The Catholic Weekly 27 November 2022

catholicweekly.com.au 2 27, November, 2022 MADE FOR MORE J ohn Paul II’s Theology of the Body is the antidote for our times in which we are embroiled in an “all- out war” on the meaning and value of the human body, says Dr Christopher West. Among the casualties are untold numbers suffering from damaged and damag- ing relationships and confu- sion about what it means to be male or female, but here is precisely where the light of Christian wisdom can make hope spring anew, Christo- pher told The Catholic Weekly in an exclusive interview this week. At the invitation of the Syd- ney Centre for Evangelisation the world’s most well-known teacher of the Saint John Paul II’s theology will travel to Syd- ney in January before visiting Melbourne in a two-city tour. The founder and president of the US-basedTheology of the Body Institute will present the highly acclaimed Made for More event, along with musi- cian Mike Mangione andThe- ology of the Body Institute’s Jason Clark. “The work of theTheology of the Body Institute takes the ¾ Marilyn Rodrigues great scholarship of John Paul II and translates it into a lan- guage, images, music and sto- ries that the average person can understand and connect with and that resonate in the heart,” he said. Part of the message is that despite relentless propagan- da to the contrary, “the truth of sexual difference cannot be erased”. “Every human life literally depends on it, the whole way back to the beginning of time. Human existence is the fruit of the sexual difference. When we try to erase that difference, the culture is committing sui- cide. “And I say this not to wag fingers, to shame or to scold anybody, but to turn the lights on. “It is understandable that we are confused about the meaning of the sexual differ- When our bodies Reveal God In January audiences in Sydney andMelbourne will have the chance to encounter the Theology of the Body. For almost all it will come as a revelation. ‘Why hasn’t anyone ever toldme this is what the Church really teaches?’ is the most commonly asked question after people experience a presentation on the subject ence when the main messen- ger about sex is a pornograph- ic culture. “I think one of the main reasons young women in droves are not wanting to be women is because they have been exposed at a very early age in an unprecedented way to the horrors of violent por- nography and the way women are treated [in it]. “Well if that’s what it means to be a woman why would anyone want to be a woman? “But what pornography is, is a hellish mockery of a heav- enly reality. We are in an all- out war in our modern world for the meaning of the body. And it’s not that the Christian meaning of the body has been understood and rejected, the Christian meaning and un- derstanding of the body has really yet to be proposed to the modern world.” Cultural problems aside, the ultimate justification for the expres- sion ‘theology of the body’ is Christ’s Incarnation, Dr West explained. “John Paul II said if it seems strange to speak of the body as a study of God it shouldn’t if we believe in the Incarnation, because through the fact that the Word of God was made flesh, the body en- tered theology through the main door,” he said. “This is the astounding proposal of Christianity that I don’t think even 2000 years later, Christians have really reckoned with. “Let’s be honest … a pure- ly spiritual God who loves us in a purely spiritual way is much more becoming and acceptable to human sensi- bilities than a God who lit- erally bleeds to love us and even more so says, ‘Drink my blood, eat my flesh.’ “But this is the path of sal- vation ... If we are trying to divorce ourselves from our bodies to reach God, we can make no sense of a God who has wed himself to the hu- man body to reach us - a God who sent his son, a male child born of a woman. “This is why the body, pre- The complementarity of man andwoman ... and the implications of this for relationships, for the significance of marriage and the sacredness of life itself are at the heart of John Paul II’s teaching.” Daniel Ang, Sydney Centre for Evangelisation In an age increasingly beset by uncertainty about our identity and the ideals by which we can live and trust intimacy and relation- ships, the Theology of the Body is both innovative and inspiring.