16 August 2011

CNA interviews Bp. Jean Laffitte concerning Theology of the Body:
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 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. [I]f 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.
...
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.
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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.
Alice von Hildebrand's critique of Christopher West's presentation of Theology of the Body remains the best I've read thus far.