Visit the New Theology of the Body Page

 

All articles about or relating to Saint John Paul the Great's Theology of the Body appearing on this site are here for your consideration. From the Theology of the Body page:

The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.

 — St. John Paul II  

Pope Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is comprised of 129 addresses he gave over the first five years (September 5, 1979 — November 28, 1984) of his pontificate during his weekly Wednesday audience. It is divided into six cycles according to subject:

The series of addresses were a reflection on the creation of man as male and female sexual beings. They were a response to certain distorted ideas and attitudes resulting from the sexual revolution. St. John Paul II discusses how the common understanding of the human body as a biological mechanism leads to objectification, that is, a failure to appreciate its intrinsic, personal meaning. John Paul's thought is influenced by his earlier philosophical studies, especially the phenomenological views of Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler. Within the context of a theological anthropology — an analysis of the nature of man in his relation to God — the Theology of the Body is an interpretation of the fundamental significance of the body, in particular, of sexual differentiation and complementarity, one which challenges common contemporary assumptions.

George Weigel described the Theology of the Body as "one of the boldest reconfigurations of Catholic theology in centuries," saying it is a "kind of theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the Church." According to Weigel, when it does "it will compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed."