purity of heart will triumph. Somehow the pornographic lies will be redeemed . All of "Babylon’s" distortions will be untwisted and we will come to see the human body as it really is — as a glorious sign of "the mystery hidden from eternity in God" (TOB 19:4).

By showing us the path to authentic purity (never to be confused with puritanism or prudishness!), John Paul II’s TOB paves the way for Mary’s triumph. Is it a coincidence that John Paul began writing his TOB on the feast of the Immaculate Conception? Is it a coincidence that he devoted the entire work to "Mary, all beautiful?" Is it a coincidence that she saved his life on the memorial of Fatima so that his teaching could reach the world?

Let us pray for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart. It may be closer than we realize. Already in 1994, John Paul wrote that Mary’s words spoken in Fatima "seem to be close to their fulfillment" (Crossing the Threshold of Hope , p. 221). Let it be, Lord, according to your word.

As most Catholics know, between May 13 and Oct. 13, 1917, Mary appeared to three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal delivering a three-part message — the “three secrets” of Fatima, as they’ve come to be known. The first secret presented a horrifying vision of hell. The second involved a prophecy of World War II and the warning that “Russia would spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church.” However, Mary assured the children, “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

Mary also told the children that “the Holy Father will have much to suffer.” This brings us to the “third secret” of Fatima, which was not publicly revealed until the year 2000. In 1917, the children saw a vision of bullets and arrows fired at “a bishop dressed in white.” Sixty-four years later, while driving through the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, a “bishop dressed in white” was gunned down by Turkish assassin Ali Agca … on the memorial of Our Lady of Fatima: May 13, 1981.

Many years, later John Paul II reflected: “Agca knew how to shoot, and he certainly shot to kill. Yet it was as if someone was guiding and deflecting that bullet.” That “someone,” John Paul believed, was the Woman of Fatima. “Could I forget that the event in St. Peter’s Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ … has been remembered … at Fatima in Portugal? For in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet” (“Memory and Identity,” pp. 159, 163).

The fact that John Paul was shot on the memorial of Fatima is well known. What few people know is that the pope was planning to announce the establishment of his Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family on that fateful afternoon. This was to be his main arm for disseminating his teaching on man, woman, marriage and sexual love around the globe. Could it be that there were forces at work that didn’t want John Paul II’s teaching to spread around the world? (In fact, by May 13, 1981, John Paul II was only about half way through delivering the 129 addresses of his TOB. Had he died, obviously, the full teaching never would have been presented.) And could it be that, by saving his life, the Woman of Fatima was pointing to the importance of his teaching reaching the world?

It would be over a year later that John Paul officially established his Institute (of which I’m a proud graduate). On that day, Oct. 7, 1982 — not coincidentally the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary — John Paul II entrusted the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family to the care and protection of Our Lady of Fatima. By doing so, it seems he himself was drawing a connection, at least indirectly, between his miraculous survival and the importance of the Theology of the Body.

Digging deeper, the precise link, I believe, between John Paul II’s TOB and Fatima lies in Mary’s mysterious words about the “errors of Russia” and the promised “triumph” of her Immaculate Heart. John Paul II’s TOB is like weedkiller applied to the deepest roots of the “errors of Russia” that have spread throughout the world. As such, the spread of the TOB throughout the world is a sign, I believe, that Mary is preparing us for her triumph.

But what does it mean to speak of “the triumph of the Immaculate Heart?” What are the “errors of Russia” and how does John Paul II’s TOB combat them? We’ll explore these questions in the next column.

Last Fall, movie star Brad Pitt made headlines when he donated $100,000 to fight Proposition 8 in California. The proposition sought to protect the definition of marriage as the life-long union of one man and one woman. Mr. Pitt’s public statement typifies the sentiments I want to respond to here: “Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.”

Who wants to deny people their rights? Who is for discrimination and inequality? It seems Brad Pitt has everything on his side. But let’s apply some critical thinking to his statement and see where it takes us. Admittedly, I will raise more questions than I will be able to answer in this short article. Still, I would argue that these are the questions that must be raised if we are to get to the heart of the matter.

No one has the right to deny another person his or her life, even though one might disagree with it. I assume Mr. Pitt is referring to denying a person his or her “way of life.” Actually, courts do this all the time. In fact, that’s what courts exist to do. Courts exist to uphold and defend a “way of life” that serves the common good and to dissuade us from any “way of life” that does not. The question at hand, then, is this: Is redefining marriage in accord with the common good? If not, the courts have an obligation to uphold the traditional definition of marriage and to dissuade us from any contrary “way of life.”

Everyone has the right to live the life he or she so desires if it doesn’t harm another. No reasonable person would agree to this statement without the disclaimer “if it doesn’t harm another.” The question then becomes: Is the homosexual “way of life” harmful? Brad Pitt simply takes for granted the widespread idea that it is not, and expects us to do the same. But the question remains: Is the homosexual way of life harmful? Courageous people need to ask this question and let the data — all the data — speak.

Discrimination has no place in America. Discrimination has become one of those buzz-words that is “indiscriminately” linked with injustice. It seems we have forgotten that there is such a thing as just discrimination. We “discriminate” — that is, we distinguish and discern by recognizing differences — all the time, and must do so. Discrimination is unjust when the difference recognized has no bearing on the matter at hand. Discrimination is just — and required — when the difference matters.

For example, it is unjust discrimination for the state to deny blind people the right to vote. It is just discrimination for the state to deny blind people driver’s licenses (there is no universal “right” to drive a car; one must qualify). It is unjust discrimination for the state to say a woman can’t enter the town hall. It is just discrimination for the state to say a woman can’t enter the men’s locker room at the local gym.

So, is denying marriage to those of the same sex just or unjust discrimination? The question at hand is this: Does the sexual difference have any real bearing on marriage? If it does not, any state denying marriage to those of the same sex would be drawing meaningless distinctions. But if the sexual difference is intrinsic to what marriage is, then we are dealing with just discrimination.

Finally, Brad Pitt implies that if one is “for equality” he must stand against those who see marriage only as the union of one man and one woman. Who in his right mind is opposed to equality? But what does Mr. Pitt mean by “equality”? Does equality mean a bland sameness? Is there no place for meaningful distinctions? I’d say Brad is using the word “equality” indiscriminately.

At the root of all of this societal confusion about marriage — what it is and what it isn’t — lies a deep-seated sexual confusion. We don’t know what the sexual difference means . We don’t know what it is for. We don’t know why we exist as male and female. Even good Catholics who want to stand up for the traditional definition of marriage often don’t know how to engage in meaningful conversation about the issue. So we end up looking foolish, bigoted, antiquated.

For such a time as this we have been given Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. This gloriously redeeming vision of the human person, human love, and human sexuality has been called John Paul II’s “masterwork,” a “theological time bomb,” and “the certain cure for the cancer that is eating away at our culture.”

But “having” the cure is not sufficient. We must inject it into our blood-stream in order for it to take effect. So take up a study of this revolutionary Theology of the Body. Inject it into your blood stream. Then share this cure with everyone you know and we will not fall short of renewing the face of the earth.

All of these questions are now on the table in our culture. They cannot be properly answered unless we know what marriage is. As Catholics, we have an incredibly rich body of teaching to draw from in order to understand the meaning and purpose of marriage. Let’s begin with a basic definition drawn from Canon Law and the Second Vatican Council. Then we’ll look at each of its parts.

Marriage is the intimate, exclusive, indissoluble communion of life and love entered by man and woman at the design of the Creator for the purpose of their own good and the procreation and education of children; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

Intimate communion of life and love: Marriage is the closest and most intimate of human friendships. It involves the sharing of the whole of a person’s life with his/her spouse. Marriage calls for a mutual self-surrender so intimate and complete that spouses — without losing their individuality — become “one,” not only in body, but in soul.

Exclusive communion of life and love: As a mutual gift of two persons to each other, this intimate union excludes such union with anyone else. It demands the total fidelity of the spouses. This exclusivity is essential for the good of the couple’s children as well.

Indissoluble communion of life and love: Husband and wife are not joined by passing emotion or mere erotic inclination which, selfishly pursued, fades quickly away. They are joined in authentic conjugal love by the firm and irrevocable act of their own will. Once their mutual consent has been consummated by genital intercourse, an unbreakable bond is established between the spouses. For the baptized, this bond is sealed by the Holy Spirit and becomes absolutely indissoluble. Thus, the Church does not so much teach that divorce is wrong, but that divorce is impossible, regardless of its civil implications.

Entered by man and woman: The complementarity of the sexes is essential to marriage. It’s not that two men (or two women) could marry, but the Church won’t “let them.” If we understand what marriage is, we will see very clearly that it is impossible for members of the same sex to marry.

At the design of the Creator: God is the author of marriage. He inscribed the call to marriage in our very being by creating us as male and female. We, therefore, are not able to change the nature and purposes of marriage.

For the purpose of their own good: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen 2:18). Conversely, it’s for their own good, for their benefit, enrichment, and ultimately their salvation, that a man and woman join their lives in marriage.

Procreation and education of children: Children are not added on to marriage and conjugal love, but spring from the very heart of the spouses’ mutual self-giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. Intentional exclusion of children, then, contradicts the very nature and purpose of marriage.

Covenant: While marriage involves a legal contract, a covenant goes beyond the minimum rights and responsibilities guaranteed by a contract. A covenant calls the spouses to share in the free total, faithful, and fruitful love of God. For it is God who, in the image of His own Covenant with His people, joins the spouses in a more binding and sacred way than any human contract.

The dignity of a sacrament: Marriage between baptized persons is an efficacious sign of the union between Christ and the Church, and, as such, is a means of grace. That is, marriage — in as much as the union of man and woman truly symbolizes Christ’s love for the Church — really communicates Christ’s love to the spouses and, through them, to the whole world.

We must find ways to respond charitably and forthrightly to the challenges posed by the modern move to redefine marriage. We will explore ways to do that in part III of this series.

What happens to a society when it fails to understand what marriage is? Songs often pop into my head when I’m trying to make a point, and right now I’m hearing R.E.M.: “It’s the end of the world as we know it …” (together, everyone shout: “Leonard Bernstein!”).

Okay, I’ve returned from my 80′s flashback. In all seriousness, redefine marriage and you redefine civilization at its root. What is the root of civilization? Pope John Paul II put it this way: “[The] shared life of men and women … makes up the pure and simple guiding thread of existence. Human life is by its nature ‘co-educational’ and its dignity as well as its balance depend at every moment of history and in every place of geographical longitude and latitude on ‘who’ she shall be for him and he for her” (TOB 43:7).

The sexual relationship — and by that I mean the relationship of man to woman and woman to man, the relationship between the sexes — is the foundation stone of life itself. All human relationships are the fruit of this root. This is why John Paul wrote elsewhere that it’s “an illusion to think we can build a true culture of human life if we do not … accept and experience sexuality and love and the whole of life according to their true meaning and their close inter-connection” (Gospel of Life 97).

Let’s try to bring this into sharper focus. To put it more bluntly, at the root of civilization is the civilize-ation of the sexual urge. The sexual urge is one of the most potent forces on the planet. When properly oriented, it builds up and edifies. When disoriented, it tears down and destroys. In other words, when this root is “civilized,” the fruit is “civilization” — well ordered human relationships working together for the common good. But when this root (the sexual urge) is not properly civilized, well … I’m hearing R.E.M. again in my head.

What does it mean to “civilize” the sexual urge? Among other definitions of the word, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) says that one is civil who shows “high-minded and self-sacrificing behavior.” One is civil who shows “courteous attentiveness, especially to women.” And — I’m not making this up — one is civil who observes “the forms required by good breeding.”

Throughout the ages, in virtually every culture known to man, the relationship that results from the proper civilize-ation of the sexual urge has been called marriage. So, when we ask the question “What is marriage?” we should ask ourselves: What form of human relationship most civil-izes the sexual urge? In other words, what kind of sexually active relationships show “high-minded and self-sacrificing behavior”? What kind of sexually active relationships show “courteous attentiveness, especially to women”? What kind of sexually active relationships observe “the forms required by good breeding”?

The following questions are not “politically correct,” but with society’s incessant push for the acceptance of homosexuality as a “normal” lifestyle, they must be asked. Does sodomy civilize the sexual urge? Does it build up or destroy? Does it serve the common good? Can a man marry a man? Can a woman marry a woman?

We must also ask: Can a man simultaneously marry several women, or a woman several men? Can a man simultaneously marry several men, or a woman several women? Can a man marry his sister or his mother? His brother or his father? Can a woman marry her brother or father? Her sister or mother? Can humans marry animals?

All of these questions are now on the table in our culture. They cannot be properly answered unless we first know what marriage is. As Catholics, we have an incredibly rich body of teaching to draw from in order to understand the nature, meaning, and purpose of marriage. We’ll begin unfolding that teaching in the next article.

Christopher West is a research fellow and faculty member of the Theology of the Body Institute near Philadelphia. He is the presenter and author of the newly released: An Introduction to the Theology of the Body. This 8-part series, and its follow-up, Into the Heart (16-part series) are brand new studies designed to give you the tools you need to integrate the Theology of the Body into your daily life. To learn more, click here.

One of the main objections to Humanae Vitae is that following its teaching (that is, practicing abstinence when avoiding pregnancy) impedes couples from expressing their love for one another. But of what “love” are we speaking: authentic conjugal love that images God, or its perennial counterfeit — lust?

God is the one who united marital love and procreation. Therefore, since God cannot contradict himself, as Vatican II taught, a “true contradiction cannot exist between the divine laws pertaining to the transmission of life and those pertaining to the fostering of authentic conjugal love” (Gaudium et Spes 51). It may well be difficult to follow the teaching of Humanae Vitae, but it could never be a contradiction of love.

Following the Church’s teaching is difficult because of the internal battle we all experience between love and lust. Lust impels us, and impels us very powerfully, towards sexual intercourse. But if sexual intimacy results from nothing more than lust, it’s not love. On the contrary, it’s a negation of love. Love is being ready to sacrifice oneself entirely for the good of the beloved, and for the good of the offspring that might result. Lust seeks the pleasure and sensation of the sexual act, but without the sincere gift of oneself.

If one is unprepared to receive a child, the only responsible choice is to abstain from that act that leads to a child. And as any married couple knows, abstaining from sex can be a profound act of love. In fact, there are many occasions in married life when a couple might want to engage in sexual intercourse, but have a serious reason to abstain. Maybe one of the spouses is sick. Maybe it’s after childbirth. Maybe they’re at the in-laws and there are thin walls. If a couple can’t abstain in these situations, their love is actually called into question. It’s the same thing with needing to avoid a pregnancy. If the couple cannot abstain, their love is called into question.

What purpose does contraception really serve anyway? This might sound odd at first, but let it sink in. Contraception was not invented to prevent pregnancy. We already had a 100% safe, 100% reliable way of doing that — abstinence. In the final analysis, contraception serves one purpose: to spare us the difficulty we experience when confronted with the choice of abstinence. When all the smoke is cleared, contraception was invented because of our lack of self-control; in other words, contraception was invented to serve the indulgence of lust.

Why do we spay or neuter our dogs and cats? Why don’t we just ask them to abstain? If we spay and neuter ourselves with contraception, we’re reducing the “great mystery” of the one flesh union to the level of Fido and Fidette in heat. What distinguished us from the animals in the first place? Freedom! God gave us freedom as the capacity to love. Contraception negates this freedom. It says, “I can’t abstain.” Hence, contracepted intercourse not only attacks the procreative meaning of sex, as John Paul II observed, “it also ceases to be an act of love” (TOB 123:6).

If you can’t say no to sex, what does your “yes” mean? Only the person who is free with the freedom for which Christ set us free (see Gal 5:1) is capable of authentic love. Authentic love, as the Catechism observes, requires “an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy” (CCC 2339).

This is what is at stake in the prophetic teaching of Humanae Vitae: man’s true peace and happiness. I’m convinced that the teaching of Humanae Vitae — which is still being rejected in the name of sexual “liberation” — will one day be vindicated as the only path to authentic sexual freedom: the freedom to love.

[Editor's note: Please enjoy regular features from this and other enlightening authors discussing Catholic teaching on sexuality in CE's Theology of the Body channel.]

This column first appeared as part of Christopher West’s Body Language series for the Catholic press (www.christopherwest.com).

So, does fidelity to the wedding vows imply that couples are to leave the number of children they have entirely to “chance”? No. In calling couples to a responsible love, the Church calls them also to a responsible parenthood.

Pope Paul VI stated clearly that those are considered “to exercise responsible parenthood who prudently and generously decide to have a large family, or who, for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law, choose to have no more children for the time being or even for an indeterminate period” (HV 10). Notice that large families should result from prudent reflection, not “chance.” Notice too that couples must have “serious reasons” to avoid pregnancy and must respect the moral law.

Assuming a couple have a serious reason to avoid a child (this could be financial, physical, psychological, etc.), what could they do that would not violate the consummate expression of their sacrament? In other words, what could they do to avoid conceiving a child that would not render them unfaithful to their wedding vows? You’re doing it right now (I presume). They could abstain from sex. There is nothing wrong with abstaining from sex when there’s a good reason to do so. The Church has always recognized that the only method of “birth control” that respects the language of divine love is “self-control.”

A further question arises: Would a couple be doing anything to falsify their sexual union if they embraced during a time of natural infertility? Take, for example, a couple past childbearing years. They know their union will not result in a child. Are they violating their vows if they engage in intercourse with this knowledge? Are they contracepting? No. Contraception, by definition, is the choice to engage in an act of intercourse, but then do something else to render it sterile. This can be done by using various devices, hormones, surgical procedures, and the age-old method of withdrawal.

Couples who use natural family planning (NFP) when they have a just reason to avoid pregnancy never render their sexual acts sterile; they never contracept. They track their fertility, abstain when they are fertile and, if they so desire, embrace when they are naturally infertile. Readers unfamiliar with modern NFP methods should note that they are 98-99% effective at avoiding pregnancy when used properly. Furthermore, any woman, regardless of the regularity of her cycles, can use NFP successfully. This is not your grandmother’s “rhythm method.”

To some people this seems like splitting hairs. “What’s the big difference,” they ask, “between rendering the union sterile yourself and just waiting until it’s naturally infertile? The end result is the same: both couples avoid children.” To which I respond, what’s the big difference between killing Grandma and just waiting until she dies naturally? End result’s the same thing: dead Grandma. Yes, but one is a serious sin called murder, and the other is an act of God.

If a person can tell the difference between euthanasia and natural death, he can tell the difference between contraception and NFP. It’s the same difference. I’m not equating contraception and murder. That’s not the analogy. Rather, Grandma’s natural death and a woman’s natural period of infertility are both acts of God. But in killing Grandma or in rendering sex sterile, we take the powers of life into our own hands — just like the deceiver originally tempted us to do — and make ourselves like God (see Gn 3:5).

This is why Pope John Paul II concludes that contraception “is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God” (address Oct. 10, 1983).

If you have resisted the Church’s teaching on contraception, maybe it’s time to give it some more thought.

[Editor's note: Please enjoy regular features from this and other enlightening authors discussing Catholic teaching on sexuality in CE's Theology of the Body channel.]

This column first appeared as part of Christopher West’s Body Language series for the Catholic press (www.christopherwest.com).

I ended my last column by asking: How healthy would a marriage be if spouses were regularly unfaithful to their wedding vows? On the other hand, how healthy would a marriage be if spouses regularly renewed their vows with an ever increasing commitment to them? Then I stated, if you’d prefer the latter type of marriage, you have just accepted the teaching of Humanae Vitae.

This is what is at stake: fidelity to the wedding vows; fidelity to love. At the altar, the priest or deacon asks the couple: “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? Do you promise to be faithful until death? Do you promise to receive children lovingly from God?” The bride and groom each say “yes.”
In turn, spouses are meant to express this same “yes” with the “language of their bodies” whenever they become one flesh. Sexual intercourse, then, is where the words of the wedding vows become flesh. Or, at least, it’s meant to be.

Everything the Church teaches about sex begins to make sense when viewed through this lens. The Church’s teaching is not a prudish list of prohibitions. It’s a call to embrace our own “greatness,” our own God-given dignity. It’s a call to live the love we so ardently desire. It’s a call to embrace divine love and share it with one’s spouse bodily.

John Paul II goes so far as to describe the body and sexual union as “prophetic.” A prophet is someone who speaks for God, who proclaims his mystery of love. This is what the marital embrace is meant to proclaim. But, as the Pope adds, we must be careful to distinguish true and false prophets (see TOB 106:4). If we can speak the truth with our bodies, we can also speak lies.

As a sacrament, marriage not only signifies God’s life and love, it really participates in God’s life and love. However, for sacraments to convey God’s life and love, the physical sign must accurately signify the spiritual reality. For example, through the physical sign of cleansing with water, baptism truly brings about a spiritual cleansing from sin. But if you were to baptize someone with mud or tar, no spiritual cleansing would take place because the physical sign is now one of making dirty. This would actually be a counter-sign or an “anti-sacrament.”

All of married life is meant to be a sign of God’s life and love. But nowhere do spouses signify this more profoundly than when they become “one flesh.” Here, like no other moment in married life, spouses are called to participate in God’s life and love. But this will only happen if their sexual union accurately signifies God’s love. Therefore, as John Paul II concludes, we can speak of moral good and evil in the sexual relationship based on whether the couple gives to their union “the character of a truthful sign” (TOB 37:6).

Insert contraception into the language of the body and (knowingly or unknowingly) the couple engages in a counter-sign of God’s mystery, a kind of “anti-sacrament.” Rather than proclaiming, “God is life-giving love,” the language of contracepted intercourse says, “God is not life-giving love.” In this way spouses (knowingly or unknowingly) become “false prophets.” They blaspheme. Their bodies still proclaim theology, but not Christian theology; not a theology of the God who reveals himself as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. Contracepted sex, whether we realize this or not, attacks our creation in the image of the Trinity at its roots. From this perspective we can see that contraception is actually a sly betrayal of the deepest truth of our humanity.

The language of the body has “clear-cut meanings” all of which are “programmed,” John Paul II observes, in the vows. For example, to “the question: ‘Are you ready to accept children lovingly from God …?’ the man and the woman answer, ‘Yes’” (TOB 105:6, 106:3). If spouses say “yes” at the altar, but then render their union sterile, wouldn’t they be lying with their bodies? Wouldn’t they be speaking against their vows?

Why, then, does the Church accept the practice of natural family planning? We’ll see in the next column.

[Editor's note: Please enjoy regular features from this and other enlightening authors discussing Catholic teaching on sexuality in CE's Theology of the Body channel.]

This column first appeared as part of Christopher West’s Body Language series for the Catholic press (http://www.christopherwest.com).

Last time we observed that contracepted intercourse marks a determined “closing off” of the sexual act to the Holy Spirit, to the “Lord and Giver of Life.” In this way, as John Paul II expressed it, contraception falsifies “the language of the body.”

We all know that the body has a “language.” A wave of the hand says “hello” or “goodbye.” A shrug of the shoulders says, “I don’t know.” A raised fist expresses anger. What is sexual intercourse meant to express? What is its true language, its true meaning?

According to Scripture, the sexual embrace is meant to express divine love. Precisely here, in the consummation of their sacrament, spouses are meant to participate in the “great mystery” of divine love. Whether spouses realize this or not, this is the sacramental power of their love. It’s meant to be an image and a real participation in Christ’s love for the Church (see Eph 5:31-32).

As John Paul II candidly expressed, “Through gestures and reactions, through the whole … dynamism of tension and enjoyment — whose direct source is the body in its masculinity and femininity, the body in its action and interaction — through all this man, the person, ‘speaks.’ … Precisely on the level of this ‘language of the body’ … man and woman reciprocally express themselves in the fullest and most profound way made possible for them by … their masculinity and femininity” (TOB 123:4).

But if sexual love is meant to express Christ’s love, we must properly understand the “language” of this love. Christ gives his body freely (“No one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord” -Jn 10:18). He gives his body totally — without reservation, condition, or selfish calculation (“He loved them to the last” -Jn 13:1). He gives his body faithfully (“I am with you always” -Mt 28:20). And he gives his body fruitfully (“I came that they may have life” -Jn 10:10).

If men and women are to avoid the pitfalls of counterfeit love, their union must express the same free, total, faithful, fruitful love that Christ expresses. Of course, as fallen human beings, we’ll never express Christ’s love perfectly. Even so, we must commit ourselves to the life-long journey of learning how to express this love and, at a minimum, never willfully act against it. The name for this commitment is marriage.

This is precisely what a bride and groom consent to at the altar. The priest or deacon asks them: “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? Do you promise to be faithful until death? Do you promise to receive children lovingly from God?” The bride and groom each say “yes.”

In turn, spouses are meant to express this same “yes” with the “language of their bodies” whenever they become one flesh. “In fact, the words themselves, ‘I take you as my wife/as my husband,’” John Paul II says, “can only be fulfilled by conjugal intercourse.” With conjugal intercourse “we pass to the reality that corresponds to these words” (TOB 103:3).

Intercourse, then, is where the words of the wedding vows become flesh. It’s where men and women are meant to incarnate divine love. It’s a fine thing when a couple returns to the church to renew their vows on a special anniversary, but this shouldn’t undermine the fact that every time a husband and wife have intercourse they’re meant to renew their wedding vows with the “language of their bodies.”

How healthy would a marriage be if spouses were regularly unfaithful to their vows? On the other hand, how healthy would a marriage be if spouses regularly renewed their vows with an ever-increasing commitment to them? If you’d prefer the latter type of marriage, you have just accepted the teaching of Humanae Vitae. In the next column, I’ll unfold why.

[Editor's note: Please enjoy regular features from this and other enlightening authors discussing Catholic teaching on sexuality in CE's Theology of the Body channel.]

This column first appeared as part of Christopher West’s Body Language series for the Catholic press (www.christopherwest.com).