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Understanding Human Sexuality in John Paul II’s eology of the Body: An Analysis of the Historical Development of Doctrine in the Catholic Tradition
John Segun Odeyemi
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UNDERSTANDING HUMAN SEXUALITY IN JOHN PAUL II’S THEOLOGY OF
THE BODY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
DOCTRINE IN THE CATHOLIC TRADITION.
A Dissertation
Submitted to Duquesne University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
By
John Segun Odeyemi
May 2016 Copyright by
John Segun Odeyemi
2016
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN SEXUALITY IN JOHN PAUL II’S THEOLOGY OF THE
BODY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE IN THE
CATHOLIC TRADITION.
By
John Segun Odeyemi
Approved on March 31, 2016
_______________________________ Prof. George S. Worgul Jr. S.T.D., Ph.D. Professor of Theology
__________________________ Dr. Elizabeth Cochran Associate Professor of Theology
- (Committee Member)
- (Dissertation Director)
________________________________ Rev. Dr. Gregory I. Olikenyen C.S.Sp. Assistant Professor of Theology (Committee Member)
________________________________ Dr. James Swindal Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
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DEDICATION
In honor of my dearly beloved parents on the 50th anniversary of their marriage, (October 30th, 1965 – October 30th 2015) Richard Tunji and Agnes Morolayo Odeyemi. I thank you for your many years of sacrifices for us your children and many, many extended family members and friends. Thank you for your forthrightness, fortitude, love of God and dedication to family.
AND
In ever loving memory of “a man for all seasons”, The Very Reverend Father Neil McCauley
of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, USA.
Born: Nov. 22, 1939 Ordained to the Catholic Priesthood: May 14, 1966 Entered Eternal Life: June 28, 2014.
A man who showed me through the simplicity of his own life and service, how to be a servant to
God’s people through acts of kindness and to be a brother to other priests in such a selfless
manner.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
“Levabo oculos meos in montes; unde veniet auxilium mihi? Auxilium meum a Domino, qui fecit caelum, et terram” – Ps. 121:1
I thank the almighty God and Father, creator, He who makes all things possible. I thank Jesus who redeemed us with His unfailing love. I thank the Holy Spirit who inspires goodness and continues to lead us into all truths. I thank the blessed Mother of God whose love for me is undeniable.
To my local ordinary, Most Rev. Ayo Maria Atoyebi OP, my brothers of the diocesan Presbyteral family of the Catholic Diocese of Ilorin, Nigeria. To my family; my dad and mum, my older sister, Tina Olaoye, my younger sisters, Pauline Odeyemi and Angelina Salako, my two brothers, Emmanuel and Peter Odeyemi and their families, sincere thanks for your prayers, moral support and unflagging encouragement.
To Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit, especially the faculty members of the department of theology. Special recognition must be accorded Prof. George Worgul Jnr, who admitted me into the program and who was my chair of theology for three years. Dr. Marie Baird, a most capable
and energetic director of doctoral program in theology, Dr. Maureen O’Brien, current Chair of
theology, Dr. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran, Rev. Dr. Gregory I. Olikenyi C.S.SP my first and
second readers respectfully and members of my dissertation committee. To our beloved ‘elder’ Rev. Dr. Eugene Elochukwu Uzukwu C.S.SP and ‘senior brother’ Dr. Marinus Iwuchukwu.
I am eternally grateful for the fraternal charity and support of Very Rev. Fathers Louis Vallone, Carmen D’Amico, who both have been truly a source of inspiration and encouragement all through the good and not so great moments of this journey. Very Rev. Frs. Ezekiel Ade Owoeye, Anthony Taiye Fadairo, and Frs. Anselm Jimoh Ph.D, Francis Adedara Ph.D, Emmanuel Ogundele Ph.D, Stephen Ogumah (Ph.D ABD), Msgr. Paschal Nwaezeapu and so many others too numerous to mention. And some of the many people sent by God to give me a helping hand all through this journey, morally, spiritually and financially; Grandma Jean Szermer (who turns a 100 years old on May 19, 2016), my friends Bernadette and Gary Butler, whose friendship and support over these years has never once waivered, Michele Fagan, Irene Lahr, Dr. Yinka Aganga Williams, Andrew and Diana James, Toritseju Omaghomi (Doctoral student at University of Cincinnati, Ohio), Mr. Cyril Okolo and family. And all the good people of St. Benedict the Moor Church, Church of the Epiphany, St. Mary of Mercy, St. John of God Parish and Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, all Churches within the diocese of Pittsburgh where I have had the good fortune of serving the people of God in the last couple of years. To my fellow travelers on this wonderful journey; Mark Otwein Ph.D, Rufus Burnett Jr. Ph.D, Ximena DeBroeck (ABD), Martin Ahiaba (ABD), Fr. Emmanuel Ahua C.S.SP (ABD), Joyce Konigsburg (ABD), Fr. Cajetan Anyanwu CMF (Doctoral Candidate), Fr. Felix Onyebuchi Okeke (Doctoral Candidate)
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and everyone else who in one way or another ‘pushed’ and ‘nudged’ me when I was tired, slow or became lethargic, to all of you I extend my sincere appreciation and extend God’s abundant
blessings in all things and in all ways. Finally and to all who in so many different ways push me to be the best version of myself and to live and act In persona Christi Capiti, may God bless you all.
John Segun Odeyemi
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Official Documents and Encyclicals in Historical time line:............................17
Leo XIII. ARCANUM DIVINAE SAPIENTIAE: Encyclical letter on
Christian Marriage. Feb. 10, 1880 ..................................................................................19
Pius XI. CASTI CONNUBII: Encyclical Letter on Christian
Marriage. Dec. 31, 1930 .................................................................................................26
Paul VI. HUMANAE VITAE, Encyclical Letter on
The Regulation of Birth, July 25, 1968...........................................................................33
From Humanae Vitae to Theology of the Body/Theology of Life:
John Paul II. FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO: Synodal Exhortation on the Christian Family in the Modern World. Nov. 22, 1981......................................43
John Paul II. VERITATIS SPLENDOR: Encyclical letter on
The Splendor of Truth. Aug. 6, 1993.............................................................................46
John Paul II. EVANGELIUM VITAE: Encyclical letter on
The Gospel of Life. Nov. 25, 1995 ................................................................................57
Chapter Two: John Paul II’s Theology of the Body:...............................................................69
JP II’s Theology of the Body: An Overview ..................................................................69 Faith and Love in St. John of the Cross..........................................................................78 Biblical and Exegetical Foundations: .............................................................................90 “Male and Female, He created them”: The Genesis Account. .......................................95 The Sermon on the Mount: The Mathew Account .........................................................99 The Marriage of the Lamb: Ephesians 5 Account ........................................................102 Sexuality and Marriage in JPII’s TOB..........................................................................106 Critical Evaluations of JP II’s TOB..............................................................................109 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................125
Chapter Three: The Natural Law in Contemporary Thinking (Marriage as Basic Good):...127
A brief overview of traditional understanding of the Natural Law Theory..................127 Thomas Aquinas ...........................................................................................................140 Germain Grisez, John Finnis.........................................................................................151 Critique of the NNLT....................................................................................................159 Marriage as a Basic Good in NNLT School .................................................................169 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................172
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Chapter Four: Interactions: Contemporary Thinkers on Sexuality within Marriage: ...........178
John Grabowski ............................................................................................................178 Lisa Cahill.....................................................................................................................192 Margaret Farley.............................................................................................................209 Mercy Amber Oduyoye ................................................................................................220 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................228
Chapter Five: Engaging Various Contexts for continued Theological and Pastoral Implications..........................................................................................................230
The Development of Doctrine (Henry John Newman, Jan Hendrik Walgrave and Christopher Kaczor)...............................................................................................231
TOB, HIV and Conjugality within Marriage................................................................242 TOB, Eucharist, Communion and same sex unions. ....................................................268 “Matter” and “Form” as suggested hypothetical framework for a continued dialogue........................................................................................................276
Doctrine as “Tradition” being “Traditioned.”...............................................................282 Evaluation and Conclusion. ..........................................................................................288
General Conclusion.................................................................................................................292
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................305
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INTRODUCTION
The Church is Ad Gentes, a Church on mission to the nations of the world, a Church confronted by a mainly liberal-secularist, hedonistic, materialistic, anti-authority and postmodern reality. This is a Church that carries a message that is ancient, yet ever new, and which she must always make new. This Church has a divine mandate to communicate this message to a new age, an age of unbelief. In the face of the contemporary societal all permissive, pleasure seeking cultures, mostly the ethical aspect of religious faith, especially, the Christian faith seems to keep becoming more and more an unachievable utopia and pipe dream. The excessive individualism, claims to personal rights, liberty and freedom makes orthodox Christian faiths suspect and unpopular. The space of encounter becomes even more difficult to navigate when legislations in the political sphere pass into law acts that are totally at variance with the tenets of religious faith.
Carson Holloway in his book, examining the impact of John Paul II’s theology on the dignity of
the human person and secular liberalism,1 states that liberal modernity looks like a direct reaction to traditional premodern political thought; individual interest against the classicist medieval belief in communities oriented towards the common good achieved by a life of moral nobility and virtue.
Holloway’s work gives me a template on which the foundational thesis of my work is
based; the understanding of the background and turning point in modern western European and American socio-cultural and political systems and its impacts on the moral tradition of
Christianity. In contrasting John Paul II’s understanding of human dignity in Evangelium Vitae,
1 Holloway uses the term ‘liberal modernity’ to connote the intellectual, political and philosophic movement
characteristic of the last recent centuries initiated by Thomas Hobbes and carried on by other political thinkers who focus on the idea of personal self-preservation and material wellbeing, especially as this thinking has impacted the political evolution of the western hemisphere to date. Cf. Carson Holloway, The Way of Life: John Paul II and the Challenge of Liberal Modernity (Waco Texas: Baylor University Press, 2008), 3ff
1
common good and acknowledgement of God as basis for the welfare of the human race against modern liberalism’s hedonistic individualism, shows that modern extreme liberalism invariably leads to tyranny. This Holloway claims was already present in the work of Thomas Hobbes, later expounded and elaborated on by John Locke, David Hume, the American founding fathers and the declaration of independence, and the political articulations of M. de Tocqueville for a modern account of democracy. Due to globalization, this experience is no longer limited to the societies of the global west. It is gradually impacting and becoming entrenched in other cultures of developing and fledgling democratic systems around the globe. Through technology (especially media), politics, trade and the global market, the world has become the proverbial
‘global village.’ According to Holloway, John Paul II’s critique is directed at the philosophic
modern liberal project also known as the enlightenment on which contemporary democratic systems are built. Holloway notes that out of the enlightenment movement was born all of the totalitarian and murderous institutions of the twentieth century which are commonly traced to European philosophical enlightenment.
Holloway notes that in contrast to the negative aspect of the enlightenment and the tyranny born of it, John Paul II teaches that humanity fully realizes its potentials in the vocation to love and serve each other rooted in the self-sacrifice of Christ. In this account, John Paul II is of the opinion that modern enlightenment rejected the notion of love and service of one another
thereby rejecting Christ. In which case, the enlightenment’s rejection of Christ “ ‘opened’ up a ‘path’ that would lead towards the devastating experiences of evil which were to follow – that is to the unheard of disregard for human dignity manifested by the ‘ideologies of evil’… Enlightenment’s novel contribution, it would seem, was to turn the dismissal of love into a
public philosophy, and therefore to lay the intellectual and moral foundations of the culture of
2
death that has emerged in the societies erected on Enlightenment principles.”2 This is what John
Paul II refers to as ‘The Culture of Death’, the rejection of love, the repudiation of God as the
ultimate source of the supreme good and as the provider of all morals laws and their objective validity. John Paul II pays particular attention to the radical re-orientation of philosophy by Rene Descartes away from the idea of God as the supreme and self-sufficient being, grounds for
all created being “and to a concern with the thinking subject or with the ‘content of human consciousness.’ This turn - which is evident in Descartes’s celebrated point of departure, ‘I
think, therefore, I am’,”3 (corgito ergo sum) influenced modern European liberalism and philosophy which morphed into a science of pure thought and on this rests a public morality of
utilitarian foundations which reduces morality ‘enlightened self-interest’.4 It is this kind of
fragmentation and separation in the society that inadvertently engendered the clash between religious claims and humanistic autonomy propounded by modern liberal political philosophies.
A good number of studies and polls carried out in the western hemisphere within the last decade show a sharp drop in the number of people who claim affinity to the Christian faith. Church attendance has declined notably, and among those who attend, the number of those who adhere to magisterial and doctrinal authority have also dropped most significantly. The reality of the situation, based on every observable social and cultural trend shows a widening gap between Church authority and the faithful, it shows also that this chasm will continue to expand.
2 Holloway, Ibid., 146 3 Ibid. 4 Some thinkers accept liberal humanism because they see in religion some moral unwholeness, for instance after the
world wide large scale of terrorists attacks, they argue that religion “inspires an irrational fanaticism that leads to violence.” But Holloway postulates that, “Examining such events in a different light, however, we might equally contend that they demonstrate society’s real need for the morality of love that John Paul II offers…. Events like
those of September 11 surely demonstrate that the world remains a very dangerous place- in which, we might add, people are moved to violence not only by religion, but also by national or ethnic solidarities or economic interests, sometimes invoking religion as a convenient justification rather than responding to it as the genuine motivation.
3
Winfried Aymans, in her Introduction to her edited volume titled, Eleven Cardinals Speak on
Marriage and the Family: Essays from a Pastoral Viewpoint, avers, “The notion that prevail, on
the one hand, in secular society and those that result, on the other hand, from the Church’s faith have drifted apart, and, because of this, problematic situations and conflicts are increasing.”5
Experientially, questions of sexual morality, marriage and family life are the mostly contested areas. Sex, marriage, family have become new areas given new definitions and newer understanding. Traditional understanding keeps evolving and from one culture to another, varying contexts continue to brew varied interpretations. For instance, Aymans notes that despite renewed efforts by the Church to close the widening gap between ecclesiastical and
secular approach to these issues, “The two sets of arrangements of drifted apart, nonetheless, and the main starting point of that trend was the ever increasing frequency of civil law divorces.”6
Aymans opines that the very idea of marriage and family life are no longer unambiguous in contemporary societies to the point where they have become dubious. For this reason, Aymans
concludes “… it is all the more necessary for the teaching of Jesus Christ not to come into
question and for Church teaching, unabridged, to find its indubitable expression in our days as
well.”7
This project therefore focuses on exploring the theological underpinnings by which secularists accuse the Church of been unable to develop with the contemporary age. In this dissertation, I intend to argue that in the conversation between secular voices and the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, the accusation leveled against the Church on her
5 Winfried Aymans, ed., Eleven Cardinals Speak on Marriage and the Family: Essays from a Pastoral Viewpoint
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), viii 6 Aymans, Ibid. vii 7 Ibid.
4
position on human sexuality as patriarchal, archaic, unchanging, callous and outdated is not
accurate. Drawing on John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” as a frame work for current
magisterial position on human sexuality, which in itself relies heavily on magisterial tradition of papal doctrinal encyclicals, and the Natural Law Theory, I will argue that there are developments in doctrine appropriate to the nature of doctrine, since doctrines are specific responses at particular times, carried on into the future, depending on what questions are raised. I consider taking this position timely and necessary since within the various dialogues or disputations on this issue, the two sides of the debate seem to have come to an impasse. The ongoing conversation between the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church and what John Paul II refers to as
