“Are You Your Body? St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body” with Dr. John Grabowski | Ep. 48

Are we our bodies? Or are our bodies simply something we have, something we can control, alter, suppress, or even redesign to conform to who we believe ourselves to be?

Nearly half a century ago, St. John Paul II began delivering the 129 lectures that would become known as the Theology of the Body. But far from being simply a Catholic teaching about sex and marriage, Theology of the Body offers a sweeping vision of what it means to be human, and it may be more relevant now than ever.

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. John Grabowski, Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics at The Catholic University of America, to explore St. John Paul II’s understanding of the human person, the meaning of the body, sexual difference, love, marriage, and self-gift.

What does it mean to say that we don’t merely have bodies, but are embodied persons? Why did God create us male and female? Does the human body have an intrinsic meaning that we receive, or is it something we can redefine? What does sex communicate through the “language of the body”? And what happens when technology gives us increasing power to separate sex, procreation, biological reality, and personal identity?

We discuss:

• What Theology of the Body actually is
  • Why St. John Paul II begins with Genesis and “the beginning”
  • Original solitude, original unity, and original nakedness
  • Why the body reveals the person
  • What it means to be a unity of body and soul
  • The spousal meaning of the body
  • Why human beings are created for communion and self-gift
  • Male and female embodiment and sexual difference
  • The “language of the body” and how our bodies can communicate truth or falsehood
  • The difference between love and use
  • Sexual desire, chastity, and authentic freedom
  • Why contraception and natural family planning are morally different
  • How Theology of the Body helps us think about IVF and reproductive technologies
  • What St. John Paul II’s anthropology says about separating sexual identity from the biological body
  • The difference between medicine that heals the body and technology that attempts to redesign it

Dr. Grabowski has taught at The Catholic University of America for more than 30 years and has served three terms as a theological advisor to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He and his wife, Claire, were appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Council for the Family, and Pope Francis appointed him as an expert to the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family. He has written or coauthored eight books on moral theology, marriage, sexuality, bioethics, and the human person.

St. John Paul II believed the Church needed an understanding of the human person that was “up to the challenge” of the questions of our time.

Was he anticipating the very crisis of what it means to be embodied that we are living through today?