Catholic conversations about gender, celibacy and homosexuality

Marc, the "Bad Catholic," has a "TOB in a Nutshell" post on his blog, under the title "Sexuality and Personality." The post addresses some pretty fundamental issues (heck, you got that from the title, didn't you?) as well as the very current, very complicated questions that people have only started asking recently--for example, what does it mean that "male and female he created them" when we know someone who experiences life from a transgender perspective?  What would happen if we got rid of concepts like "man" and "woman"?

Here's a sample; go read the rest:

In an imaginary world of only women, there would be no women. For on what ground would “woman” take on any meaning, any demarcation of identity, besides (perhaps) a being who is not a plant, not a fish, and not a bicycle? So too, a man is only a man in any meaningful sense in his relation to women.

Today Huffington Post highlighted the appeal of a priest who wants a dispensation from his vow of celibacy; he doesn't want to leave the priesthood, though. He's hoping Pope Francis will let him have it both ways. The show host did not get all her facts straight (see how many erroneous statements you can spot!), but she did invite Byzantine Father Thomas Loya to speak about priestly celibacy. Which he proceeded to do with more clarity than the host knew what to do with. Note especially how Father Loya explains that the Byzantine liturgy requires periodic celibacy even of married priests: there is an "eschatological" (life-of-the-world-to-come) dimension to the Liturgy that celibacy expresses:




Then this past Sunday a half-hour documentary was released that is addressed in a special way to people who experience same-sex attraction. There will no doubt be many gay people who will be outraged by a film that claims that the Catholic Church has anything to offer them, but the people in the film (all have impeccable gay bona-fides) tell a different story. Watch it here, or go to the Blackstone page to see, share, comment. Gay or straight, seeing this movie could be a moment of grace for someone you love--or for you.

 
The Third Way from Blackstone Films on Vimeo.

Also:
Brandon Vogt interviews Father John Hollowell about The Third Way
Abbey Roads critiques the title and offers a helpful interpretation

Michigan TOB Retreat April 26

In honor of the canonization of Pope John Paul II, author of the Theology of the Body, a TOB retreat day is scheduled for April 26 (vigil of the canonization) in Brighton, MI. Hope you can make it!

TOB and "Groundhog Day"

"Theology of the Body" in a Bill Murray comedy?
Here it is…Theology of the Body through the lens of Groundhog Day!

Online retreat to enrich your marriage

In time for St Valentine's Day, Karee Santos, over at Can We Cana? is offering a webinar-style online retreat for married couples. Register for one or both presentations.

Here's the scope:

I. Life-giving Unity: Becoming One with Your Spouse and Your Children  

The marital relationship is the bedrock of any family. Reignite your appreciation for your spouse, and let your renewed unity strengthen your relationship with your children as well. Learn how to communicate better, pray more together, and grow closer to God together.

Mid-day Session: Monday, Feb. 3, at 12:30-1:30 pm EST
Evening Session: Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 7:30-8:30 pm EST

II. Holy Stewards: Making the Most of Your Time and Your Money  

We all struggle to find enough time for work, family, and God. We might also sometimes let worries over money and professional advancement affect our marital relationship. Maintaining a good balance is difficult, but not impossible. Explore useful ways to make the most of what you have.

Mid-day Session:  Monday, Feb. 10, at 12:30-1:30 pm EST
Evening Session:  Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 7:30-8:30 pm EST

TOB course with Christopher West in Louisiana

April 27 - May 2, 2014

Taught by

Christopher West

 Rosaryville Spirit Life Center

Ponchatoula, Louisiana

Registration opens today! 

  

Blessed John Paul II's Theology of the Body is not only intellectually stimulating. The truths it proclaims are life-changing, especially for those wounded by the lies of our sexually-charged culture. 

 

This "Head and Heart" Immersion Course offers rigorous academic study and seeks to facilitate personal integration of the material, helping students journey from "head to heart." 

The Theology of the Body Institute is pleased to offer this one-of-a-kind course in conjunction with the Institute for Priestly Formation and Creighton University. 

Learn more about the Theology of the Body Head and Heart Immersion Course on the TOB Institute's website; register online for the TOB course here.

A note from Sister Anne: I participated in the Theology of the Body Head and Heart Course (part 1) a year and a half ago. It offered a great overview of the whole of Pope John Paul's text, but blended--this is the "immersion" part--with life applications (especially for those called to married life) and connection to prayer, music and art. I highly recommend the program!

Theology of the Body…now in Chinese!

Thanks to the persevering efforts of the Catholic Truth Society in China:

What the Duck Dynasty guy doesn't know could hurt us all

Migrated over from Nunblog, with slight modifiations:

You might be surprised to hear this, but until all the brouhaha about cable network A&E and Duck Dynasty, I had no idea who Phil Robertson might be. Indeed, all I knew about Duck Dynasty was from seeing the spin-off merchandise in the novelty aisles at the local Walgreens. Now all of a sudden the bearded patriarch is being held up as a paragon of plain-speaking biblical wisdom.

Except I'm not buying it.  I have no doubt that Mr. Robertson is a sincere and virtuous man, butI am afraid that the more Robertson is defended in social media as an upholder of marriage, the more the cause of natural marriage will suffer in the long run. The articles I have read on the matter quote very little of Mr. Robertson, but what is there is incredibly coarse and unreflective. There is little "biblical" to it.

As much as Catholics all the way to Pope Francis believe that complementarity is essential to marriage as such, we really can't put an "Amen" to what the White's Ferry Road Church of Christ elder said about it. Yet the more Mr. Robertson's cause is pleaded, the more he becomes established in the cultural imagination as the mouthpiece and representative of all those who stand up for the integrity of natural marriage.

Is this what we are hoping for? A reduction of the spouses themselves to their reproductive organs?  A raw, physical (not personalist) caricature of complementarity, divorced from its essential, life-giving fruitfulness and the very nature of the family built on marriage as the primary cell of society? Heaven forbid!

Somebody, quick! Invite my fellow Louisianan Mr. Robertson to the Theology of the Body program!  As a Church elder, he should really appreciate the rich, nuanced, infinitely complex biblical vision of man and woman that Pope John Paul spent so many years developing. As the now de-facto media spokesperson for natural marriage, he really needs it.

- - - - - - -

Here's a reflection from Audrey Assad on Phil Robertson and the Theology of the Body; Audrey offers  the same point as I (in a much more elegant and comprehensive way).


For a do-it-yourself overview of the Theology of the Body, watch Discover Theology of the Body.

Meditating on a Good Death in the season of Holy Birth

Susan Windley-Daoust offers an interested approach to Theology of the Body, drawing from Pope John Paul's principles in a reflection on what used to be called a "happy death." Even though our attention toward the end of Advent is drawn more to birth, for many bereaved families, this may very well be a season of dying. Windley-Daoust's post on "The Sign of the Dying Body" is timely for all of us, though.

Review of "Fill These Hearts"

Theology professor Susan Windley-Daoust posted her review of Christopher West's "Fill These Hearts: God, Sex and the Universal Longing," which she uses in an anthropology course. Here's a sample of what she had to say:

This text electrified most of the class.  People really resonated with the treatment of desire, were open to the treatment of design, and were really thinking through consequences by the time we got to destiny.  As a professor, it struck me as an ideal first text before moving into more “academic theology” and primary sources.  Indeed, we went from this text to reading Augustine's Confessions, and they got it: Augustine wasn't an overly guilt-ridden sex addict who talks too much about his sinfulness.  He was a man with disordered desires who opened himself to a new way of seeing through grace.

What was intriguing to me was how they latched on to a piece that West has been criticized for in the past: West writing from the perspective that people have received a Christian upbringing that was cold, stoic, and rule-centered.  Some have criticized West that most Catholics after Vatican II simply have not had that upbringing: the stereotype is more “felt banner and singing about God’s love round the campfire” (which is not a fair stereotype, but moving on).

These students thought the cold stoic Church description was right on.  The Christianity they know, they say, is ALL about rules.  This “frame” (as West calls it) of desire, design, and destiny, wrapped in God’s lavish love, was seen as truly radical.

The thing is, that is not their experience—because a lot of them have no experience of being in a Christian church outside of major holidays.  The Church they “know” is a bizarre echo chamber of their parents’ apathy and fear, the culture of the mainstream press and movies, and a projection of their fears.  It doesn’t exist.  But for them, the echo chamber is keeping them from listening to the wisdom of the Christian faith.

One of the reasons West’s approach is effective is because he is talking to Christians, especially Catholics, who have fundamental misconceptions of what Catholic theology is about: and he addresses those misconceptions head on.  You shouldn’t end your reading of theology with West (does he ever argue that?  of course not), but this book whets the appetite for a faith seeking understanding that they do not know they have.  People on the inside forget that teaching theology in American culture neither builds on a solid catechetical foundation, nor a blank slate.  We unteachbefore we teach.  Christopher West’s popularity in many young adult circles—to the point of people saying things such as “the Theology of the Body changed my life!”—is attributable directly to West exposing the delusion of this echo chamber and presenting the revelation of Christianity in both the natural world of signs and the Church they clearly do not yet know.  He is a dazzling "unteacher," and this book makes space to truly explore what it means to be human.

It’s a potentially life-transformative book.

New Catholic Marriage Prep Program

After years of pilot programs involving hundreds of engaged couples, with input from the long-married, from the theologians, from the pastors, and from all those engaged couples, comes "Transformed in Love," a complete and solid program to help couples begin and live a sacramental marriage.

Listen to Kari Collela (Archdiocese of Boston Family Life office) and her husband Stephen as they talk about the program, its components, and its "success stories" over the years they spent putting it together.

Please share this information (and these links) far and wide!

Media Skills for Pro-Life Medical Professionals

Over at Catharsis, they are planning a two-day workshop on essential media skills for pro-life medical personnel. ("If a camera arrived at your door today [for statements on assisted reproduction, Obamacare, "death with dignity"], would you know how to dress, how to move, where to look, and what to say?")

COMMUNICATING THE CULTURE OF LIFE

Oct 22-23, Azusa Pacific University

Post-Supreme Court reflections

Some fine, critically reflective pieces are appearing in a number of sources after yesterday's twofer from the Supreme Court. Here's one: Sex without Bodies (it's like a prequel to TOB from a Protestant perspective).

And another: "Marriage is a Mess and Homosexuals Didn't Do It"

The Diocese of Green Bay is hosting a FB conversation on a crucial question:
How can Catholics engage everyone, as we are called to do, including people with same-sex attraction, while maintaining the Church’s consistent, loving and whole teaching that sacramental marriage is the free, total, faithful and fruitful union of one man and one woman?

Airtime

I was scheduled to host "The Winds of Change" radio show tomorrow at noon, but with the Blackhawks' Victory Parade (for bringing the Stanley Cup back to Chicago) I figured it would be next to impossible to get in and out of the city with the street closings and security measures... So I was on the air today instead.
Listen in!

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Books and music featured on today's show:

NFP Awareness Week: Video Contest!

The ladies over at IUseNFP.com (a woman to woman website on Natural Family Planning) have just announced a video contest for NFP Awareness Week (July 27). Check their website for the details, which aren't out yet.

This video was featured on their site; perhaps it inspired the contest:

The "Conversation" from Cassie Wilson on Vimeo.

Theology of the Body Overview: Now Online!

For the first three weekends of May, we had extra sisters on hand in Chicago as the Theology of the Body overview program unfolded, Saturday after Saturday. Sister Teresa and Sister Domenica came from the motherhouse video department, loaded down with cameras and lighting equipment. While I (Sister Anne) ran a single camera for the webstream, they were getting everything with two cameras. Now back at the motherhouse, they will be editing the footage into a more elegant presentation. When that's ready, we'll have (God willing) both a DVD program for use in parishes, and a higher quality set of archived classes for you online.

Each two-hour class looks at one "chapter" or subdivision of Pope John Paul's rather massive book. There are still a couple of "patches" where the stream broke off and I had to put the remainder of the class in a separate file. The patches are open to the public, so if you are not sure you are ready yet to commit to anything behind a paywall, you can get a sample of the content and the presenter's style from these. Those who joined us in Chicago were very enthusiastic over what they learned, and we hope to work again with Father Sprott in the future, though not on a TOB topic.

UPDATE (September 2017): The entire series is available online only (no DVD version) and with a downloadable study guide. The original sessions have been edited into a series of 30-50 minute videos. See Discover Theology of the Body on Vimeo.

Don't forget  that we also have an active  TOB "community" on Google+ with over 150 700 members. This is a place for sharing your more in-depth reflections and questions on issues related to the Theology of the Body. Please join today!

UPDATE (September 2017): Joining the Google+ group will position you for discount codes on the Discover TOB series mentioned above!

Body Image

Sara Hulse is a graduate student in the John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and the Family (in other words, a Vatican-established graduate school devoted entirely to the Theology of the Body). When our sisters went to Washington DC for the launch of the new translation of Love and Responsibility, they interviewed some of the students. (Look for more of these insights on future TOB Tuesdays!)

 

Taking TOB further

Here's a blog of rich insights into life's dimensions that takes the Theology of the Body beyond its immediate and obvious applications in marriage. Well worth investigating!

How culture affects the way we see the human body

Dr Michael Waldstein (translator of the full text of the Theology of the Body)

When the eyes and the mind are in conflict

Gender identity trumps every other right in Massachusetts high schools, giving new meaning to the story of the Emperor's New Clothes. Now, no matter how clearly the child in the story says what is before everyone's eyes, any glimmer of recognition will have to be suppressed. How long can that last?

When "the guidelines [imposed in Massachusetts] don't recognize that it is impossible to erase the differences between the sexes," you know there's a desperate need for Theology of the Body. And our TOB project here in Chicago is making real progress! A volunteer created the postcard design, and has just completed a trailer.

Here's the trailer; feel free to share it far and wide--we are counting on the grace of the Holy Spirit working through social media to invite people to take a real look at what the Catholic Church says about the human person, the human body and its "language." At this point, it is the only "alternate vision" available, no matter what our eyes may tell us.


For registration links (and lots more details) see our bookstore blog.

TOB resources

We now have online registration open for the Chicago onsite program for May 4, 11 and 18. Please share this information widely! The "virtual" program for those of you who are hoping to join us via video stream is lined up (on our new Ustream channel, TOB-TV), but we are limited to a six-week registration window. That means that once mid-March hits, it will be important to let people know about the program and sign up for it.

Because we can't afford the "pro" version of anything, we had to divide the program into six distinct "events," each of which requires a separate registration. (On the plus side, registration gives one access to the archived video in case of scheduling conflicts.)

As I was preparing the new Ustream.tv channel for the May overview program, I also found a helpful overview by Msgr. Hogan.