I want to begin by noting that what we now call the theology of the body was began,

well, didn't begin, but was initially a series of Wednesday catechetical addresses by John Paul

the second, in which he delivered.

You know, the Pope has an audience every Wednesday, and he gives a speech.

And so John Paul gave a speech on these topics

virtually every Wednesday from 1979 to 1984. So five years of Wednesdays. Okay. Now,

that was interrupted twice. One of those years was a Jubilee year for the Blessed Mother, and I forget which year

that was. And then, of course, the assassination attempt on his life caused him to interrupt the Wednesday

catechises. So that's the first thing to note that these are catechetical addresses, which

means that they're intended to catechize.

In these addresses, he's attempting to educate Christians. He didn't write the theology of the

body, hoping to convince non-Christians. And so, the theology of the body takes scripture

as its starting point. In the theology of the body,

John Paul is not interested, for the most part, in making philosophical arguments for the

truths that he presents, even though he considered himself primarily a philosopher. Throughout

his early career as a priest, as early life as a priest, Carol Voitia

had become concerned that theology and philosophy had become too abstract and too disconnected from human

experience. That's why you often hear Voitiba or John Paul referred to as a

phenomenologist. It's true that he dabbled in phenomenology, the philosophical school of thought

that emphasizes human experience in the process of human thought, but it should also be said he

didn't do so uncritically. So even though

he's interested in reconnecting theological and philosophical thought with human experience,

...