Moral Traditions series

Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology

Todd A. Salzman, Michael G. Lawler

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781589017269
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Two principles capture the essence of the official Catholic position on the morality of sexuality: first, that any human genital act must occur within the framework of heterosexual marriage; second, each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life. In this comprehensive overview of Catholicism and sexuality, theologians Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler examine and challenge these principles. Remaining firmly within the Catholic tradition, they contend that the church is being inconsistent in its teaching by adopting a dynamic, historically conscious anthropology and worldview on social ethics and the interpretation of scripture while adopting a static, classicist anthropology and worldview on sexual ethics.

While some documents from Vatican II, like Gaudium et spes ("the marital act promotes self-giving by which spouses enrich each other"), gave hope for a renewed understanding of sexuality, the church has not carried out the full implications of this approach. In short, say Salzman and Lawler: emphasize relationships, not acts, and recognize Christianity's historically and culturally conditioned understanding of human sexuality. The Sexual Person draws historically, methodologically, and anthropologically from the best of Catholic tradition and provides a context for current theological debates between traditionalists and revisionists regarding marriage, cohabitation, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, and what it means to be human. This daring and potentially revolutionary book will be sure to provoke constructive dialogue among theologians, and between theologians and the Magisterium.

Index

abomination, 220

abortion, 10, 238

Abraham, 218

absolute norms: basic goods and, 60–61, 72–73

casuistry and, 111

formal, 160–61, 297n138

homosexuality and, 224–26

judgment and, 54–55

New Natural Law Theory on, 73–75

sexual, 74–75, 92, 120, 160–61, 297n138

virtue ethics and, 123

absolutum, 55

abstinence: marital union and, 126–27

Penitentials on, 33

periodic, 69–70, 78–83, 181–82, 283n159

Tertullian on, 27–28

acceptance, 130–31

Acta Synodalia Concilii Vaticani II, 171, 185

act-centered anthropology, 71

act-centered morality, 94, 96–97

acts, 49–50, 96. See also marital acts; sexual acts

manuals of moral theology on, 93–94

physical, 127–30, 138–39, 206

virtues and, 79, 84

actus humanus, 139, 153

‘adam, 21, 134, 158

adoption, 106, 249–51

adrogynos, 223

adultery, 10, 96, 222, 274n129

aesthetic-ecological concerns, 246, 250

AFD (artificial fertilization by donor), 242, 243–45, 249, 252–55, 258, 316n35

affective complementarity, 87, 141f, 146–49, 152

AFH (artificial homologous fertilization), 242, 244–49, 316n35

African culture, 192–93, 199, 202–3

AID (artificial insemination by donor), 104, 105–6

Albert the Great, 36–37

Alexandria, 26

Alfrink, Bernard Cardinal, 17, 40, 42

Amare est velle bonum, 157

Ambrose of Milan, 256

American Psychological Association, 230

American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 237

Anchor Bible, 24–25

Anglican Lambeth Conference, 38, 179

Anglo-Saxon England, 199

animals, 35–36, 39–40

anthropology, 71, 75–78. See also sexual anthropology

Aquinas. See Thomas Aquinas

Aristotle: Cahill and, 112

Economics, 157

intentionality and, 70

on mutual sexual acts, 158

on reason, 35

on sexu...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Prologue
• One Sexual Morality in the Catholic Tradition: A Brief History
• Two Natural Law and Sexual Anthropology: Catholic Traditionalists
• Three Natural Law and Sexual Anthropology: Catholic Revisionists
• Four Unitive Sexual Morality: A Revised Foundational Principle and Anthropology
• Five Marital Morality
• Six Cohabitation and the Process of Marrying
• Seven Homosexuality
• Eight Artificial Reproductive Technologies
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Index