“A theological time-bomb, set to go off with dramatic consequences.”
That is how papal biographer George Weigel described a series of talks on the human body and interpersonal communion delivered by John Paul II during his Wednesday papal audiences from 1979 through 1984. Later collected and published in one volume, Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan, those talks are slowly transforming the way Catholics in America understand spousal love, the body, sexuality, and the dignity of the human person. The teachings laid out in John Paul’s Theology of the Body promise to be the most effective antidote to biological materialism—the belief so rampant in post-modern culture that the body is nothing more than a material object to be used and abused for our own pleasure.
Despite the fact that these teachings have already impacted the lives of tens of thousands of Catholics, their total potential impact has yet to be seen. John Paul’s lectures were not a simple catechesis. They were densely packed theological and philosophical discourses that demand serious scholarly examination. A growing body of theologians and philosophers are dedicating themselves to that examination, and the fruits of their work are being disseminated to Catholics by popular writers and speakers. That process, however, has been slowed, partly by difficulties with the original English translation of the pope’s lectures—a translation containing errors and missing John Paul’s detailed set of sub-headings—and partly by the lack of regular discourse between the scholars and the popularizers. The first problem is well on its way to being resolved thanks to a new critical translation by Dr. Michael Waldstein, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. The second problem is the one this project seeks to resolve
From May 18-20, 2007, leading scholars from around the world will gather in Gaming, Austria, to further develop the insights into the pope’s teachings gained by the new Waldstein translation. Joining them will be many of the men and women who have brought those teachings to Catholics in America—catechists, writers, and speakers who have proven their talent to translate serious scholarship into practical teachings the average Catholic can both understand and put into practice. Also in attendance at the conference will be students from Europe and America who are preparing to become the next generation of scholars and catechists to continue the important work of studying and making known John Paul’s teachings.
This unique combination of participants—distinguished scholars and popular writers and speakers, teachers and students, Americans and Europeans—sets this symposium apart from any other conference on the Theology of the Body that has ever taken place. It also creates the potential for the symposium to have deeper, wider, and longer-lasting consequences than any other gathering of its kind. Those consequences include bringing people to a deeper understanding of the pope’s teachings through their more accurate presentation based on the new translation and new scholarship. They also include the chance to help European Catholics learn from their American counterparts about how to spread Catholic teaching about the dignity of the human body and the human person. As Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly emphasized, those are lessons sorely needed on a continent where the Catholic faith is quickly disappearing.
Scholarly dialogue leading to improved catechesis and evangelization are the chief purposes of the Gaming symposium. The gathering will help refine and sharpen Catholic teachings about human love, the body and sexuality being disseminated to American Catholics. It will also equip European Catholics to follow in their footsteps, by giving them the opportunity to learn from the experience of their American counterparts.
