To counter the modern perversion of the human person, Familiaris Consortio confronts the dualistic tendency of our age by “going back to the beginning” and grounding our thinking in the original creative act. The anthropology the pope develops protects the essential dignity of the body and the human person.
Body-Persons
[Editor's Note: This is the second of a two-part series. Part One]
He writes: “In this way sexuality is respected and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension and is never 'used' as an 'object' that, by breaking the personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God's creation itself at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person.”
At issue is the value of the human body and its actions. Precisely because they have transcendent meaning, neither our gender nor our sexual relationships are without consequence. “Sexuality…is by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such.”
This is diametrically opposed to secularism's valuation of the human person and his actions. Love worthy of its name must involve the totality of the person. As Familiaris Consortio states, “Conjugal love involves a totality…. It aims at a deeply personal unity, the unity that, beyond union of one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility.”
The nature of love, the nature of the human person, and the nature of marriage require the total engagement of our human nature and an openness to life. By reiterating these truths, Familiaris Consortio not only explicitly endorses Humanae Vitae, but also provides a cogent theological and psychological defense of it. John Paul II reminds us that the teachings of Humanae Vitae provide the way to engage our sexuality in a fully human manner. “When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman…they act as 'arbiters' of the divine plan and they 'manipulate' and degrade human sexuality-and with it themselves and their married partner-by altering its value of 'total' self-giving.”
Sadly, it's precisely this cogent defense of the teaching of Humanae Vitae that makes Familiaris Consortio such a hard sell in a secular environment.
Male and Female
A second hard sell is the pope's rejection of modern reductionist ideas about gender. Society wants to force a sexless humanity (and the ubiquitous generic “person”) upon us. In contrast, Familiaris Consortio develops the idea of incarnational reality — that is, the belief that the physical can be expressive of a spiritual reality and that these two realities are intrinsically bound to each other. In particular, the body can never be separated from the person. The body itself is expressive of the person and bodily acts affect the person at the most profound level of his being. Secularism's rejection of this connection has left many wounded in their bodies and in their souls. “As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love.”
Fundamental to created human nature is gender; maleness and femaleness are not arbitrary but essential to identity. Any reductionism on this point perverts our conception of the person. As Eric Mascal wrote in Man, Woman, and Priesthood (1978): “We have come to look upon sex in far too superficial a way, as if there were a kind of undifferentiated human nature…. Humanity is, so to speak, essentially binary; it exists only in the two modes of masculinity and femininity, and we can only understand it by studying them.”
This leads the pope to encourage the genuine advancement of both men and women, but never in a reductionist manner. A proper anthropology allows for, values, and protects the similarity and distinctiveness of each gender. He writes, “In creating the human race 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity, endowing them with the inalienable rights and responsibilities proper to the human person.” But this never collapses into a homogenous interchangeability. Only by respecting the uniqueness and irreducibility of maleness and femaleness can we secure the positive and rich dynamic that is at the heart of gender. “All of this does not mean for women a renunciation of their femininity or an imitation of the male role, but the fullness of true feminine humanity which should be expressed in their activity” (emphasis added).
This is the great disease of the modern world: the rejection of the truly feminine. An adequate anthropology would prevent this. Similarly, the nature of maleness is unique, and the pope hints at what this means: “In revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God, a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family” (emphasis added). To lose the language of differentiation is to lose the language of love. Familiaris Consortio reveals that sexuality and acts proper to it are never only biological but are revelatory of both the human person and God's relationship with man: “Sexuality…concerns the innermost being of the human person as such…. Their bond of love becomes the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites God and his people.” To nullify the value of the human body and its gendered specificity is not only to reject reality but also to diminish the way in which God's salvific will is communicated to us. Screwtape himself could not have found a better means of attack.
Family — The Ecclesial Community
The attack isn't only on the individual but on the context that brings the individual into integrated wholeness; it's an attack on the family, which is the most basic and essential of human communities. The family must figure prominently in any authentic anthropology because man is never an isolated individual. As the pope states: “The future of humanity passes by way of the family.” The attack against the family logically proceeds from modernity's embrace of radical individualism, which pits the individual against any communitarian dimension of the person. Familiaris Consortio overcomes these destructive forces by discovering the original purpose and structure of the family. It urges “the rediscovery of the ecclesial mission proper to the family.”
Just as the incarnate soul can discover its purpose and meaning only in its relationship to God, so the communitarian aspect of man, embodied in the family, is only intelligible by its relationship to God's will. “The family finds in the plan of God the Creator and Redeemer not only its identity, what it is, but also its mission…. Family become what you are. Accordingly, the family must go back to the 'beginning' of God's creative act, if it is to attain self-knowledge and self-realization in accordance with the inner truth not only of what it is but also of what it does in history” (emphasis added).
The modern attacks against the family will succeed if the transcendent nature of the family is not fully grasped. If the spiritual dimension of reality is rejected, and if, like the body, the family is merely instrumentalized, then it can and will be distorted and destroyed. But for Familiaris Consortio, this is a falsification of the nature of family. According to the pope, the true interior structure of the family is found in its relationship to the body of Christ, the Church. “The Christian family constitutes a specific revelation and realization of the ecclesial communion, and for this reason too it can and should be called 'the domestic Church.' …But it is through the Cross that the family can attain the fullness of its being and the perfection of its love.”
The family cannot be understood as a social phenomenon subject to manipulation; to understand it thus is to distort its nature. The true purpose of the family lies in its relationship to the Cross and the salvation that was bought there. Indeed, “the Christian family is grafted into the mystery of the Church to such a degree as to become a sharer, in its own way, in the saving mission proper to the Church.” Attacks against the person, whether in terms of the body, gender, or his corporate reality (in the family), are ultimately attacks on the divine plan.
We've been given a mission. Sadly, the secular mind (whether in society or in the Christian community) disregards it because it doesn't fit with the values of the age. The pope's insistence on the authentic value of the body, gender, and family as constituted by God is unacceptable to this mindset. That's why the first call in this apostolic exhortation is to conversion. Familiaris Consortio confronts us with one of the key spiritual struggles of modern times and asks what vision of reality will win out.
So, the question remains: Will we become what we truly are, families created to reflect and participate in the very love of God Himself? And will we love one another totally with a covenantal love, faithful until death, respectful of our fecundity, icons of Christ's own self-sacrificial love?
A difficult mission indeed, but for the grace of God.
Joseph C. Atkinson is assistant professor of Sacred Scripture at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C.
(This article originally appeared in CRISIS Magazine and is used by permission.)
