The original Theology of the Body is not a theological work authored by Christopher West. West took the original Theology of the Body sermon series given by St. John Paul II in a series of public audiences in the 1980s and has re-presented them and edited them through his own unique lens.
The Theology of the Body that's presented in the original sermon series (which is available in a book) is not the same thing as West's re-interpretation of that work.
I am familiar with Both Theology of the Body and Christopher West, having heard him in an extensive interview with Matt Fradd on "Pints with Aquinas". (Both had way too many pints that day.) As for West, I found him vulgar, uncouth, and almost suspected he had a perverted fetish for some of the anatomical terms he was using, as his dialog was splattered with them.
But now I can deal with JP2's "Theoogy of the Body". Quite bluntly, JP2 was a Pelagian, not a Catholic, and has apparently no idea of the three wounds of Original Sin, the ones pertinent here being the concupiscence of the flesh and that of the eyes. As a man, I am drawn to beauty. And my wounded heart will immediately lust after it, in a perverted desire for intimacy which can never, of course, be accomplished through perverted acts. Both the Book of Job and especially the Book of Tobias give insights into the proper perspective of how men should guard both eyes and heart. "Custody of the Eyes" is the Traditional term. Men especially must avoid occasions of sin, and women especially have a duty to dress modestly. Flirting with Occasions of Sin is always asking for trouble. A man might not fall right away, but the subconscious is going to grind away at his retiscence until pure passion eventually takes over.
The "Theology of the Body" confuses sensuality, grace, virtue, and act. JP2 would have done well to read all the prohibitions and sanctions in the Books of Leviticus and Numbers regarding the marital embrace. That is the same God of the New Testament, and the same Holy Ghost that guides Holy Mother Church.
The proper understanding of the Marital Embrace is to be found in the Roman Catechism. It is tragic the remedies of the Council of Trent were largely ignored by subsequent popes, especially after the heretical Vatican II.
Emily, I so appreciate your thoughtful engagement with these concepts. You are very careful to highlight your respect for the good done by West's work (and certainly the true TOB itself), but also call out areas that need clarification and emphasis. Thank you for using your experience, and your desire for the good of others, to help us all live out TOB with more intentionality. I agree with @The Catholic Behavior Analyst about the good of dialogue, and I love that you've already tried to reach out. Hopefully one day you'll connect through the Podcast (or some other avenue) and keep these conversations going!
I went ahead and tried again on his podcast submission page. I'm pretty confident I did a better job this time; we'll see if it bears fruit (I'd be surprised, but you never know!).
Perhaps you could submit a question to him and his wife such as “how can individuals prudentially guard themselves from individuals in the Church (priests, spiritual directors) who would unfortunately abuse their authority by grooming in seemingly similar ways to the ones mentioned on a previous episode for having a chaste, spiritual bond?”
Dialogue is a good way to move forward. I believe he does nuance when he is pressed by those who interview him, but it requires asking the right questions and being open about the concerns.
I've tried submitting something along those lines before to his podcast, and even tried to messaging him on social media. No response.
Big Catholic personalities, like any other celebrity, are just really hard to get ahold of. I don't blame them for it, there's plenty of crackpots and crazies out there to guard against, but it does make getting clarification on certain things harder.
There was a thought to putting West’s book on “the list.” Not that there is “a list” anymore. Although some articles do still make it to the not good for human consumption list. Considering how absolutely perverse western civilization has become there is not much that isn’t shoved down our throats by those big media monopolies that care so much. Not much hope in putting out a list when nearly everything in media belongs on it.
Your view of John Paul II as some type of perverse extremist for highlighting the passages that Jesus cites on marriage is interesting. I wonder where the concept of complementarity then sits in your duck pond for shotgun lovers?
I read this comment two or three times and still have no idea what you're talking about in the second paragraph.
I did my best to make it as clear as I possibly could that my problem is not with St. John Paul II's work, but with those who "translate" it to be more accessible without an appropriate sense of caution or reverence. I do NOT see him as a "perverse extremist" and I'm baffled as to how you drew that conclusion.
Primarily my reaction to “frank and honest discussion” used to mean something entirely different than what it is exactly that John Paul the Great did. He did as frank and honest a discussion as is possible in his audiences.
More so, perhaps, as hauntingly threatening what you have seen on TOB confers. I am sorry for your experience in this.
Outside of West and his, as you noted, capability to open the concepts to a section of society that few could have imagined, I have found no such cultist nor especially threatening perspectives of misogynistic or otherwise perverse views from TOB.
My experience of such discussion was always extremely reverent and highlighted the sacred nature of the human person. I am quite sorry you have seen otherwise and will pray this oppression will be relieved. I hope yours is an exception and wish that this burden of yours be lightened.
I do not doubt that most of these discussions are conducted with good intentions.
The problem is that West's view, and others in that vein, have become the de facto widely accepted popular view of JP2's work, and that the gaping blind spots that view has, and passes on, enable predators to move in. If you haven't already, I list several examples of the sorts of predators, particularly clerics, who take advantage of these blind spots to do some truly reprehensible things in the footnotes to this piece.
I'm worried about a misunderstanding of "frank and honest", not so much the real thing.
Sure. Its probably deserving of a post at some point, but the shift of the highest end of the marital act from one to two ends combined with the phenomenological approach of totb seems to, at least in translations i have heard, give too much to the fetischizing of sensible luv. People today need to hear and hear explained what is repugnant to their perverse minds, i.e. sex is for creating new life. The attempt to make cst palpable or understandable to perverse lends itself toward being misunderstood.
You have a point, but I've also seen the sexual act focused on the act of procreation to the point that the human dignity of the people doing the act is obscured, damaged, or ignored. There's a reason that infertility is a particularly difficult cross for Catholic married couples to carry, and one of those reasons is that the sexual act can become focused on trying to have a baby to the point that one or the other partner begins to feel used.
I honestly think it's necessary to keep BOTH aspects of the act in focus, or the human dignity of the people involved and the full meaning of it can become lost.
That said, the problem I was trying to explore in this particular post wasn't so much what TOB says about the relationship between a man and wife so much as the combining of sexuality and spirituality. It needs to be handled much more carefully, and I don't see current TOB speakers/writers recognizing how absolutely devastating the potential fallout from that bit being misunderstood or weaponized by an abuser is (if you look through my footnote listing example cases of this, two of the cases involved celibate religious sisters being groomed for assault via their abuser weaponizing sexually charged "spiritual" language). They're downright careless with how they express it in a lot of instances.
I just want to offer a quick clarification:
The original Theology of the Body is not a theological work authored by Christopher West. West took the original Theology of the Body sermon series given by St. John Paul II in a series of public audiences in the 1980s and has re-presented them and edited them through his own unique lens.
The Theology of the Body that's presented in the original sermon series (which is available in a book) is not the same thing as West's re-interpretation of that work.
I am familiar with Both Theology of the Body and Christopher West, having heard him in an extensive interview with Matt Fradd on "Pints with Aquinas". (Both had way too many pints that day.) As for West, I found him vulgar, uncouth, and almost suspected he had a perverted fetish for some of the anatomical terms he was using, as his dialog was splattered with them.
But now I can deal with JP2's "Theoogy of the Body". Quite bluntly, JP2 was a Pelagian, not a Catholic, and has apparently no idea of the three wounds of Original Sin, the ones pertinent here being the concupiscence of the flesh and that of the eyes. As a man, I am drawn to beauty. And my wounded heart will immediately lust after it, in a perverted desire for intimacy which can never, of course, be accomplished through perverted acts. Both the Book of Job and especially the Book of Tobias give insights into the proper perspective of how men should guard both eyes and heart. "Custody of the Eyes" is the Traditional term. Men especially must avoid occasions of sin, and women especially have a duty to dress modestly. Flirting with Occasions of Sin is always asking for trouble. A man might not fall right away, but the subconscious is going to grind away at his retiscence until pure passion eventually takes over.
The "Theology of the Body" confuses sensuality, grace, virtue, and act. JP2 would have done well to read all the prohibitions and sanctions in the Books of Leviticus and Numbers regarding the marital embrace. That is the same God of the New Testament, and the same Holy Ghost that guides Holy Mother Church.
The proper understanding of the Marital Embrace is to be found in the Roman Catechism. It is tragic the remedies of the Council of Trent were largely ignored by subsequent popes, especially after the heretical Vatican II.
regards.
Emily, I so appreciate your thoughtful engagement with these concepts. You are very careful to highlight your respect for the good done by West's work (and certainly the true TOB itself), but also call out areas that need clarification and emphasis. Thank you for using your experience, and your desire for the good of others, to help us all live out TOB with more intentionality. I agree with @The Catholic Behavior Analyst about the good of dialogue, and I love that you've already tried to reach out. Hopefully one day you'll connect through the Podcast (or some other avenue) and keep these conversations going!
I went ahead and tried again on his podcast submission page. I'm pretty confident I did a better job this time; we'll see if it bears fruit (I'd be surprised, but you never know!).
Perhaps you could submit a question to him and his wife such as “how can individuals prudentially guard themselves from individuals in the Church (priests, spiritual directors) who would unfortunately abuse their authority by grooming in seemingly similar ways to the ones mentioned on a previous episode for having a chaste, spiritual bond?”
Dialogue is a good way to move forward. I believe he does nuance when he is pressed by those who interview him, but it requires asking the right questions and being open about the concerns.
I've tried submitting something along those lines before to his podcast, and even tried to messaging him on social media. No response.
Big Catholic personalities, like any other celebrity, are just really hard to get ahold of. I don't blame them for it, there's plenty of crackpots and crazies out there to guard against, but it does make getting clarification on certain things harder.
Good thoughts. Temptation happens. Avoid it.
There was a thought to putting West’s book on “the list.” Not that there is “a list” anymore. Although some articles do still make it to the not good for human consumption list. Considering how absolutely perverse western civilization has become there is not much that isn’t shoved down our throats by those big media monopolies that care so much. Not much hope in putting out a list when nearly everything in media belongs on it.
Your view of John Paul II as some type of perverse extremist for highlighting the passages that Jesus cites on marriage is interesting. I wonder where the concept of complementarity then sits in your duck pond for shotgun lovers?
I read this comment two or three times and still have no idea what you're talking about in the second paragraph.
I did my best to make it as clear as I possibly could that my problem is not with St. John Paul II's work, but with those who "translate" it to be more accessible without an appropriate sense of caution or reverence. I do NOT see him as a "perverse extremist" and I'm baffled as to how you drew that conclusion.
Primarily my reaction to “frank and honest discussion” used to mean something entirely different than what it is exactly that John Paul the Great did. He did as frank and honest a discussion as is possible in his audiences.
More so, perhaps, as hauntingly threatening what you have seen on TOB confers. I am sorry for your experience in this.
Outside of West and his, as you noted, capability to open the concepts to a section of society that few could have imagined, I have found no such cultist nor especially threatening perspectives of misogynistic or otherwise perverse views from TOB.
My experience of such discussion was always extremely reverent and highlighted the sacred nature of the human person. I am quite sorry you have seen otherwise and will pray this oppression will be relieved. I hope yours is an exception and wish that this burden of yours be lightened.
I do not doubt that most of these discussions are conducted with good intentions.
The problem is that West's view, and others in that vein, have become the de facto widely accepted popular view of JP2's work, and that the gaping blind spots that view has, and passes on, enable predators to move in. If you haven't already, I list several examples of the sorts of predators, particularly clerics, who take advantage of these blind spots to do some truly reprehensible things in the footnotes to this piece.
I'm worried about a misunderstanding of "frank and honest", not so much the real thing.
The theology of the body seems to lend itself more readily to misinterpretation than than the thomistic framework.
Would you be willing to elaborate on what you mean by that?
Sure. Its probably deserving of a post at some point, but the shift of the highest end of the marital act from one to two ends combined with the phenomenological approach of totb seems to, at least in translations i have heard, give too much to the fetischizing of sensible luv. People today need to hear and hear explained what is repugnant to their perverse minds, i.e. sex is for creating new life. The attempt to make cst palpable or understandable to perverse lends itself toward being misunderstood.
You have a point, but I've also seen the sexual act focused on the act of procreation to the point that the human dignity of the people doing the act is obscured, damaged, or ignored. There's a reason that infertility is a particularly difficult cross for Catholic married couples to carry, and one of those reasons is that the sexual act can become focused on trying to have a baby to the point that one or the other partner begins to feel used.
I honestly think it's necessary to keep BOTH aspects of the act in focus, or the human dignity of the people involved and the full meaning of it can become lost.
That said, the problem I was trying to explore in this particular post wasn't so much what TOB says about the relationship between a man and wife so much as the combining of sexuality and spirituality. It needs to be handled much more carefully, and I don't see current TOB speakers/writers recognizing how absolutely devastating the potential fallout from that bit being misunderstood or weaponized by an abuser is (if you look through my footnote listing example cases of this, two of the cases involved celibate religious sisters being groomed for assault via their abuser weaponizing sexually charged "spiritual" language). They're downright careless with how they express it in a lot of instances.
Right this bad combination is what i was trying to account for. Thanks for your thoughtful response.