The Pontifical Council for the Family has issued its Good
News newsletter, “Familia et Vita” which has as its focus, The Family at the
Synod and it includes an interview by Catholic News Agency (CNA) with H.E. Mons.
Jean Laffitte on the Theology of Human Love in 2011 but is well worth reading .
CNA: Blessed Pope John Paul left a significant doctrinal
corpus known as the “Theology of the Body”. This doctrinal corpus has had a
significant impact in the US. From your perspective, how is this development
perceived?
Bishop Laffitte: The doctrinal corpus you are talking about
consists of the 133 catecheses that were pronounced by Pope John Paul II from
1979 to 1984.
These catecheses are very well structured because they start
with a meditation from the Pope, in a philosophical manner, on the nature of
man and woman in their original state.
He talks about original solitude, showing how woman and man
are made one for the other as reflected in the action of creation by God in the
second chapter of Genesis.
The entire catechesis must be seen from the intention of the
Creator, at the beginning. Pope John Paul II first refers to the dialogue that
Christ has with the Pharisees when they asked Jesus, “Don't you know that Moses
gave us a law allowing us to divorce our wives?” To which Jesus said, “Yes he
did, but it was because of your hardened hearts. At the beginning, it was not
so. God created man and woman, and man will leave his father and his mother and
will be united with his wife and both will make one flesh.”
It doesn't say “one person” but one flesh. It means that
both remain two different persons as moral subjects free to choose to act
accordingly to their own nature – man as a man and woman as a woman. So, the
interesting thing is that for the first time in the history of the Church the
Pope, the successor of Peter, pronounced this publicly every Wednesday for five
years ... which means that there is an intention to teach something on the
matter.
Significantly, the corpus of the Catecheses belongs to the
Magisterium of the Church, even though it's not an encyclical or a dogma.
However, it was the intention of John Paul II to teach on this matter as Pope. It
was the first time a reflection of the Church had been made on human love and
on the manner one human person relates to another person in conjugal love, and
a contemplation of the mystery.
We have to keep in mind that the Pope is talking about
mystery – the mystery of creation, the mystery of the beauty of man and woman,
and mystery of the relationship between God and the two human beings, both
created in His image and likeness. And the mystery of what they are naturally. They
are created in their humanity, concretely in their bodies, and their bodies are
different. He made man and woman capable of a particular union, which is so
particular that at the same time it can express the deep feeling and aspiration
to be united to the other person ... To express human love in this highest and
deepest meaning, and at the same time in such a way that it can have as its
result the coming into existence eventually of a new human being, if nature so
allows. That's extraordinary – it means that it's the only possibility in
nature for a new human life to come into existence – through the loving union
between a man and a woman.
So if we contemplate this point, we understand why for the
Church the two mysteries – of union and procreation, love and giving life – are
intrinsically connected and thus cannot be separated. The key to the correct
interpretation of this catechesis on human love is to contemplate its mystery.
We are talking about God's intention – the union of two persons both created in
His Image.
This teaching is not only a general or personal reflection
of the Pope, who happened to have been a philosopher, and a very good and deep
one.
One of the Pope's seminal works Love and Responsibility was
written in 1960, eighteen years before he became Pope. Consequently, the
Catecheses of which we are speaking are in fact the magisterial fruit of a work
that already had reached its maturity in 1960. So, it's a very, very important
doctrinal corpus.
Obviously such contemplation is focused not only on the
creational aspect -- and on the metaphysical, ontological and anthropological
aspects – but the mystery also includes what was God’s providential intention
for the loving union to become.
It should become a sacrament ... Such a loving union should
symbolize and realize in itself an action of God and a union of God Himself,
that being between Christ and the Church.
So, there's a sacramental part to the Catecheses but also an
ethical part, a moral part, because when you are created in such a manner, then
what you are doing in your sexual union with your husband, with your wife, is
so meaningful, so mysterious, so great. Then, of course, the truth of the
matter is that you cannot use this faculty in whatever way you please. The
sexual faculty is something that belongs to nature but also belongs to a human
being who is called to eternity, to an eternity of love with God.
CNA: What do you identify as the blessings of Blessed Pope
John Paul's doctrine on love, the human body and human sexuality?
Bishop Laffitte: The first blessing is that this doctrine
has given people a tool through which to understand their own nature, their own
aspiration to love and to be loved. Pope John Paul II always referred to such
fundamental experiences, which are the deepest in the heart of man.
Among these fundamental experiences are the desire to
contribute to society, to create something in life, to build a family – all of
these things are fundamental experiences we all have in our hearts. But perhaps
the essential one is the desire to love and to be loved. And so, this
development by John Paul II allows everyone to understand himself, who he is or
who she is.
Marriage is the perfect mediation for such experience
because through marriage you discover not only the fulfillment of human and
natural aspiration but also the spiritual. Marriage conveys the grace it gives
you as a sacrament, the grace of God and the dynamism of this love that is not
only human but also is divine.
The blessing is to have answered the question that everybody
has had since childhood or adolescence.
Personally, I can say I've taught for nearly 20 years on this
matter across the continents, in fact in more than 20 countries and in various
languages. Everywhere I go, people have the same questions.
CNA: Do you identify any problems in the manner that Blessed
Pope John Paul's teachings on this issue have been popularized, particularly in
the English-speaking world?
Bishop Laffitte: The question you ask on this topic refers
to the possibility that Pope John Paul II's Catecheses and their wonderful
deepening of human love could be misunderstood or wrongly interpreted by some
individuals unilaterally stressing “my way” or another way.
One of these problems to which you refer – the debates about
which you know in English- speaking countries – concerns the so-called
“Theology of the Body.”
I know that “Theology of the Body” is the title or English
translation of what originally has been called the Catecheses on Human Love.
“Theology of the Body” is not a wrong expression on the
condition of respecting the intention of John Paul II, that he was talking
about human love and not only a partial focus on the body and on sexuality,
being a bodily expression of love. The problem, then, is how best to articulate
the truth of Blessed John Paul II’s teaching on human love. Certainly the body
has a theological dimension, and this dimension involves God's design of human
love and what within the nature of man and woman belongs to the fulfillment of
the design.
If God has created man and woman to be united and to give
human life, the Creator wanted the human being to be His own mediator in the
action of creation – and that's indeed extraordinary. He had directly created
Adam and Eve. He could have done so for everybody else, but God's design was
different. From that moment, in His providential intention, the man and woman
whom God had created would be the future mediators through whom He would
continue to give life to the human race. This is the mystery of sexuality – the expression of a
divine and human love that is both integrated and interpenetrated.
Considering the mystery of human sexuality, it is impossible
to isolate such sexuality or the body from the mystery of nature, to isolate
the creature from the Creator.
The problem is that if you focus only on sexuality, you
cannot develop beyond that level, that such beauty is a gift, something given
to mankind by the Creator but within a much broader context.
Attraction to the beauty of human sexuality and the human
body is normal because it is true and real. What can become a problem, however,
would be to regard human sexuality in a kind of mystical way. Pope John Paul II
embraced no form of mystic sexuality. What the Blessed Pontiff did in fact say
is that sexuality has a mystical perspective and dimension.
It means that the mystery is not only the unity of the body,
but rather it is the union of these bodies that are animated by God and express
a spiritual love, from themselves individually but also from the two in union
together with God.
When Pope John Paul II talks about the body, it is crucial
to understand that we are talking about an animated body, which is the body of
a person.
The union of two persons is thus a personal event, and the
sexual act of two spouses is a spiritual event, a mutual gift ... and not only
a biological event. The desire here is to be united not with just any person,
but with this person in particular: This is my wife, this is my husband. There's
personalization in this dynamic, and it's not interchangeable.
If we develop a mysticism of sexuality, in a reduced meaning
of the word, then we could make the argument of an interchangeable sexuality. And
why not? If sexuality were wonderful only in this aspect – mere intercourse
between a man and a woman – then why should it not be the same for this man and
another woman, and another, and another? No – it's not like that at all. It's a
personal event. Such union is between two persons, one made for the other in
God's Providence.
Personally, I don't agree with contemplation of the sexual
phenomenon without providing the entire context of the mystery of creation, the
mystery of God's calling to experience and to live human love.
The English translation of Blessed John Paul II’s doctrinal
teaching as “Theology of the Body”, while not incorrect in a strict sense, does
not typify the entirety of his Catecheses on human love. The Catecheses were
originally what the Blessed Pope himself chose in 1985 to be the first critical
publication made by the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and
Family in Rome.
The professors of the Institute were charged with introducing
each cycle of the Catecheses with the Pope's original intent, and the title was
not “Teologia del Corpo Umano.” Rather, the title given was Catechesi
sull’Amore Umano.
So, “Theology of the Body” is not wrong. However, if people
have no formation on creation, on God's design, on the anthropology of man and
woman, or on the differentiation of the sexes, they then have no ability to
defend against the gender ideologies rampant in our secular world today. If you
talk only about sexuality, then there eventually will be no problem, for
instance, with homosexual intercourse as an expression of affection and love
and as a person's desire to offer his own love to the other. And what could be
said to that? Nothing, if we're not capable of relating the mystery of love
according to God's design.
We are Christian, and thus it's our obligation not to keep
quiet concerning the role of God in creating us and in giving us the
possibility to be united with our spouses.
There is a danger of vulgarizing here a crucial truth of our
Faith that needs rather to be contemplated. It requires a silence. Sometimes in
reading Blessed John Paul II’s Catecheses, you read only half of a page and
then have to stop ... you cannot continue ... because it provokes within you a
kind of loving meditation of what God has made. You enter into the mystery.
“Theology of the Body” may be clear for you, but it won't be
for people who have never thought practically about creation or of God's love
and design.
Here lies a problem and risk in transmitting the Catecheses.
In order to transmit this beauty and this truth, we have to
emphasize that the act of creation was a loving act of God.
God is not a cold, removed architect who sets arbitrary
demands on His creation. Rather, He is a loving Father who knows what is within
the heart of man and woman -- He created them sexually, physically, personally
and morally.
Then, extraordinarily, we can see that the intention of the
Creator was to create man and woman in such a way that no one could ever say he
or she in himself or herself contains the totality of humanity. If I am a man,
I cannot say that in myself I have the totality and the richness of what it
means to be a woman and vice versa.
John Paul II said that man and woman not only reflect the
image and likeness of God in their solitude but indeed do even more so in their
communion. This truth reflects the mystery of the divine communion of the Holy
Trinity. We cannot understand creation well without relating the communion
between man and woman to that of the divine persons of the Holy Trinity.
We have to demonstrate this truth, insisting that the call
to love and to be loved leads to authentic happiness – not only because it's an
aspiration that comes from the deepest part of our nature – but because it
originates from God's design, which is a loving design. God knows what is good
for man, and what is good for woman. The Catecheses need to be understood in
this light.
Pope Benedict XVI is in total continuity with Pope John Paul
II's teachings. Certainly John Paul II focused his attention on the
anthropological and ethical aspects of human love and the existential and
philosophical meditation of the mystery. Pope Benedict now emphasizes the
holiness of human love, and for him, he contemplates in human love the divine
love that exists in God.
In Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus caritas est, he is
very audacious when he speaks of a “divine eros”, which is the design that God
has for human love ... It's amazing! This teaching is a step forward that
illustrates the continuity between the two Popes’ teachings.
The beauty of the body reflects the presence of the spirit,
which is a mystery. And yet, we still have to contend with the reality of sin.
Man and woman have sinned, and in our bodies we bear the
consequences of this wound in our nature. That's why it's unrealistic – even a
kind of angelism – to imagine that we can discuss or express our sexuality in
an indifferent manner.
There is a dignity, there is a loving manner to be united
...There is a respectful expression of love and God’s design needed in relating
this teaching.
CNA: Certainly the intent to make the Pope's teachings
widely accessible is good, albeit misdirected at times. How then, would you
recommend people go about making the Catecheses known?
Bishop Laffitte: It's fundamentally a good thing to have the
desire to transmit the Catecheses on Human Love as far as possible to as many
people as possible.
It's an evangelization so needed today as human love has
been so disfigured in modern society. May I add that we can never talk of a new
evangelization without emphasizing conjugal and family life in the perspective
we have just illustrated ?
So, how can we do that?
Personally, I am against any notion that we should reduce
all difficult thought, or any difficult articulation of ideas, assuming in
advance that people are unintelligent.
Perhaps at times we may encounter people who are not
cultivated, who may not enjoy the habit of dealing with philosophical and
anthropological topics on a regular basis.
However, a person of good faith always is able to be
sensitive to mystery, because a person lives and experiences without
necessarily knowing how to describe it.
Even when a person cannot read and write, when he falls in
love with someone he enters into an extraordinary mystery -- exactly the same
mystery experienced by someone who might be able to describe it with more
finesse.
The problem involves not the formulation, but rather the
respect for the mystery with which we are dealing.
It is essential to present these teachings with reverence,
with meditation, with silence. We’re dealing here with an endeavor in genuine
education, not merely a strict transmission of knowledge.
The Catecheses of which we speak are not a “gnosis” only
understood by an elite, but rather they serve as an extraordinary deepening of
human understanding, in what every man and woman is called to experience.
Every single person within any culture can understand the
questions: “What do you want in your life? What are your deepest desires?”
The transmission must be a holistic one – it means being
conscious of the nature of the person. You wouldn't speak to a 15 year-old in
the way you would a 20 year-old, or a married couple or an elderly couple. But
all of them can understand the nature of the mystery.
