Aquinas and the Theology of the Body

Description

cf. "Is the Theology of the Body in line with traditional Thomistic teaching on marriage?"

Parts of the first half (e.g., on contraception) and the entire second half on St. Thomas are the only parts worth reading.

Petri cites the insightful "The Philosophy of Woman of St. Thomas Aquinas" by Kristin M. Popik, the first woman to graduate from the Angelicum.

WARNING: Beware of "Theology of the Body"'s faithfulness to traditional Catholic teaching; cf. this or Engel's "The Theology of the Body: A Critique" and "Sex Abuse in Catholic Schools: The Evolution of Sex Instruction in Catholic Schools from Becoming a Person to Theology of the Body." Fr. Luigi Villa says in "John Paul II Beatified?" that "the masculinity and femininity of the naked body, are for him [John Paul II] the greatest revelations of the human being for themselves and for others" (cf. 13 January 1982 audience)!

• Wojtyła's Love and Responsibility p. 29 blasphemes the love the Divine Persons have when he writes: "Love is exclusively the portion of human persons.[Miłość jest wyłącznym udziałem osób.]" (Petri p. 130)!
• Wojtyła also thought St. Thomas incorrectly classified chastity as a virtue of temperance (ibid. p. 114fn118)! Cf. ibid. p. 166fn12, which cites ToB no. 54: Wojtyła "disagrees with Aquinas's conception that purity 'consists above all in holding back the impulses of sense-desire.' See all ibid., no. 130"!
  • He thinks the remedium concupiscientiæ end of marriage no longer exists (like C. Burke 2015 ch. 8 "An R.I.P. for the Remedium Concupiscentiae ")! cf. ToB no. 84 §8: "Does the Apostle in 1 Corinthians see marriage only from the point of view of a “remedium concupiscentiae [ remedy for concupiscence ],” as one used to say in traditional theological language?"
• Wojtyła thinks virginity/celibacy is not superior to marriage, at least not on the grounds of sexual abstinence alone: "Christ’s words reported in Matthew 19:11–12 (like Paul’s words in 1 Cor 7) give us no reason for holding either the 'inferiority' of marriage or the 'superiority' of virginity or celibacy on the grounds that by their very nature the latter consists in abstaining from conjugal 'union in the body.'" (14 April 1982 audience; cf. Trent sess. 24 can. 10). He goes on to say that marriage and continence do not "divide the human (and Christian) community into two camps (let us say, of those who are “perfect” because of continence, and those who are “imperfect” or less perfect because of the reality of conjugal life)," yet marriage is a hindrance to living the evangelical counsels to their fullest (cf. Summa II-II q. 184 a. 3 c., which mentions marriage).
• ToB also seems to have a novel/Modernist understanding of original sin.

Petri seems to have Modernist leanings; e.g., in ch. 1 he opposes the "manualists" with the "personalists", unconvincingly claiming the former were "physicalist" and "biologist", faulting them (e.g., McHugh, O.P. & Callan, O.P.) for writing moral manuals that judged solely based upon the external forum and thus allegedly not taking into account the "person" or the sinner's complete nature. So the "personalists" can read minds and judge the internal forum?Ch. 1 also mentions Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., student Pinckaers, O.P., who criticizes most manualists for being nominalist/Ockhamist, not Thomist. Pinckaers doesn't seem to be personalist, so his criticism is probably most justifiable.Petri is right in saying Wojtła was trying to incorporate Thomism into Scheler's phenomenology (p. 125); however, it is Thomism which has assimilative powers (cf. Reality ch. 54, art. 2).
Petri does argue convincingly that Casti Connubii was the first to bring up the importance of love between the spouses in marriage (cf. CC ¶24 or Petri p. 50).
The sections on Wojtyła's Modernistic, failed attempts to subsume Thomism into phenomenology were not edifying.
Petri thinks the "cottage industry" of West et al. have blown ToB far out of context. Petri convincingly argues (pp. 195-6) that "some of its interpreters" read ToB "as a work that stands sufficiently on its own;" however, "the pope's task with the catecheses was much more narrow than it seems: to defend Humanae Vitae with a biblical and experiential perspective."
Petri p. 182 quotes "one of the most beautiful passages of the catecheses" (ToB 68:3) on the singnification of the "spousal meaning of the body" in heaven where "they shall neither marry nor be married" (Mt. 22:30); cf. Summa suppl. q. 80 a. 1 ("Whether all the members of the human body will rise again?") ad 1:

an instrument serves not only to accomplish the operation of the agent, but also to show its virtue. Hence it will be necessary for the virtue of the soul's powers to be shown in their bodily instruments, even though they never proceed to action, so that the wisdom of God be thereby glorified.

Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body catecheses has garnered tremendous popularity in theological and catechetical circles. Students of the Theology of the Body have generally interpreted it as innovative not only in its presentation of the Church's teaching on marriage and sexuality, but also as radically advancing that teaching. Aquinas and the Theology of the Body offers a somewhat different interpretation. Fr. Thomas Petri argues that the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas substantially contributed to John Paul's intellectual formation, which he never abandoned. A correct interpretation of the Theology of the Body requires, therefore, a thorough understanding of Thomistic anthropology and theology, which has been mostly lacking in commentaries on the pope's important contributions on the subject of marriage and sexuality.