Situating Marriage Within John Paul II's Realist, Or Personalist

The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014, 314–342

A Plea for the traditional family: Situating marriage within John Paul II’s realist, or personalist, perspective of human freedom1

MICHELE M. SCHUMACHER University of Fribourg, Switzerland

This article is an attempt to defend the rights of the traditional family: not simply against the redefinition of marriage, but more fundamentally against a re-conceptualization of human freedom and human rights. To this end, it contrasts what Saint John Paul II calls an individualistic understanding of freedom and a personalistic notion of the same in order to argue that human freedom is called by the Creator to be in service of, and not in opposition to, the good of the human family. From this perspective—that of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church—it argues for the harmony between natural marriage and the respect of fundamental human rights, and it presents the social dimension of marriage as fundamental with respect to the legal and social protection of the family.

Keywords: Marriage (natural), Marriage (gay), Family, Rights, Freedom, John Paul II, Personalism, Utilitarianism, Individualism, Natural law

The challenge posed to the traditional speech and thought by what is real” human family by the redefinition of mar- (Pieper 1992, 17). “[W]e speak in order to riage is, I am convinced, a symptom of a name and identify something that is real, much larger cultural phenomenon regard- to identify it for someone [original empha- ing the manner in which we have come to sis], of course—and this points to the perceive not only the concepts of human second aspect in question, the interperso- rights, personal dignity, and individual nal character of human speech.” It is, in freedom, but also and especially the world other words, the “reality of the word” that itself. This larger phenomenon is due to makes “in eminent ways … existential what the German philosopher Josef Pieper interaction happen. And so, if the word recognized as the overpowering of “auth- becomes corrupted, human existence itself entic reality” by what he called will not remain unaffected and untainted” “pseudoreality” (Pieper 1992, 34). This in (Pieper 1992, 15). Indeed, “the most mis- turn, Pieper argued—at least two decades erable decay of human interaction” is before the emergence of virtual reality as correlated by this philosopher, who wit- we know it—is due to an “abuse of the nessed Hitler’s efficient rise to power, “in word” by reason of its detachment from direct proportion to the most devastating the notions of truth and reality. “To be breakdown in orientation toward reality” true means, indeed, to be determined in (Pieper 1992, 33).2

Particularly illustrative of this abuse of endangered species—and let us be honest, speech by its detachment from reality is, I approximately half of first marriages end would like to suggest, last year’s transna- in divorce, according to the US Depart- tional campaign for gay rights and in ment of Health and Human Services (US particular for the “right to marriage for Dept. HHS 2012)––is to risk the charge all.” Homosexuals have, after all, always of homophobia. Is it not time to recognize been granted the right to marry: with, that that the tables have been turned? is to say, a person of the opposite sex. If, to be more specific, the last decade What their wide victories of the past year found philosophical realists arguing have meant is that they now—for the first against the so-called right to gay marriage, time in human history—possess the right can it be otherwise that 2014 inaugurates to be intimately joined to a person of the a new decade wherein these same realists same sex and to call it marriage. Welcome will find themselves defending the rights to the 2014 version of “Newspeak”: the of the traditional family: not, to be sure, chillingly “real”-world rendition of against this new species of marriage, but Orwell’s 1984. rather, I would argue, against a rampant In the original account, the philosophy notion of human freedom that seeks to of Newspeak meant that you could control change the face of human reality by the thought by controlling language. In the imposition of the human will, and all of 2014 version, you can apparently change this in the name of human rights? reality—at least human reality in what was To admit to this proposition requires, previously regarded as the most funda- of course, that we admit that marriage is mental cell of its necessarily social not the only term whose content has dimension—by an act of the human will, changed within the present conversation. notwithstanding the transformation of Human dignity and human rights have language. Hence, our children and grand- also been charged with new meaning. children are not only confronted with a Whereas, to be more specific, they were new definition of marriage than the one once understood as the basis of human that we—and all previous generations— freedom in a world order that was given knew. They are also confronted with a (datum and donum) as a consequence of new way of looking at the world. Unlike creation—whence the idea of God-given most of us who grew up believing that the rights and dignity—today we all too often human being and human society were tend to reverse that relation: we base objective realities whose meanings could human dignity and rights upon the sover- be discovered by the sciences in union eign power of freedom, which in turn is with our senses and reason, if not by faith, far too often reduced to subjective interests our children are being taught that human and personal desires. Indeed, laws are pre- persons and society have no meaning until sently considered “good” by mainstream they have been manipulated by human juridical positivism “not because they aim wills and human technology. at the good of the human person,” but What does this mean for the traditional because they “conform to the will of the family, by which I mean a man and a majority” (Trujillo 2005, 7). woman vowed to one another in life-long The necessary plea for the preservation fidelity for the purpose of not only expres- of the human family in 2014—on the thir- sing their mutual love but also of tieth anniversary of Orwell’s 1984 and the procreating and educating children? To sixty-fifth anniversary of the concept of speak positively of this increasingly “Newspeak”3—will thus require that we 316 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 reexamine the relationship between human self-designating—I will thus set out to rights and human dignity, on the one contrast it with a personalistic one. This, I hand, and between human freedom and a will argue in part two, presupposes a created world order on the other; and I created world order, which might be dis- suggest that we turn to the social doctrine cerned by reason in accord with natural of the Catholic Church, and most particu- law. As the participation of the rational larly to the rich insights of Karol Wojtyła/ creature in God’s own reason, natural law St. John Paul II, for some help in this cannot, I will argue with reference to John matter. For, in emphasizing the Church’s Paul II’s thought, be reduced to biological “deep esteem for man, for his intellect, his norms. Rather, it calls upon human nature will, his conscience and his freedom,” John to discern God’s intentions within the Paul II presented human dignity as “part created order and to willingly cooperate of the content” of the Church’s “proclama- therein. From this perspective, freedom is tion.” Because, he reasoned more recognized as essentially teleological in specifically in his first encyclical, “man’s character: as, that is to say, ordered to true freedom is not found in everything certain goods that befit it as such (as free that the various systems and individuals and as created). This order, John Paul see and propagate as freedom, the recognized already in his pre-papal writ- Church,” in virtue of “her divine mission, ings, is accessible—as we will see in part becomes all the more the guardian of this three—to human experience, wherein we [authentic] freedom, which is the con- recognize our agency as self-determining dition and basis for the human person’s and thus as either perfective or debasing of true dignity.” Indeed, the powerful words our persons. This experience of self- of Christ, “You will know the truth and determination meanwhile is also the the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32), point avenue that John Paul II uses to exposit to what the saintly pope recognizes as a his personalist notion of freedom, which, as we will see in part four, he recognized fundamental requirement and a warning: as summed up in the important teaching the requirement of an honest relationship of Gaudium et spes, n. 24: “man, who is with regard to truth as a condition for the only creature on earth which God authentic freedom, and the warning to willed for itself, cannot fully find himself avoid every kind of illusory freedom, ” every superficial unilateral freedom, every except through a sincere gift of himself freedom that fails to enter into the whole (Vatican Council II 1965). It thus follows, truth about man and the world. (John as John Paul II saw it, that the only atti- Paul II 1979, n. 12) tude befitting the human person—both as the subject and as the object of human In the pages which follow I propose to action—is love; whence, as we shall see in contrast what John Paul II calls an indivi- part five, the radical incongruity between dualistic understanding of freedom and a personalism, with its profound respect for personalistic notion of freedom in order to human dignity, and utilitarianism, which argue that human freedom is called by the is willing to set pleasure above the objec- Creator to be in service of, and not in tive value of the person. In part six, I will opposition to, the good of the human draw upon this personalistic notion of family. After expositing, in part one, the freedom in my defense of natural marriage socially rampant understanding of freedom and of the right of the child to be born in from an individualistic perspective—that is a family; and in part seven, I will extend to say, an understanding of freedom as this analysis to include the rights of Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 317 mother and father. Finally, I will conclude occasion of the United Nation’s Year of by presenting the social dimension of mar- the Family, “a freedom without responsibil- riage as foundational with respect to the ities.” As such, it is proper to utilitarian protection of the traditional family based manners of thinking, which instrumenta- upon natural marriage: upon, that is to lizes persons to one’s own gain and say, the life-long union of a man and represents “a systematic and permanent woman in view of the conception, bearing, threat to the family” by opposing freedom and educating of children. to love. The individualist

does not tolerate the fact that someone AN INDIVIDUALISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF else “wants” or demands something from FREEDOM him in the name of an objective truth. He does not want to “give” to another on To begin with our critique of an indivi- the basis of truth; he does not want to dualistic understanding of human become a “sincere gift.” freedom, we do well to acclaim the “more lively awareness of personal freedom,” Of course, this opposition between which Pope John Paul II accredited for freedom and love in the form of a sincere various positive phenomena characterizing gift is, the pontiff observes, subverted by the family in the early years of his pontifi- the popular slogan of “free love,” giving it cate, including “greater attention to the a “certain ‘veneer’ of respectability, with quality of interpersonal relationships,” the the help of seduction and the blessing of promotion of “the dignity of women” and public opinion,” in an attempt to “‘soothe’ “responsible procreation” as well as a consciences by creating a ‘moral alibi’” heightened sense of responsibility for the (John Paul II 1994b, n. 14). education of children. At the same time, This blessing of public opinion, in turn, however, he mourned a certain “corruption leads to what Georges Cottier signals as a of the idea and the experience of freedom” confusion between the so-called “normal” to which he in turn attributed “a disturb- and the normative (Cottier 1996, 99ff).4 ing degradation of some fundamental Hence, when certain behaviors or manners values.” Human freedom was, more of acting are observed with frequency specifically, being understood and lived among a given population, they are “as an autonomous power of self- regarded as suitable, or corresponding, to affirmation, often against others, for one’s human nature regardless of their conse- own selfish well-being,” rather than “as a quences for the social order.5 Within our capacity for realizing the truth of God’s present cultural situation, marked by plan for marriage and the family” (John rampant, but nonetheless isolated indivi- Paul II 1981, n. 5). Here, in the very dualism, this means that it is considered heart of the family, which in turn he “normal” to accord to individual con- recognized as the heart of human civiliza- sciences “the prerogative of independently tion, John Paul II thus pointed to a determining the criteria of good and evil confrontation between two conflicting and then acting accordingly,” as Pope interpretations of human freedom: “the John Paul II remarks. It follows that each antithesis between individualism and person- individual is “faced with his own truth, alism” (John Paul II 1994b, n. 14). different from the truth of others” (John The first of these—an individualistic Paul II 1993, 32). The social norm has understanding of freedom—is, he explains become, in other words, that of living and in his 1994 Letter to Families on the acting without norms: without, that is to 318 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 say, norms transcending the “sovereignty” denial, moreover, “is still more distressing, of the human will. indeed more scandalous,” he observes, In, however, the absence of a transcendent order, or of a universal understanding precisely because it is occurring in a society which makes the affirmation and of human nature—a good which cannot protection of human rights its primary simply be determined by my changing objective and its boast. (John Paul II interests and desires regardless of their 1995, n. 18) consequences for the human community— it is, as recent history demonstrates, much This contradiction can, of course, only too easy to manipulate others in favor of be explained by the exaltation of an indivi- one’s own private end, egotistical desires, dualistic notion of freedom over and above or subjective interests. The rule of the land any other form of human rights.6 This becomes that of the survival of the fittest: exaltation of an individualistic notion of not only from a biological perspective, as human freedom above even the right to Darwin theorized, but also socially, as life itself implies, in turn, the denial or Thomas Hobbes would have it; politically, refusal of an objective moral order, know- as we witness in various tyrannical forms able to the human person in virtue of his of government; and morally, as is the case or her rational nature so as, in turn, to be in utilitarianism. freely chosen as a fitting guide for human The latter, as it is described by the pope activity. Instead, freedom is its own guide, who lived through the tyranny of the Nazi which is to say that its “only reference Regime in Poland and likewise witnessed point” is, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger the effects of rampant materialism in observed in 1991, what the individual con- eastern Europe after the cold war, is ceives as “his own good” (Ratzinger 2007b, 382). In short, many of our contempor- a civilization of production and of use, a aries have opted for an often aggressive civilization of “things” and not of assertion of subjective interests or desires “persons,” a civilization in which persons as an adequate expression of human are used in the same way as things are freedom. Freedom, in other words, is used. In the context of a civilization of being unequivocally associated with social, use, woman can become an object for cultural, and moral autonomy, as typifies man, children a hindrance to parents, the “ family an institution obstructing the the so-called self-made man, whose freedom of its members. (John Paul II tough, pragmatic, no-nonsense code is,” as 1994b, n. 13) Jean Elshtain fittingly expresses it, “‘free choice,’‘no constraints,’ and ‘my life is my Within our present cultural situation, utili- own’” (Elshtain 1982, 299). Or, as John tarianism manifests itself within the Paul II put it straightforwardly in his astonishing contradiction between a world encyclical Veritatis Splendor, this is “a community acclaiming the idea of human freedom which is self-designing” (John rights—“rights inherent in every person Paul II 1993, n. 50), or “self-defining,” a and prior to any Constitution and State ”— “ phenomenon creative of itself and its legislation and a tragic repudiation of values. Indeed, when all is said and done ” them in practice. How, in fact, John Paul man would not even have a nature; he II asks, “can we reconcile these declara- would be his own personal life project. tions with the refusal to accept those who Man would be nothing more than are weak and needy, or elderly, or those his own freedom! (John Paul II 1993, who have just been conceived?” This n. 46)7 Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 319

As differing from what Servais Pinck- place to solidarity, to openness to others and aers calls “freedom for excellence”—that is service of them.” In short, it gives no place to say, freedom “rooted in the soul’s spon- to the notion of common, or shared, goods, taneous inclinations to the true and the as proper to our nature as human and thus good” (Pinckaers 1995, 332)8—this funda- as social. Instead, this individualistic notion mentally selfish conception of freedom is, of freedom tends to pit the “‘strong’ against Ratzinger explains, the weak who have no choice but to submit” (John Paul II 1995, n. 19).11 no longer seen positively as a striving for the good, which reason uncovers with FREEDOM AND NATURAL LAW help from the community and tradition, but is defined rather as an emancipation “ from all conditions that prevent each one In recovering the constitutive relation- from following his own reason, [whence ship” (John Paul II 1993, n. 4) between its designation,] freedom of indifference. human freedom and truth, which he con- (Ratzinger 2007b, 382)9 sidered proper to a personalist notion of freedom as it will be exposited below, As the “average opinion” thus “spontaneously John Paul II appealed to natural law. This understands” it, freedom has become “the law, he explained, cannot be reduced to right and opportunity to do just what we “norms on the biological level.” Nor, on wish and not to have to do anything we do the other hand, does it “allow for any div- not wish to do” (Ratzinger 2007a, 338). ision between freedom and nature” (John Lost is what John Paul II points to in Ver- Paul II 1993, 50).12 Indeed, the challenge, itatis splendor as the “essential bond between as he saw it already in his prepontifical Truth, the Good and Freedom” (John Paul writings, was to distinguish between the 10 II 1993, n. 84); whence his attempt in this order of nature and the biological order, encyclical to correct the current tendency of which were too often confused by an “detaching human freedom from its essential empirical perspective that had profoundly and constitutive relationship to truth” (John influenced “the mind of modern man.” Paul II 1993, n. 4). As he put it in his encyclical Centisimus annus, The “biological order,” as a product of the human intellect which abstracts its If there is no transcendent truth then there elements from a larger reality, has man for is no sure principle for guaranteeing just its immediate author. The claim to auton- relations between people. Their self-interest omy in one’s ethical views is a short jump as a class, group or nation would inevitably from this. It is otherwise with the “order of set them in opposition to one another. If nature,” which means the totality of the one does not acknowledge transcendent cosmic relationships that arise among really truth, then the force of power takes over, existing entities. It is therefore the order of and each person tends to make full use of existence, and the laws which govern it the means at his disposal in order to have their foundation in Him, Who is the impose his own interests or his own unfailing source of that existence, in God opinion, with no regard for the rights of the Creator. (Wojtyła 1993a, 57) others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for From this second (metaphysical and selfish ends. (John Paul II 1991, n. 44) creational) perspective, human nature is recognized as purposefully organized in its This notion of freedom is thus one “spiritual and biological inclinations” in “which exalts the isolated individual in an view of its specific end as intended by the absolute way”:inaway,which“gives no Creator and as willfully appropriated by 320 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 the human person, who is called to “direct willed, so as to be rendered by the tradition and regulate his life and actions and … actus humanus (human acts) (Wojtyła make use of his own body,” in accord with 1993b, 183).15 Still more specifically, it those purposes (John Paul II 1993, nn. 50, refers to acts that are willed in accord with 51). Precisely because the human person is divine governance of the world and of characterized by reason, God provides for human persons. him or her “Through natural law, human beings participate in God, in God’sreason,inGod’s differently from the way in which he provides for beings which are not persons. relation to the whole of reality created by ” He cares for man not “from without,” God, Wojtyła(1993b,185)explains.After through the laws of physical nature, but all, “all norms, including the personalistic “from within,” through reason, which by norm,” as it will be explained below, are— its natural knowledge of God’s eternal precisely as “based on the essences, or law is consequently able to show man the natures, of beings”—“expressions of the right direction to take in his free actions. order that governs the world” (Wojtyła (John Paul II 1993, n. 43) 1993f, 287). Two planes are thus brought — — In virtue of his or her reason, the human together nature and person precisely person knows, for example, that his or her by pointing to the person as a subject natural perfection requires that he or she who is conscious of the order of nature [including his or her own nature as a do good and avoid evil, be concerned for physical-psychological-spiritual whole], the transmission and preservation of life, and responsible for preserving it. refine and develop the riches of the (Wojtyła 1993f, 293)16 material world, cultivate social life, seek truth, practice good and contemplate Natural law therefore “does not imply some beauty. (John Paul II 1993, n. 51) sort of arbitrary interference of subjective ” Natural law does not, in other words, reason in the objective world, such that “ simply lead to the abolition of norms as it human reason might impose its own cat- does “when we conceive of the person in a egories on reality, as was ultimately the case ’ ” totally subjectivisticwayaspureconscious- in Kant santhropologicalview. Rather, it “ ness” (Wojtyła1993f,287).Afterall,the implies the attitude of reason discerning, meaning of nature that is implied by this grasping, defining, and affirming, in relation term (natural law) is one that is specifically to an order that is objective and prior to ” human: one that is “the participation of the human reason itself, namely, the order orig- “ ” eternal law in a rational creature,” as inating from the divine source of law, that “ ” Wojtyła puts it with implicit reference to is to say, divine reason (Wojtyła1993b, “ St. Thomas Aquinas (Wojtyła1993b, 184). As such, it also entails acertainsub- 183).13 As such, it does not merely refer to ordination of the human person in relation what happens or is passively actualized in to God, a subordination that is, after all, ” the human person as “the subject of instinc- very honorable (Wojtyła 1993b, 185). tive actualization” (Wojtyła1993b,182):in, that is to say, “the somatic and even psychic THE EXPERIENCE OF FREEDOM AS nature of this subject,” or what the tradition SELF-DETERMINATION IN ACCORD WITH refers to as actus humanis (acts of man), that OBJECTIVE VALUES is to say, acts lacking moral significance.14 Instead, it refers to what is specifically Armed by this profound conviction that human in human nature: to acts that are the Creator cares for the human person Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 321

“from within,” John Paul II turned to the subject,” we abandon the very basis of the experience of human action as revelatory objectivity of the experience that allows of freedom’s essentially teleological charac- us to understand and explain the subjec- ter: to that fact that freedom is naturally tivity of the human being in a complete orientated to the good of the human way. (Wojtyła 1993d, 222) person and thus also of the human community. This was a particularly important It was this attention upon consciousness move in light of the prevalent cultural as manifesting, rather than as constituting, mindset, which was preoccupied with what created being that emerges in much of the Kenneth Schmitz points to as “experience, magisterial teaching of John Paul II. His inwardness, and subjectivity” (Schmitz decisive turn to experience is, in other 1994, 31).17 Wojtyławaskeenlyawarethat words, in service of explicating the onto- the modern understanding of these concepts logical truth, or objectivity, of created was significantly different from that of the being. “Experience,” writes Wojtyła, ancient and medieval traditions. These tra- “dispels the notion of ‘pure consciousness’ ditions regarded every nature as directed from human knowledge”: the idea that from within to its specific end, or perfection, knowledge is self-constituting rather than as was verified by the experience of causal- based upon objective reality. The Arch- ity. In modern philosophy, on the other bishop of Kraków thus suggested that we hand, this teleological orientation from turn to experience to serve our under- within had been co-opted by human subjec- standing of the world as given to human tivity, as Wojtyłaarticulatedinanessay consciousness rather than as created published two years before he assumed thereby. Experience, after all, “is always an Peter’sChair.Consciousness,Wojtyła experience of ‘something’ or ‘somebody’” observed, had been rendered absolute by the (Wojtyła 1993d, 221). moderns, whence the dethroning of Convinced of the truth of the meta- “the metaphysical attitude” (the idea physical claim that nature determines that being literally transcends [meta-]the operation (ordo essendi est ordo agendi: the physical realm) of the ancient and medieval order of essence, or nature, is the order of traditions by “the gnosiological attitude” of operation), Wojtyła thus capitalized upon the moderns. This latter attitude, he the revelatory function of action: operari explains, is characterized by the idea that sequitur esse (operation follows essence). “being is constituted in and somehow “[T]he causal dependence of activity on through consciousness” (Wojtyła1993d, existence … also implies yet another 226),18 whence the notion, as we saw relation” between operation and essence above, that the human being is “nothing (or nature), he explains, namely “a gnosio- more than his own freedom” (John Paul II logical [or epistemological] dependence. 1993, n. 46). “The reality of the person,” From human operari, then, we discover however, requires, Wojtyłaknew, not only that the human being is its ‘sub-ject,’19 but also who the human being the restoration of the notion of conscious is as the subject of his or her activity,” that being, a being that is not constituted in is to say, the actor (Wojtyła 1993d, 223). and through consciousness but that In other words, precisely through the instead somehow constitutes consciousness. (Wojtyła 1993d, 226) experience of his or her own agency (actus humanum) and of “everything that As soon as we begin to accept the notion happens” in him or her “on both the of “pure consciousness” or the “pure somatic and the psychic level, or, more 322 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 precisely, on both the somatic-reactive and about his own actions and takes responsi- the psychic-motive level” (what was desig- bility for them. (Wojtyła 1993a, 46–47) nated above as actus hominis), the human being comes to understand the nature of Within the specific context of the sexual “ his or her own person: what it means to act, this also means taking responsibility for 20 ” be human (Wojtyła 1993d, 224). the natural purpose of the [sexual] instinct, It is the properly human act (actus namely, the conception of children as humanus), however, which most particularly the fruit of conjugal love between man reveals the inwardness and in-selfness of and woman. The will makes this purpose the person and also activates the self- its own, and, in consciously working possession and self-governance proper to towards it, seeks greater scope for its the structure of the person. (Wojtyła creative tendency. (Wojtyła 1993a, 137) 1993d, 232) In short, the human person is In determining myself—and this takes place through an act of will—I become not responsible for what happens to him aware and also testify to others that I in the sphere of sex since he is obviously possess myself and govern myself. In this not himself the cause of it, but he is way, my acts give me a unique insight entirely responsible for what he does [even into myself as a person. By virtue of self- internally, i.e., by willing] in this sphere. 22 determination, I experience in the rela- (Wojtyła 1993a, 47) tively most immediate way that I am a person. (Wojtyła 1993e, 193)21 It is this distinction between what merely happens in the human person and This particular willed act whereby I what he or she actively determines that determine myself thus points to a more thus points to the proper domain of the profound understanding of the faculty of will. “An act of will is an act of a subject the will than that implied by an individua- … directed toward a value that is willed as listic understanding of freedom as it was an end and that is also, therefore, an exposited above. To recognize the will as object of endeavor,” Wojtyła explains. For “ … a “wanting” that is directed toward a cor- the will cannot allow an object to be responding object (i.e., towards a value imposed upon it as a good. It wants to that is also an end) does not fully explain choose, and to affirm its choice, the object its [the will’s] dynamism. (Wojtyła chosen” (Wojtyła 1993a, 136). As such— 1993e, 191) as actively directing the human subject towards a value chosen as an end—the Such a desire, or longing, is recognized by will is responsible for a certain (horizontal) Wojtyła as belonging more properly to transcendence of the subject, who “actively what happens in the human person, and it ‘goes out’ beyond itself [that is to say, is on this level that he identifies the sexual beyond him- or herself] toward this value” urge. Because it takes place “without any (Wojtyła 1993e, 191). This means that initiative on his part,” it is not proper to although “the personal subjectivity of the the human person as such. Indeed, human being” is internal, it “is not a animals also know the sexual urge. But closed-in structure” (Wojtyła 1993d, 233). this internal “happening” creates as it As if to respond to the particular chal- were a base for definite actions, for con- lenge of modernity with its emphasis upon sidered actions, in which man exercises the inwardness of the subject, Wojtyła self-determination, decides for himself thus teaches that Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 323

Neither self-consciousness nor self- To be free means not only to will, but possession encloses the human self within also to choose and to decide, and this itself as a subject. Quite the contrary. The already suggests a transcendent subordi- whole “turning toward itself” that con- nation of the good to the true in action. sciousness and self-consciousness work to Conscience, however, is the proper place bring about is ultimately a source of the of this subordination. The person’s auth- most expansive openness of the subject entic transcendence in action is realized toward reality. In the human being, in in conscience, and the actus humanus the human self as a personal subject, self- takes shape as the willing and choosing of fulfillment and transcendence are insepar- a “true good” thanks to conscience. Thus ably connected. (Wojtyła 1993d, 233) the element of conscience reveals both in action and in the efficient subject of At stake in willed action is, therefore, action the transcendence of truth and not simply “the efficacy of the personal freedom, for freedom is realized precisely self”—that is to say, the choosing of the through the willing and choosing of a ends of one’sownaction—but also the true good. (Wojtyła 1993d, 234)25 determination of one’sownself.Bywilling— What emerges in these passages is the in the sense of choosing—aparticularvalue, understanding of freedom as orientated by I simultaneously define myself “as a value”: love for the authentic good, as differing I become “‘good’ or ‘bad’” (Wojtyła 1993e, from the superficial or fleeting good that 191–192).23 I am, in other words, respon- characterizes the search for pleasure.26 sible not only for my actions, but also for And this in turn means that while we myself as a person. naturally desire what is good for us,27 this The dynamic structure of self- good must nonetheless be freely chosen in determination reveals to me that I am accord with reason. It cannot be otherwise, given to myself and assigned to myself. Wojtyła explains, because by endowing This is precisely how I appear to myself the human being with an intellect and in my acts and in my inner decisions of will, God conscience: as permanently assigned to myself, as having continually to affirm has thereby ordained that each man [or and monitor myself [that is to say, in woman] alone will decide for himself the accord with an objective moral value], ends of his activity, and not be a blind and thus, in a sense, as having continually tool of someone else’s ends. (Wojtyła to “achieve” this dynamic structure of my 1993a, 27) self, a structure that is given to me as self- It follows that, as Immanuel Kant possession and self-governance. (Wojtyła 1993 g, 214) expressed it in his categorical imperative, no one—not even God the Creator, In short, this “dynamic structure of self- Wojtyła insists28—can use another human determination” reveals the true meaning of being as a means to an end. Hence, utili- freedom as implying transcendence, which tarianism is diametrically opposed to in turn requires of the human subject that Wojtyła’s form of personalism. he or she move beyond the instinctual manner of acting, as characterized by a utilitarian search of pleasure. “Sexual FREEDOM AND THE PERSONALISTIC values, after all, tend to impose them- NORM selves, whereas the value of the person waits to be chosen and affirmed” (Wojtyła Wojtyła is not satisfied to found an ethical 1993a, 136).24 perspective upon this negative formulation, 324 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 however. Instead, he suggests that we Nothing [explains Aquinas] is hurt by propose the Gospel imperative to love being adapted to that which is suitable to it; rather, if possible, it is perfected and as the only clear alternative to using a bettered. But if a thing be adapted to that person as the means to an end, or the which is not suitable to it, it is hurt and instrument of one’s own action. (Wojtyła made worse thereby. Consequently love 1993a, 28)29 of a suitable good perfects and betters the lover; but love of a good which is unsuita- Concretely this means ble to the lover, wounds and worsens him.35 that each of us must continually set ourselves the task of actually participating in the humanity of others, of experiencing Unlike St. Thomas, however, who the other as an I, as a person. Thus, the follows Aristotle in using the word love to impulse that the commandment expresses describe even the attraction of planetary from without must in each instance arise bodies to their centers—the “love” from within. (Wojtyła 1993c, 203)30 whereby they are naturally drawn into 36— 31 orbit John Paul II reserves this word This attitude, which he calls personalistic, for willed acts, as distinct from those does not, therefore, automatically result based upon a particular law of nature or — from categorical knowledge from my instinct. Hence, his important formu- “ conceptualization of the essence human lation: “Only a person can love and only a ”—“ being but from an even richer lived person can be loved” (John Paul II 1988, ” “ experience, whereby I transfer what is n. 29). given to me as my own I beyond myself to With this simple but highly significant one of the others, who, as a result, appears formulation, John Paul II invited us some primarily as a different I, another I,my twenty years after the Second Vatican ” neighbor (Wojtyła 1993c, 200). Council to return to one of its insights, The very point in this phenomenologi- which was destined to be of key impor- cal exercise is that it reveals the objective tance for his papal writings and which value, or intrinsic dignity, of the person: a “crystallized for him many of the cardinal value that is not simply accorded by my ideas he had been striving to express in his desire for him or her, nor by my choice of [pre-pontifical] philosophical anthropol- him or her as a beloved friend, partner, or ogy” (Shivananden 1999, 8)37: the number spouse. Indeed, as differing from divine 24 of the Pastoral Constitution of the love, human love is not the cause of good- Church. There we read that ness, as St. Thomas observes.32 Rather, it is the “good [that] is the proper cause of Man—whether man or woman—is the ”33 love : not just any good, the angelic only being among the creatures of the doctor specifies, but that good, “which is visible world that God the Creator “has akin and proportionate” to the lover; for willed for its own sake,” “love implies a certain connaturalness or complacency of the lover for the thing and John Paul II adds in his commentary: beloved.”34 This, of course, is not to deny what was said above about self- that creature is thus a person. Being a determination by action: the perfecting or person means striving towards self- debasing of oneself by way of one’s own realization (the Council text speaks of actions. After all, the very point is that not self-discovery), which can only be all goods are good for me. achieved “through a sincere gift of self.” Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 325

This in turn means, he explains, that the encounter love, if he does not experience human person “is called to exist ‘for’ it and make it his own, if he does not others, to become a gift” (John Paul II participate intimately in it. (John Paul II 1988, n. 7).38 1979, n. 16) As this passage might serve to clarify, Given the importance that Wojtyła the distinction between an individualistic, accords to human action in the “personal or utilitarian, understanding of freedom structure of self-determination,” as we saw and a personalist one hangs upon the above, this important phrase “participating meaning of this little word “for.” The in love” cannot be taken in a merely question, more specifically, is whether this passive sense. What is implied thereby is word is understood in a utilitarian manner not only the experience of oneself as an —such that the person is accorded value object of love (as beloved), but also and on the basis of his or her function, useful- especially the experience of oneself as an ness, or desirability, so as to be conceived actor, or subject, of love (as lover). In the as a means to the other’s end, or (which second sense, Wojtyła addresses what he amounts to the same) as the object of the refers to as the “‘law of the gift’… other’s —or whether, freedom to dominate inscribed deep within the dynamic struc- instead, the word is understood in a for ture of the person” according to which it . In this second sense, personalistic manner is “precisely when one becomes a gift for the person is, in contrast, regarded in others that one most fully becomes terms of his or her fundamental and oneself” (Wojtyła 1993c, 194), and thus intrinsic dignity or value and thus as 40 authentically free. worthy of the other’s self-gift. “The person From this perspective, there need be no loved,” John Paul II instructs us, must be disparity between our conception of the “since love alone corresponds to what the person as existing for him- or herself and person ” (John Paul II 1988, n. 29). It is is the admission that he or she can only not enough, in other words, to exclude really discover or realize his- or herself by from our behavior all “that reduces the freely becoming a gift for others: by using, person to a mere object of pleasure.” We in other words, his or her freedom for the must also, and more positively, “ affirm the good of others. What makes the simulta- ” (John Paul II 1994a, person as a person neity of both of these affirmations possible 201). The ethical requirement—that the is the positive value that is thus accorded person must be loved—is, in other words, to the notion of freedom. Instead of derived from an ontological fact: only love regarding freedom in a negative sense—as, befits the metaphysical content, or for example, freedom from constraint or meaning, of personhood.39 Only the responsibility, for example—it is herein person, in other words, is “good for me” in understood in the positive sense, so as to the sense that he or she is capable of be rendered freedom for: freedom for the receiving and of responding to the self-gift other, that is to say, freedom for commu- that is the highest expression of my own nion, for service, or for responsible action. humanity. It is thus not surprising that in Far from being an end in itself, freedom is his first encyclical letter we are told: thus understood as orientated at the outset to the higher good of communion and Man cannot live without love. He thus also of love. remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is Love consists of a commitment which not revealed to him, if he does not limits one’s freedom—it is a giving of the 326 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014

self, and to give oneself means just that: LOVE STRONGER THAN PLEASURE:THE to limit one’s freedom on behalf of FINAL BLOW TO UTILITARIANISM another … Love commits freedom and imbues it with that to which the will is From the foregoing we might conclude — naturally attracted goodness. The will that although it is entirely legitimate to aspires to the good, and freedom belongs acknowledge desire as a certain aspect of to the will, hence freedom exists for the love and even as the first or primary act of sake of love, because it is by way of love 42 that human beings share most fully in the love motivating all the others —indeed, good. (Wojtyła 1993a, 135–136) Wojtyła notes that it reveals the human person as a “limited being” who “needs This is why, he concludes, “man longs other beings”—love for another human for love more than for freedom—freedom being cannot simply be limited to sensual is the means and love the end” (Wojtyła desire. When it is—when my actions 1993a, 136). toward another person are motivated If, on the other hand, “we deprive exclusively or primarily by pleasure—then human freedom of this possibility”—that of the personalistic norm is violated because submitting itself to the good of love— “that person will become only the means to an end” (Wojtyła 1993a, 33), namely if man does not commit himself to that of my pleasure. Again, this is not to becoming a gift for others, then this deny that an authentically loving relation- freedom can become dangerous. It will ship with another person is also become freedom to do what I myself con- pleasurable.43 Passion, or erotic love, and sider as good, what brings me a profit or pleasure, even a sublimated pleasure. If desire are integral to love, precisely insofar we cannot accept the prospect of giving our- as they point to the spontaneous, or selves as a gift, then the danger of a selfish natural, estimation of a created good, in freedom will always be present. [original this case, the intrinsic value of the person. emphasis] (John Paul II 1994a, 202)41 They are a reaction to—and in this sense an affirmation of—this intrinsic good and When, for example, one invokes the not creative of this good.44 Or, as Pieper notion of “free love” to follow “a ‘real’ would have it, they are “simply the elemen- emotional impulse …‘liberated’ from all tal dynamics of our being itself, set in motion conditionings,” he or she readily becomes by the act that created us” (Pieper 1997, “a slave to those human instincts which 222). Saint Thomas calls ‘passions of the soul.’ From this perspective, Pope Benedict ‘Free love’” all too easily “exploits human XVI has good reason to defend Christian weaknesses.” The free “lover,” after all, moral teaching against Friedrich Nietzche’s claim that Christianity has does not tolerate the fact that someone “poisoned eros,” turning “to bitterness the else “wants” or demands something from most precious thing in life” (Benedict him in the name of an objective truth. — He does not want to “give” to another on 2005, n. 3). Eros that ecstatic love, the basis of truth; he does not want to which literally transports us outside of our- become a “sincere gift.” selves (ex-stasis)—cannot, however, Benedict suggests, be reduced to merely It is thus not surprising that John Paul II instinctual love. mournfully exclaims: “How many families have been ruined because of ‘free love’!” Eros, reduced to pure “sex,” has become a (John Paul II 1994b, n. 14). commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 327

and sold, or rather, man himself becomes defending the person against the reduc- a commodity. (Benedict 2005, n. 5) tionism that claims him or her as a means to another’s good. He is also and simul- In this sense, we return to the utilitarian taneously arguing to defend the subject framework. Indeed, St. Thomas points to against the debasement of his or her own the fact that while ecstatic love can be a humanity by choosing a “good” that is unfit- means of perfecting the lover by way of of it (humanity) as rational, and thus 45 ting the latter’s transcendence, the lover can as capable of a love, which literally trans- also be “placed outside” (ex-statis) of him- ports (ex-stasis) the subject toward a or herself in the form of a debasement, higher (transcendent) good, rather than namely, by loving that which is unfitting one which debases him or her. There is, in 46 to his or her nature. In the case at fact, no real transcendence in the instinc- hand, “if we do not love the person in tual love that the tradition labels another human being, we thereby also concupiscence, for in seeking to have a good degrade the person in ourselves” (Wojtyła for oneself, the subject “does not go out 1993f, 294). [ex-stasis] from himself simply, and this It follows that the goal of authentic movement remains finally within himself.” transcendence is achieved Hence, for example, wine or chocolate are not desired for their own sake, but for the not simply by submitting to instinct [to, sake of my pleasure. In the love of friend- that is to say, the desire of concupiscence, as it will be exposited below]. Purification ship, on the other hand, which is a and growth in maturity are called for; and characteristically human (and thus perfect- these also pass through the path of ing) good, one’s “affection goes out from renunciation. (Benedict 2005, n. 5) itself simply,” because, as St. Thomas reasons, one “wishes and does good to his The will to renounce certain attractive friend, by caring and providing for him, goods implies, in turn, what Wojtyła for his own sake.”47 identifies as the “transcendent subordina- Of course, in friendship this benevolent tion of the good to the true” by the goodwill is also joined to genuine affection exercise of conscience (Wojtyła 1993d, and thus to a certain emotional attraction. 234). Pope Benedict thus concludes, “Far Wojtyła has good reason to insist that from rejecting or ‘poisoning’ eros,” purifi- pure emotion “is no substitute” for cation and maturity “heal it and restore its wishing what is good for one’s beloved, true grandeur” (Benedict 2005, n. 5). Or, “but,” he adds, “divorced from emotion as Wojtyła puts it, the limitation of one’s that wish is cold and incommunicable” freedom on behalf of another, which is (Wojtyła 1993a, 91). It thus bears repeat- implicit to the loving gift of one’s self to ing that it is not pleasure as such that is another, “might seem to be something forbidden by Wojtyła’s personalistic norm, negative and unpleasant, but love makes it but rather the “quest for pleasure for its a positive, joyful and creative thing.” own sake, accepting it as a superlative Hence, it bears repeating, “Freedom exists value and the proper basis for a norm of for the sake of love” [original emphasis] behavior” (Wojtyła 1993a, 43).48 Concu- (Wojtyła 1993a, 136). piscent love for another person is a “sinful Similarly, when Pope John Paul II love,” Wojtyła argues, because it represents argues against the pleasure principle of uti- “a latent inclination of human beings to litarianism—the greatest pleasure for the invert the objective order of values”: greatest number—he is not simply namely, the “consistent tendency to see 328 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 persons … as ‘objects of potential enjoy- and noble potentiality, to the other ment,’” rather than “through the medium” person concerned. It desires the absolute of their specific values as persons (Wojtyła good, the unlimited good, happiness for 1993a, 159).49 Such, moreover, is the case that person, and in this way compensates even when there is mutual consent to a and atones for the desire to have that other person … for itself. (Wojtyła relationship based upon the pleasure prin- 1993a, 137)52 ciple. Each of the consenting parties is then Clearly, then, Wojtyła is not implying mainly concerned with gratifying his or that lovers might simply stare starry-eyed her own egoism, but at the same time at one another. The “affirmation of the consents to serve someone else’s egoism, value of the person,” which he identifies as because this can provide the opportunity the “essence” of love (Wojtyła 1993a, 42), for such gratification—and just as long as is after all, an acknowledgement of the it does so. (Wojtyła 1993a, 39) transcendent good of the person: an acknowledgement that is accessible to the True reciprocity, on the other hand, “pre- human being in virtue of the judgment of supposes altruism in both persons.” conscience. Authentic love, as Wojtyła It simply “cannot arise from two understands it, is thus egoisms” [original emphasis] (Wojtyła 50 1993a, 88). conditioned by the common attitude of As these passages serve to illustrate, people towards the same good which they “instinct alone does not necessarily imply choose as their aim, and to which they the ability to love.” This ability is, subordinate themselves. Marriage is one of however, “inherent in human beings,” the most important areas where this prin- Wojtyła maintains, “and is bound up with ciple is put into practice [original their freedom of will” (Wojtyła 1993a, emphasis]… 29).51 It implies, to summarize, For in marriage two people, a man and a a particular readiness to subordinate woman, are united in such a way that oneself to that good, which “humanity,” they become in a sense, “one flesh” (to or more precisely, the value of the person use the words of the Book of Genesis), represents, regardless of … sex. (Wojtyła i.e., one common subject, as it were, of 1993a, 31) sexual life. How is it possible to ensure that one person does not then become for As such, it also implies the “willingness the other—the woman for the man, or consciously to seek a good together with the man for the woman [or in the case of others and to subordinate” oneself “to that homosexual relationships, the man for the good for the sake of others, or to others other man or the woman for the woman] for the sake of that good” (Wojtyła 1993a, —nothing more than the means to an 29). end—i.e. an object used exclusively for the attainment of a selfish end? To The sexual instinct makes the will desire exclude this possibility they must share and long for a person because of the the same end. Such an end, where mar- person’s sexual value. The will, however, riage is concerned, is procreation, the does not stop at this. It is free, or in future generation, a family, and, at other words, capable of desiring every- the same time, the continual ripening of thing relating to the unqualified good, the relationship between two people, in the unlimited good, that is happiness. all the areas of activity which conjugal life And it commits this capacity, its natural includes. (Wojtyła 1993a, 30) Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 329

Or, to put it still more straightfor- are called to chastity. By the virtues of wardly, in terms borrowed from the self-mastery that teach them inner Catechism of the Catholic Church: freedom, at times by the support of disin- terested friendship, by prayer and Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage sacramental grace, they can and should [which thus defines marriage as such], for gradually and resolutely approach Chris- conjugal love naturally tends to be fruit- tian perfection. (CCC 1997, n. 2359) ful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the FREEDOM AT THE SERVICE OF THE very heart of that mutual giving, as its FAMILY fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which “is on the side of life” teaches that This ethical requirement to love the “ each and every marriage act must remain person in virtue of his or her singular open to the transmission of life.” (CCC 53 dignity, but also in virtue of the meaning 1997, n. 2366) of freedom itself, is foundational with In refuting the “right” to gay “marriage,” respect to John Paul II’s defense of the it is thus important to point out that the family. This, more specifically, is a defense Church is not calling into question the against the many attacks directed against fact that homosexuals are truly capable of the family on the basis of an extreme indi- loving one another with an altruistic, or vidualism, including an individualistic benevolent, form of love, and thus of understanding of freedom. But it is also a giving themselves selflessly to one another defense pointing to the irreplaceable value in authentic friendship. In question rather, of the family itself for the good of the as we shall see more fully in the following human person: for each and every child section, is the common good of their born into this world. “ ” sexual union. What is the transcendent, God the Creator calls him [each human and thus objective, good that defines their being] into existence “for himself”; and in coming together in “marriage”? Or, in coming into the world he begins, in the terms supplied by John Paul II’s personal- family, his “great adventure”, the adven- ist notion of freedom, we might ask: what ture of human life. “This man” has, in is the truth that orientates their freedom every instance, the right to fulfill himself on to love and thus also to responsibility? the basis of his human dignity [original emphasis]. It is precisely this dignity The person [writes John Paul II] realizes which establishes a person’s place among himself by the exercise of freedom in others, and above all, in the family. The truth. Freedom cannot be understood as a family is indeed—more than any other license to do absolutely anything: it means human reality—the place where an indi- a gift of self. Even more: it means an vidual can exist “for himself” through the interior discipline of the gift [original sincere gift of self. This is why it remains emphasis]. The idea of gift contains not a social institution which neither can nor only the free initiative of the subject, but should be replaced [emphasis added]: it is also the aspect of duty. All this is made the “sanctuary of life.” (John Paul II real in the “communion of persons.” We 1994b, n. 11) find ourselves again at the very heart of each family. (John Paul II 1994b, n. 14)54 Far from challenging human freedom, John Paul II thus seeks to protect it by As for homosexual persons, they, the rooting it within the objective context of Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, transcendent values and antecedent 330 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 realities, namely human nature and thus homosexual act is fundamentally sterile. A also the human community of the family, gay or lesbian couple simply cannot which is implicit to that nature as social. express their love in a procreative manner: Or to put it in other words, human in an act, which makes them capable of dignity is presented as the basis of the becoming “cooperators with God for protection of human freedom, which giving life to a new human person” (John implies that human freedom must also Paul II 1994b, n. 14). serve human dignity and thus submit itself It is important to add in this context, as to human dignity whenever the two enter does Pope John Paul II, that when we into conflict. affirm that It is, in fact, precisely in defense of the dignity of the human child and thus also the spouses, as parents, cooperate with God the Creator in conceiving and giving of what the Church presents as the “first birth to a new human being, we are not right of the child” to be “‘born in a 55 speaking merely with reference to the laws family’” (PCJP 2004, n. 244), or more of biology. Instead, we wish to emphasize specifically, “to be born of a father and that God himself is present in human father- mother known to him and bound to each hood and motherhood [original emphasis] other by marriage” (CCC 1997, n. 2376), quite differently than he is present in all that the Church defends heterosexual mar- other instances of begetting “on earth.” riage against all tendencies to otherwise define the term. It is, after all, this particu- Because, in fact, only the human person of all of visible creation is endowed with lar communion of persons, and it alone, that is intrinsically ordered—that is to say, freedom, whereby he or she is considered “ ” from within—to the procreation and edu- the image and likeness of God, the cation of children.56 begetting of a human child is considered by the Church as “the continuation of [the To admit that this ordering is by nature ” is particularly significant. It means that this divine act of] Creation (John Paul II fundamental characteristic is neither arbi- 1994b, n. 9). Hence, the child who is “ ” trary, nor accorded by social convention or begotten is not only the fruit of the “ ” cultural practice, far less by individual mutual gift of love of the couple; he or “ freedom, nor even by the sacramental she is also a gift [from God] for both of ” economy of Christ: as a gift of redemption them (John Paul II 1995, n. 92). proper to Christians, so as to be adminis- This fact that the child is a gift from tered by the Church.57 Nor still is this God, who alone remains the author of life, fundamental characteristic of marriage is extremely important to underline in the accorded to it by the State. Rather, to debate between those who defend the tra- admit that conjugal love is ordered to pro- ditional family and those who attack it under the banner of new rights or that of creation and education by nature means that “ ” these ends belong to it in virtue of creation: the so-called right to marriage for all. that they reflect God’spurposeincreating When, more specifically, homosexual “ ” us “male and female” (cf. Gen 1:27).58 couples insist upon the right to adop- To be sure, even a heterosexual couple tion, the Church never tires of may choose not to procreate, but that does proclaiming the right of the child over any not mean that the conjugal act, whereby presumed right to a child. they express themselves in a one-flesh A child is not something owed to one, union, is not in and of itself ordered to but is a gift [original emphasis]. The procreation. Nor can it be denied that a “supreme gift of marriage” is a human Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 331

person. A child may not be considered a accord artificial wombs to the human race piece of property, an idea to which an are, however, questions such as “the very alleged “right to a child” would lead. In meaning of human pregnancy: the this area, only the child possesses genuine meaning of the mother-child relationship, “ rights: the right to be the fruit of the the nature of the female body, and the sig- specific act of the conjugal love of his nificance of being born, not ‘made,’” parents,” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his con- explains ethicist Christine Rosen. 59 ception.” (CCC 1997, n. 2378) Let’s say, for example, that scientists Or, to put it in personalistic terms, the perfect the artificial womb to the point where it becomes a “healthier” environ- child possesses the right to be loved, since ment than the old-fashioned human love alone befits his or her personhood. version. Artificial wombs, after all, To be sure, there will always be those who wouldn’t be threatened by irresponsible would challenge these rights as such, but introductions of alcohol or illegal drugs. in so doing they cannot avoid resorting to They could have precisely regulated an individualistic understanding of human sources of temperature and nutrition and freedom. ongoing monitoring by expert technicians in incubation clinics. Like genetic testing of unborn fetuses, which is fast becoming a medical norm rather than a choice, MARRIAGE AND THE RESPECT OF people might begin to ask: “Why take the FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS risk of gestating my child in an old- fashioned womb?” With an eye to avoid- With regard to the first of these rights of ing costs and complications, insurance the child—that of being the fruit of the companies might begin to insist that we conjugal act of his or her parents—the don’t. (Imagine “expectant mothers” stop- Church insists upon the fact that “Mother- ping by the incubation clinic once a week hood necessarily implies fatherhood, and in to check up on their “unborn” child.) turn, fatherhood necessarily implies mother- (Rosen 2003, 72) ” hood [original emphasis] (John Paul II Perhaps the warning of Pope Paul VI in 1994b, n. 7). Indeed, despite all advances his encyclical Humanae vitae was never so in reproductive technologies, scientists are powerful: not able to overcome this vital fact of human nature: it takes a female ovum and if the mission of generating life is not to a male sperm for human reproduction. be exposed to the arbitrary will of men, Furthermore, this new life—which is one must necessarily recognize unsur- absolutely unique, so as to have its own mountable limits to the possibility of ’ genetic code, unique from that of both his man s domination over his own body and its functions; limits which no man, or her mother and father—is, despite all whether a private individual or one scientific efforts to create artificial wombs invested with authority, may licitly —still dependent upon his or her mother surpass. (Paul VI 1968, n. 17) during the early months of its gestation.60 Even the so-called test-tube baby, who is As for Rosen, she concludes, conceived outside of his or her mother, is There is something about being born of a not viable outside of her womb or that of human being—rather than a cow or an another woman. incubator—that fundamentally makes us Far more fundamental than the ques- human. Whether it is the sound of a tion of whether science might someday human voice, the beating of a human 332 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014

heart, the temperature and rhythms of what might appear a more respectable the human body, or some combination of agreement between a surrogate mother all of these things that makes it so, it is and a couple who “order” her services, difficult to imagine that science will ever Agacinski invites us to open our eyes “to find a way to truly mimic them. (Rosen reality: the fruit of a pregnancy is a child.” 2003, 76) It is thus also a child who is the object of Similarly, John Paul II asks: the “agreement” between the surrogate and the “‘beneficiaries’ of the operation” (Aga- On the human level, can there be any sinski 2009, 109). Under these other “communion” comparable to that circumstances, of course, the child “who is between a mother and a child whom she has carried ‘for another’ is inevitably perceived carried in her womb and then brought to as an exchangeable being” (Agasinski birth? (John Paul II 1994b, n. 7) 2009, 107). This, of course, is also an important Underlying the question of the dignity question to raise within the context of of children in these frightening circum- soliciting surrogate mothers to meet the stances and even the question of the demands for children by gay couples: a dignity of surrogate mothers, who presum- practice that the French philosopher, Syl- ably resort to “renting” out their wombs 61 vaine Agacinski, rightfully denounces as for lucrative gain, we are thus reminded similar to prostitution in that it too is “a again of a common fact of nature: a truth particular sexual service,” which implies “a that cannot simply be thrust aside for the humiliation of the person” by putting her sake of convenience or so-called new private life and personal desires “in par- rights. This, more specifically, is the fact enthesis” (Agasinski 2009, 19). The usage that only the natural institution of mar- of the woman as an instrument for a riage allows for the procreation of children child’s gestation amounts, more specifi- in a manner that respects the rights of cally, Agacinski explains, to removing mother and child, not to mention those of motherhood from the personal and private the father, who is frankly far too often for- 62 sphere in order to transform it into a task gotten in this discussion. This, or a service “that one might soon pay for moreover, is a fact which remains as such with ‘employment-service checks.’” in the case of a lesbian woman, who Perhaps more frightening still, it leads to might well carry in her own womb a child, the idea that whom she intends to raise with a female partner. In this case, after all, the right of no one is irreplaceable any longer; anyone the child to a father as well as a mother— can be substituted for anyone else [as is that is to say, the right “to be born in a already apparent in the meaning of the real family” (PCJP 2004, n. 244)—is again word “surrogate” in English]: one sex sacrificed for the sake of an individualistic [might be substituted] for another, one womb for another. conception of freedom, which ignores the social consequences, including most Soon, one child, Agasinski suggests, might especially those affecting the child. As for even be substituted for another. In fact, the so-called right to adoption of the feminist philosopher points to the fact orphaned children by homosexual couples, that eBay recently featured babies up for this entails the redefining of the family in sale by surrogate mothers, who hoped to accord with a redefinition of marriage raise prices by promoting competition based upon the rhetoric of the “right” to (Agasinski 2009, 98). Even in the case of marriage for all. Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 333

This rhetoric does not, however, simply and not in being recognized by the State. create new rights by creating new entities: The family, then, does not exist for society or namely, new sorts of marriages and new the State, but society and the State exist for sorts of families. It also endangers the tra- the family. (PCJP 2004, n. 214) ditional family by discriminating against it, as we shall see, and also the fundamental It follows, as a direct consequence of rights of children to be born within the this precedence of the family over the context of a natural marriage between his or State, that no legislative power “can abolish her own father and mother. Indeed, if the the natural right to marriage or modify its State acts to recognize, protect, and traits and purpose.” In other words, mar- promote marital stability—as is currently the riage is “endowed with its own proper, case throughout most of the world—it does innate and permanent characteristics” not do so in view of simply private interests, (PCJP 2004, n. 216), namely, unity, indis- but rather in recognition of the contribution solubility, and openness to fertility (see of natural marriage itself “to the general CCC 1997, n. 1664). As belonging to it interest,” as the Pontifical Council for the by nature, these characteristics are not—it Family teaches, “especially [the interests] of bears repeating—accorded to it by the the weakest [members of society], i.e., the State, who nonetheless has the responsibil- children” (PCF 2000, n. 14). ity of “protecting and promoting the family as a fundamental natural institution” (PCJP 2004, n. 225).63 Civil law thus follows natural law, which THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF MARRIAGE is to say that the former must serve the AS THE BASIS OF THE PROTECTION OF common good and the truth of the human THE FAMILY person, who in turn must be served by freedom, rather than instrumentalized by it. From this perspective, it is quite clear that This fundamental ethical conviction mean- natural marriage, precisely as orientated to while requires that we acknowledge certain the generation and education of offspring, is transcendent values to which freedom is “ arelationshipwithasocialdimension,that accountable. And this, in turn, requires that is unique with regard to all other relation- we cannot regard freedom as auto- ” ships (PCJP 2004, n. 227). As the foundational or self-referential. Instead, foundation of the family, it is not only a freedom itself is rooted within human “ relationship, which is absolutely vital, basic nature, which is per se rational and social. As ” and necessary for the whole social body rational,thisnaturegrantstohuman “ (PCF 2000, n. 3). It also proceeds and freedom the guiding force of objective truth exceeds, in an absolute and radical way, the over relativism, for reason allows the human ” sovereign power of the State (PCF 2000, being to know and thus to distinguish truth n. 9). For this reason, the State has no from falsehood, and to likewise discern power to create the institution of marriage, between good and evil. As social,thisnature upon which the family is based, nor even to gives to freedom what John Paul II calls “an “ freely legislate with regard to the marriage inherently relational dimension” (John Paul ” “ ” bond but only to regulate its civil effects II 1995, n. 19), which necessarily challenges (PCJP 2004, n. 216). Or, to put it more the extreme individualism of our time. straightforwardly, Both of these dimensions—the rational The family possesses inviolable rights and and the social—come together in mar- finds its legitimization in human nature riage, wherein “commitments and 334 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014 responsibilities are taken on publicly and justice” (PCF 2000, n. 10). This principle formally,” precisely because they “are rel- of justice is in fact violated when homo- evant for society and exigibile in the sexual unions are granted a juridical juridical context” (PCF 2000, n. 11). The treatment similar or equivalent to that same cannot be said of de facto or private enjoyed by the family based on natural unions, such as a so-called gay marriage. marriage, precisely because these unions Indeed, the “undifferentiated exaltation of are granted the same rights without individuals’ freedom of choice, with no assuming the same public responsibilities reference to a socially relevant value proper to natural marriage. order,” is “blind” to “the objective social The real question of justice, however, dimension” of marriage, as the Pontifical lies in determining whether individual Council for the Family rightly points out rights trump over human dignity. This, (PCF 2000, n. 15). “Two or more persons more specifically, is the question of may decide to live together with, or whether human dignity is regarded as without a sexual dimension but this coha- rooted in human nature, wherein human bitation is not for that reason of public freedom lies, or whether instead human interest,” the pontifical council continues. freedom is a wild card in virtue of which we create ourselves and simultaneously The public authorities can not get manipulate others to our end. The answer involved in this private choice. De facto that we give to this question will in turn unions [such as those between gay men determine whether our public policies will or lesbian women] are the result of be concerned with preserving a future private behavior and should remain on worthy of the person. the private level. Their public recognition or equivalency to marriage, and the We cannot afford forms of permissiveness resulting elevation of a private interest to that would lead directly to the trampling public interest, damages the family based of human rights, and also to the complete on [natural] marriage, [by discriminating destruction of values which are funda- against it]. (PCF 2000, n. 11) mental not only for the lives of individuals and families but for society When, more specifically, the State itself, grants marital status to gay and lesbian couples64 or honors de facto unions— John Paul II rightly insists. Instead, the whether of same-sex or heterosexual Church proposes “responsible parenthood” couples—it simultaneously grants to these as private unions the same privileges of law that it accords to public ones. In other the necessary condition for authentic conjugal , because love cannot be irresponsible. words, it takes on certain obligations love Its beauty is the fruit of responsibility. towards these partners, who in turn do When love is truly responsible, it also “ not assume the essential obligations to truly free. [original emphasis] (John Paul society that are proper to marriage” (PCF II 1994a, 208)65 2000, n. 16), namely that of giving birth to and educating the citizens of tomor- Far more fundamental than our public row. It is for this reason that the policies is thus the responsibility of indi- pontifical council also insists upon the vidual couples and families to preserve and principle of justice, which “means treating nurture God’s plan for the human family, equals equally, and what is different dif- and thus for every family. This, as John ferently: i.e., to give each one his due in Paul II has separately asserted, Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 335

is to serve life, to acknowledge in history words from reality to nominalism. the original blessing of the Creator-that “Nominalist thinkers,” he explains, of transmitting by procreation the divine “detached words from concepts and image from person to person. (John Paul thereby undermined the assumption that II 1981, n. 28) language merely mirrors a reality interna- lized by the mind. This detachment As John Paul II put it in terms resonant enabled words to function as more than of his personalist notion of freedom: referential signs. Meaning was first established by the mind and subsequently The family finds in the plan of God the expressed in conventional signs. Early Creator and Redeemer not only its iden- humanists went further; they regarded tity, what it is, but also its mission, what language itself as creative of meaning. it can and should do. The role that God Reversing the traditional order of reference, they began to envision reality itself calls the family to perform in history through the prism of language.” (Dupré derives from what the family is; its role 1994, 6–7). represents the dynamic and existential 3. Orwell’s book was published in 1949. development of what it is. Each family 4. The philosopher, Cardinal Cottier, is also finds within itself a summons that cannot a retired theologian of the pontifical be ignored and that specifies both its house and secretary of the International dignity and its responsibility: family, Theological Commission. become what you are [original emphasis]. 5. Ironically, this thinking logically leads to (John Paul II 1981, n. 17)66 that of Judith Butler, who recognizes a “heterosexual imperative” working “in a performative fashion to constitute the ENDNOTES materiality of bodies, and, more specifically, to materialize the body’s sex, to 1. This is an expanded and newly adapted materialize sexual difference in the service version of a conference, “The Human of the consolidation of the heterosexual and Legal Base for Protection and imperative” (Butler 1993, 2). In other Support of the Family,” delivered at the words, “bodies only appear, only endure, invitation of the Holy See’s Permanent only live within the productive constraints Mission to the United Nations and of certain highly gendered regulatory Specialized Agencies in Geneva on schemas.” In fact, without these construc- March 18, 2013, within the context of a tions “we would not be able,” Butler parallel event on “Promoting human claims, “to think, to live, to make sense at rights and freedoms by upholding legal all.” They have “acquired for us a kind of and social protection for the traditional necessity” (Butler 1993, xi). Butler’s final family” in conjunction with the 22nd goal, however, is to change the regulatory Session of the United Nations Human norm: “to understand how what has been Rights Council, Geneva, February– foreclosed or banished [by the so-called March 2013. The original conference has heterosexual imperative] from the proper been published in Working Papers on domain of ‘sex’ [i.e., the homosexual, the Promoting Human Rights and Freedoms by transsexual, and the bisexual] … might at Upholding Legal and Social Protection for once be produced as a troubling return, the Traditional Family. Caritas in Veritate not only as an imaginary contestation Foundation. Geneva. http://fciv.org/ that effects a failure in the workings of downloads/Schumacher.pdf (Schumacher the inevitable law, but as an enabling dis- 2013) ruption, the occasion for a radical 2. To be sure, this is not a phenomenon rearticulation of the symbolic horizon in uniquely characteristic of the modern or which bodies come to matter at all” contemporary world, for Pieper also cites (Butler 1993, 23). Regulatory norms, in Plato’s disputes with the sophists as an Butler’s sense of the term (namely that of example of the same. As for Louis cultural determinism), are thus necessarily Dupre,́ he traces the detachment of very different from natural norms: when, 336 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014

that is to say, nature itself is understood as regulating conception by taking advan- endowed with a metaphysical meaning, as tage of the regularity of nature in the will be increasingly evident in what follows. operation of the sexual urge—and human 6. Or, as the editors of the French edition persons who do so (in appropriate cir- of Nova et Vetera have put it, individual cumstances, of course) somehow confirm rights are being substituted for human themselves in their role as subjects con- rights (see Nova et Vetera ed. 2014). scious of the order of nature. On the other 7. For a concrete example of this thinking, hand, by using a method of artificial con- see Sartre (1957). traception, they somehow compromise 8. “For St. Thomas,” Pinckaers explains, themselves in that role and degrade them- “the natural inclinations to goodness, selves as persons” (Wojtyła 1993f, 293). happiness, being and truth were the very See also Wojtyła (1993f, 289). source of freedom. They formed the will 17. See also Schmitz (1993, especially 121–146). and intellect, whose union produced free 18. It follows from this perspective that con- will” (Pinckaers 1995, 245). sciousness is considered as creative with 9. Cf. Pinckaers (1995, 242–243; 327–53); respect to values rather than responsive to and Pinckaers (2001, 65–81). them. 10. Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI points in his 19. Wojtyła thus points to the etymology of first encyclical letter to “the need to link the word “subject”: sub- (under) + jacere charity with truth” (Benedict 2005, n. 2). (to throw), whence the idea of being 11. See also John Paul II (1979, n. 16), “brought under,” or owing obedience to, wherein freedom is acknowledged as another. Within the context, the point is being “confused with the instinct for made that the human being is not only individual or collective interest or with the (active) subject of his actions, but also the instinct for combat and domination.” the (passive) subject (that is to say, the 12. Similarly, he points out that natural law object) of his own reflection. In short, receives its name “not because it refers to Wojtyła points here to the idea of reflec- the nature of irrational beings [so as to be tive consciousness. identified with inclinations of a sub- 20. In this way and in light of the “gnosiolo- rational nature], but because the reason gical attitude” of his contemporaries, which promulgates it is proper to human Wotjyla thus recognized the need for a nature” (John Paul II 1993, n. 42). “confrontation of the metaphysical view 13. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I– of the person that we find in St. Thomas II, q. 91, a. 2; and CCC (1997, n. 1955). and in the traditions of Thomistic philos- 14. Hence, in the case of a misinterpretation ophy with the comprehensive experience of of the doctrine of Humanae vitae, for the human person” (Wojtyła 1993e, 195). example, “natural law was [incorrectly] 21. “The lived experience of the fact ‘I act’ taken to mean merely the biological regu- differs from all facts that merely ‘happen’ larity we find in people in the area of in a personal subject. This clear difference sexual actualization” (Wojtyła 1993b, between something that ‘happens’ in the 183). Similarly, “the [sexual] urge appears subject and an ‘activity’ or action of the as something that merely ‘happens’ in the subject allows us, in turn, to identify … human being” (Wojtyła 1993f, 294). self-determination…‘I act’ means ‘I am 15. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I– the efficient cause’ of my action and of II, q. 1, a. 1. See also Wojtyła (1993b, my self-actualization as a subject, which 183). Willed acts, in turn, are acts, is not the case when something merely Wojtyła explains, that are self-determining. ‘happens’ in me, for then I do not experi- See Wojtyła (1993e, 189–190). ence the efficacy of my personal self.” 16. Within the specific context of the natural The latter, he specifies, “Is intimately regulation of birth, this means that “the connected with a sense of responsibility order of nature connected with using the for that activity” (Wojtyła 1993e, 189). sexual urge in accord with its nature and 22. Wojtyła specifies that concupiscence, purpose has, in a sense, been turned over understood as sensual desire, is not an act to human beings for conscious realiz- of the will. It is something that ation. This accounts for the possibility of “happens” within us. However, Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 337

“concupiscence of the senses tends to relationship between man and woman [or become active ‘wanting’, which is an act in the case of a homosexual relationship: of will. … As soon as the will consents it between man and man or woman and begins actively to want what is spon- woman]. ‘Enjoying’ then displaces taneously ‘happening’ in the senses and ‘loving’” (Wojtyła 1993a, 164). See also the sensual appetites. From then Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, onwards, this is not something merely q. 27, a. 1, where he writes that “the ‘happening’ to a man, but something proper object of love is the good; because, which he himself begins actively doing— as stated above (Q 26, AA1, 2), love at first only internally, for the will is in implies a certain connaturalness or com- the first place the source of interior acts, placency of the lover for the thing of interior ‘deeds.’ These deeds have a beloved, and to everything, that thing is a moral value, are good or evil, and if they good, which is akin and proportionate to are evil we call them sins” (Wojtyła it. It follows, therefore, that good is the 1993a, 161–162). proper cause of love.” 23. It is in this very specific sense that Wojtyła 28. “God allows man to learn his supernatural dares to state that I am “in some sense the ends, but the decision to strive towards an ‘creator of myself’” (Wojtyła 1993e, 191). end, the choice of course, is left to man’s See also his more extensive development of free will. God does not redeem man these ideas in Wojtyła (1979). against his will” (Wojtyła 1993a, 27). 24. Hence, the will is often “the arena for a Concretely within the context of procrea- struggle between the sexual instinct and tion, this means that the Creator “does not the need for freedom.” utilize persons merely as the means or 25. Similarly, “Our decisions of conscience at instruments of his creative power but offers each step reveal us as persons who fulfill them the possibility of a special realization ourselves by going beyond ourselves of love,” namely, by giving them “a rational toward values accepted in truth and rea- nature and the capacity consciously to lized, therefore, with a deep sense of decide upon their own actions” and thus responsibility” (Wojtyła 1993 g, 215). also “to choose freely the end to which 26. Wojtyła recognizes an inherent contra- sexual intercourse naturally leads.” It diction at the heart of the utilitarian follows that it is up to them “to put their principle of “the maximum pleasure sexual relations on the plane of love, the (‘greatest happiness’) for the greatest appropriate plane for human persons, or number”, for “pleasure is, of its nature, a on a lower plane. The Creator’s will is not good for the moment and only for a par- only the preservation of the species by way ticular subject, it is not a super-subjective of sexual intercourse but also its preser- or trans-subjective good. And so, as long vation on the basis of a love worthy of as that good is recognized as the entire human persons” (Wojtyła 1993a, 59–60). basis of the moral norm, there can be no 29. See also Wojtyła (1993f, 288–289). possibility of my transcending the bounds 30. This ability to participate in another’s of that which is good for me alone” humanity is, of course, a human preroga- (Wojtyła 1993a, 37–38). tive, pointing to our spiritual nature. “For 27. Far from denying the natural appetite for a human being is always first and fore- a sexual good—what the tradition refers most himself (‘a person’), and in order to as the desire of concupiscence—this not merely to live with another but to live perspective admits its authentic value, by and for that other person he must which must nonetheless always be subor- continually discover himself in the other dinate to the good of the person. “‘Sinful and the other in himself. Love is imposs- love’ comes into being when affirmation ible for beings who are mutually of the value of the person, and intentness impenetrable—only the spirituality and on the true good of the person (which are the ‘inwardness’, of persons create the at the care of true love), are absent, and conditions for mutual interpenetration, instead a hankering after mere pleasure, which enables each to live in and by the mere sensual enjoyment connected with other [to enter, that is to say, into the ‘sexual experiences’ invades the other’s interiority]” (Wojtyła 1993a, 131). 338 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014

31. “[T]o understand the human being the sincere gift of self. In this sense the inwardly … may be called personalistic” person is realized through love” (John Paul (Wojtyła 1993 g, 213). The personalistic II 1994a, 202). principle, he explained many years later, 39. This point is explicit in the passage: “is an attempt to translate the command- “This statement is primarily ontological ment of love into the language of in nature, and it gives rise to an ethical philosophical ethics. The person is a being affirmation. Love is an ontological and from whom the only suitable dimension is ethical requirement of the person… This love. We are just to a person if we love explains the commandment of love, known him” (John Paul II 1994a, 1994b, 1994c, already in the Old Testament (cf. Deut 200–201). Hence, the “dual content” of 6:5; Lev 19:18) and placed by Christ at the personalistic norm: “a positive the very centre of the Gospel ‘ethos’ (cf. content (‘though shalt love!’) and a nega- Mt 22:36–40; Mk 12:28–34). This also tive content (‘thou shalt not use!’)” explains the primacy of love expressed by (Wojtyła 1993a, 171). Saint Paul in the First Letter to the 32. Obviously, this is not to deny the pre- Corinthians: ‘the greatest of these is love’ viously cited insight according to which (cf. 13:13)” (John Paul II 1994a, 201). the human person determines him- or 40. Hence, the fundamental question herself as morally “good” or “bad” in addressed by John Paul II in Veritatis virtue of his or her actions. Reference Splendor, as read by his biographer, here is made instead to the ontological George Weigel: “How is freedom to be value of the human person. lived so that freedom does not destroy 33. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, itself?” (Weigel 1999, 694). Cf. John q. 20, a. 2. Aquinas thus contrasts the Paul II (1993, n. 96). divine will, which “infuses and creates 41. Similarly, “If freedom is not used, is not goodness,” with the human will, which taken advantage of by love it becomes a “is not the cause of the goodness of negative thing and gives human beings a things.” Instead, it is the goodness of the feeling of emptiness and unfulfilment” beloved object or person that “calls forth (Wojtyła 1993a, 135). our love,” which in turn incites the action 42. This means, as Michael Sherwin has fit- to obtain the object or to be united to the tingly argued, that before love is a beloved person (ibid.). See also ibid., III, principle of action, it is “a response to q. 110, a. 1; and idem, Super Ioan. 5, lect. goodness,” particularly in the form of “a 3, n. 753 (Aquinas 2013). See also the pleasant affective affinity” that marvelous treatment of the primacy of St. Thomas calls complacentia (literally, affirmation with respect to the willed act “with pleasing assent”: cum + placentia). by Pieper (1997, 139–281). See Sherwin (2007, 181–204); and 34. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, Sherwin (2005, 63–118). “This affinity,” q. 27, a. 1. See also ibid., q. 26, aa.1–2. Sherwin specifies, is “the aptitude, incli- 35. Ibid., a. 5. See also Kwasniewski (1997). nation, or proportion existing in the 36. See Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, appetite for the loved object” (Sherwin q. 26, a. 2. 2005, 70). See also the long development 37. On the importance of Vatican Council II of the primarily affirmative value of love (1965, n. 24), for the magisterial teaching in Pieper (1997). of Pope John Paul II, see Ide (2001). 43. Likewise in the particular context of con- 38. Similarly: “Here [in Vatican Council II jugal love, the Catechism of the Catholic 1965, n. 24] we truly have an adequate Church teaches, in words borrowed from interpretation of the commandment of Pope Pius XII: “The Creator himself … love. Above all, the principle that a person established that in the [generative] [sic] has value by the simple fact that he is a function, spouses should experience plea- person finds very clear expression: man, it sure and enjoyment of body and spirit. is said, ‘is the only creature on earth that Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in God has wanted for his own sake.’ At the seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. same time the Council emphasizes that They accept what the Creator has the most important thing above love is intended for them. At the same time, Schumacher – A Plea for the traditional family 339

spouses should know how to keep them- 51. He thus concludes: “Love is exclusively the selves within the limits of just portion of human persons [original empha- moderation” (CCC 1997, n. 2362). sis]” (Wojtyła 1993a). 44. As Josef Pieper puts it straightforwardly, 52. When, on the other hand, “love” is “We must have experienced and ‘seen’ reduced to a desire motivated by pleasure that the other person, as well as his exist- or gratification, a “superficial view of hap- ence in this world, really is good and piness” is also implied: one that is wonderful; that is the precondition for “identified with mere enjoyment” the impulse of the will that says, ‘It’s (Wojtyła 1993a, 172). good that you exist!’” (Pieper 1997, 198). 53. Or, in the words of Paul VI in Humanae 45. St. Thomas points, for example, to the vitae, there is “an inseparable connection, transcendence caused by the elevation of established by God, which man on his one’s apprehensive and appetitive powers own initiative may not break, between “to comprehend things that surpass sense the unitive significance and the procrea- and reason” (Aquinas 2012, Summa theo- tive significance which are both inherent logiae I–II, q. 28, a. 3). to the marriage act” (Paul VI 1968, 46. In that case, the subject is “cast down” in, n. 12). This passage is likewise found in for example, drunkenness or “violent the CCC (1997, n. 2366). passion or madness” (ibid.). 54. See also CCC (1997, n. 2347); and http:// 47. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ q. 28, a. 3. cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_1986 48. Helpful to this analysis, Wojtyła explains, 1001_homosexual-persons_en.htmlCDF is the Augustinian distinction between (CDF 1986). uti and frui. The former “is intent on 55. “The first right of the child is to ‘be born pleasure for its own sake, with no in a real family,’ a right that has not concern for the object of pleasure.” The always been respected and that today is latter “finds joy in a totally committed subject to new violations because of relationship with the object precisely developments in genetic technology” because this is what the nature of the (PCJP 2004, n. 244). object demands” (Wojtyła 1993a, 44). 56. “By its very nature the institution of mar- 49. Similarly: “Sin is violation of the true riage and married love is ordered to the good…‘Sinful love’ is simply a relation- procreation and education of the off- ship between two persons so structured spring and it is in them that it finds its that emotion as such and more particu- crowning glory” (Vatican Council II larly pleasure as such have assumed the 1965, n. 48). Cf. CCC (1997, n. 1652). dimensions of goods in their own right, 57. “The family is the primary cell of society and are the sole decisive consideration, and is solidly grounded in the natural law while no account at all is taken of the that links all people and cultures,” John objective value of the person” (Wojtyła Paul II explains. “Indeed, the Church’s 1993a, 165–166). “Its sinfulness is not of insistence on the ethics of marriage and course due to the fact that it is saturated the family is frequently misunderstood, as with emotion, nor to the emotion itself, though the Christian community wished but to the fact that the will puts emotion to impose on all society a faith perspec- before the person, allowing it to annul all tive valid only for believers… In fact, the objective laws and principles which marriage, as a stable union of a man and must govern the unification of two a woman who are committed to the reci- persons, a man and a woman.” Hence procal gift of self and open to creating Wojtyła observes that “‘Authenticity’ of life, is not only a Christian value, but an feeling is quite often inimical to truth in be- original value of creation” (John Paul II haviour [original emphasis]” (Wojtyła 1994c). 1993a, 163). 58. “According to the plan of God, marriage 50. Similarly, if “reciprocity is created only by is the foundation of the wider community self-interest, utility (a utilitarian good) or of the family, since the very institution of pleasure, then it is superficial and imper- marriage and conjugal love are ordained manent” (Wojtyła 1993a, 86). to the procreation and education of 340 The Linacre Quarterly 81 (4) 2014

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