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Suffering, the Body, and Christianity

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Suffering, the Body, and Christianity SUFFERING, THE BODY, AND CHRISTIANITY The Early Christians Lived the Theological Basis of Catholic Health Care o term in current Catholic its owner, God, willed it so; like other objects thought is more frequently that God owned and sanctified—the marriage BY FR. JAMES F. invoked as the theological bond and the temple, for example—life cannot be KEENAN, SJ foundation for health care than violated.1" The sacredness rests not in anything "sanctity of life." Surprisingly, the intrinsic to the marriage bond, the temple, or terNm itself is rather new: No Catholic dictionary human life; it rests on the claim of God, who or encyclopedia before 1978 had an entry on it. made and owns the sacral quality of the marital For instance, in the 15-volume New Catholic bonds, temples, and human lives." 1 Encyclopedia of 1967, the term has no entry. Pope John Paul II has significantly developed (It appeared as a modest afterthought in the later the term. In 1987, in his apostolic exhortation, supplement.-) Nor is it found in new theological Christifideles Laid, he speaks at length about the dictionaries from the United States, England, inviolable right to life, saying, "The inviolability or Germany. ' It did not appear in the German of the person, which is a reflection of the absolute Fr. Keenan is Concise Dictionary of Christian Ethics, although inviolability of God, finds its primary and professor of there was a passing reference in the Italian fundamental expression in the inviolability of theological ethics, 4 12 counterpart. human life." Nowhere does he refer to God's Boston College, "Sanctity of life" certainly has its roots in dominion or prerogatives. Rather, the argument Chestnut Hill, modern Christian writings, however. In 1908, the is simply that we are in God's image; as God's MA. Jesuit moralist Thomas Slater discussed suicide person is inviolable, so is God's image. and declared, "The reason why suicide is unlaw f ill In the same year, in Donum Vitae, the pope is because we have not the free disposal of our wrote: "From the moment of conception, the life own lives. God is the author of life and death, of every human being is to be respected in an and He has reserved the ownership of human life absolute way because man is the only creature on to Himself." 5 At its roots, sanctity of life is about earth that God has Vished for himself and the God's ownership: we do not own our lives; God spiritual soul of each man is 'immediately created does. Therefore, we are not free to dispose of by God'; his whole image bears the image of the them. Creator."13 The document continues: "Human Later, Pope Pius XI declared in Casti Connubii, life is sacred because from its beginning it involves "The life of each is equally sacred and no one has the 'creative action of God' and it remains forever the power, not even public authority, to destroy in a special relationship with the Creator, who is it." " In a manner of speaking, our life is an its sole end. God alone is Lord of life from its object: Human life is something that, because beginning until its end: no one can, under any God owns it, only God can dispose of. We, on circumstance, claim for himself the right directly the other hand, have only the use of life, not to destroy an innocent human being." T dominion over it. This latter section is repeated later in paragraph The phrase "sanctity of life" first explicitly 53 ofEpangelium Vitae and becomes the single appeared in papal writings in the encyclical Mater text in the Catechism of the Catholic Church et Magistral In its original form, "sanctity of life" (paragraph 2,258) to interpret the Fifth functioned as a euphemism for God's dominion.7 Commandment. The entire paragraph was John Thus, in Humanae Vitae, life is sacred because Paul IPs most extensive statement, before HEALTH PROGRESS MAY - JUNE 2005 • 53 SUFFERING, THE BODY, AND CHRISTIANITY Evaujjelium Vitae itself, on both the sanctity of in which we eat (!) the body of Christ and drink life and God as Lord of life.14 In it we see some of (!) His blood. We partake in his life through this the key elements that later appear in the sacrament, which concretely underlines the encyclical: that human life is singular; that it is incamateness of God. created in God's image; that it is uniquely created Third, consider that the overriding promise for by God for a special relationship with God, which all Christians is the resurrection of the body. is, in turn, the human's destiny; and that, finally Through that promise we understand that who as source and end of human life, God is Lord of we are now is who we will be in glory: We will be life. While not at all abandoning the "God's glorified in our bodies. The Scripture scholar ownership or dominion" argument, the pope Wayne Meeks makes a similar point in quoting St. gives it newer meaning by highlighting the Paul: "Christ will be magnified in my body, either uniqueness of the human subject.IS by life or by death" (Phil 1:20).M The resurrec­ The act of creation is where God invests each tion of the body makes sense when we under­ human life with its inviolable character that now stand diat God continues to love us precisely the lies within the human, the image of God.1" The way God made us—in our bodies.* human is not to be killed, therefore, because of Fourth, consider how we call the church the who the human is. Body of Christ. Inasmuch as we are in the church Human life is not an through Christ's incarnation, passion, death, and C,'onside r how object that God owns: resurrection; inasmuch as, by eating his body, we Human life is a subject are made one in Christ; and inasmuch as we share that bears the inviolable the same promise of participating in his we call the church image of God. This resurrection; then what we are—church—ought to image of God is hardly be identified with the Body of Christ. the "Body of Christ. extrinsic. Speaking of the The body is central for understanding Yahwist account of Christianity. Through the body we understand creation, the pope writes in Evangelium Vitae God, our worship, our destiny, and our that we have widiin us that divine breath that communal identity. Moreover, as the Jews, who T draws us naturally to God.' preceded us, taught us, we should, as believers, Elsewhere in the encyclical we read: "At this take human bodies seriously.21 point we come to the decisive question, Why is Catholics take the appreciation of the body life a good? Why is it always a good? The answer even further, in part, because we have our is simple and clear: because it is a gift from the emphasis on the sacramental, which accentuates Creator, who breathed into man the divine our regard for the physical—particularly, the breath, thus making the human person the image human body. Our language, art, and culture are, of God."18 In John Paul IPs pcrsonalist writings, therefore, extraordinarily corporeal. Think for a all people are invited to see within human life an minute of the Sistine Chapel, a very Catholic indelible mark of its sacredness. The pope place. Here is the most important political room breathes life into the concept of "sanctity of life." in Roman Catholicism: It is where our cardinals, Sanctity of life now means that the human lift- surrounded by the images of nude bodies, meet as created in the image of God is no longer to elect the Vicar of Christ, the pope. primarily an object that belongs to God, but, Consider, also, our respect for relics, in which rather, a subject whose inviolability is indispu­ we locate our attachment to another's holiness table. With this understood, I now turn to the precisely through the person's flesh. In her notion of body. brilliant book, Tlic Resmrection of the Body, Caroline Walker Bynum traces how early and THE HUMAN BODY pervasive our concern for relics has been." Ask ordinary Catholics whether the church has a Through relics, we become close to the saints, positive or negative stance on the human body whose hair, skin, or clothing we can still touch. and invariably we answer, "Negative."19 We Through them, we "preserve" the presence of shouldn't. The church's tradition has been intractably invested in the human body since the church was first established. First consider, for instance, that the central mystery concerning 'But this resurrection is established by the resurrection of Jesus: In the Risen Jesus, nude in the image of God, Jesus Christ is the incarnation! Our religion we see our beginning and our end. Michelangelo boasts that God became incarnate, that is, that caught this brilliantly when, in painting the famous God became human flesh. ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he depicted the newly Second, consider that our central sacramental created Adam with the same face as the Risen Jesus in celebration is the Eucharist, a thanksgiving meal the adjoining Last Judgment. 54 MAY - JUNE 2005 HEALTH PROGRESS their holiness. adopted a 'Cartesian' paradigm of embodiment Clearly, then, we Christians take the body (i.e. a dualistic notion that separates mind and seriously. We always have. Paul, for instance, held body and which conceptualizes the physical body that the body (soma) was so constitutive of being in purely mechanistic terms).
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