Spurred on by the controversy over contraception, the twentieth century became one of most eventful for the history of Catholic thought on human sexuality. The Catholic Church in this century experienced the rise and eventual dominance, at least at the level of the Magisterium, of a personalist approach to Marriage and sexual ethics, an approach which sought to treat of these subjects from the perspective of their relation to personal values, especially the value of love. Of those figures who were most crucial in the development of such a personalist approach, one was Karol Wojtyła. As bishop,archbishop, cardinal and finally pope, Wojtyła (John Paul II) would be involved in some of the most important events of this history, such as the drafting of Vatican IIs Gaudium et Spes and the controversy surrounding Paul VIs <i> Humanae Vitae</i>. <p>This study is intended to further an understanding of Wojtyłas role in this history by investigating his thought on human sexuality. Accurate interpretation of his actions would require knowledge about his convictions, beliefs and reasons for them. This study, however, limits itself to investigating only one of Wojtyłas works, Love and Responsibility, and to asking one specific question of it, what relation is understood to exist between love and sexuality. This investigation leads to several important conclusions. First, Wojtyła has a definite and reasoned belief that sexuality is necessarily related to love. Second, his understanding of sexuality and its relation to love depends on his belief about the nature of love. Third, Wojtyła believes that human sexuality is related to love because a) it is the sexuality of a person and a person is the sort of entity which is able to love and ought to be loved, b) by virtue of the sexual urge attraction (a form of love) arises very easily, c) by sex (male and female) being a limitation or imbalance a special basis is created for love-as-desire (another form of love), and finally d) by sexual intercourse being a union of bodies, intercourse both expresses betrothed love (yet another form of love) and gives it an added perfection.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-09062006-112243 |
| Date | 08 September 2006 |
| Creators | Olver, Jordan Matthew |
| Contributors | Still, Carl, Reese, Alan, Burnell, Peter |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-09062006-112243/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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