John Grabowski cautioned against pre-marital intercourse and spoke about the body as a "social construct" during his talk at the Aquinas House Friday evening. The lecture was about the late Pope John Paul II's book "Theology of the Body," for which Grabowski, a professor at the Catholic University of America, wrote the forward.
Grabowski discussed the implications of the pope's views on the body as set forth by the content of the pope's book.
Intercourse is a symbol of "total self-gift" and fidelity, and people who engage in pre-marital sex are therefore doing something with their bodies that is not mirrored by the lives they lead, Grabowski said.
"They're writing a check with their bodies that their lives can't cash," he said.
In addition to reviewing the pope's ideas of original solitude, original unity and original nakedness, Grabowski applied two moral applications to the pope's ideas: contraception and homosexuality.
Grabowski heralded natural family planning as the most appropriate means of contraception. Couples who use natural family planning have higher rates of communication and better rates of overall intimacy, and although there is no hard data to explain why, the divorce rate for these couples is only two to three percent, he said.
"What happens when a couple engages with contraceptive intercourse?" Grabowski posed.
To answer this, Grabowski suggested that "with their bodies, they are speaking a language of complete self-gift," but that they are contradicting that by not giving themselves fully. He pointed out that family planning is 98 percent effective while oral contraceptives are only 92 percent effective and latex contraceptives are only 80 percent effective, statistics he said were from the World Health Organization.
Grabowski said homosexuality is not a sin because a person does not choose to be homosexual. A person is not culpable for something that is discovered, he said.
"One is not responsible for being homosexual, one is responsible for what they choose to do with it," Grabowski said. "If a homosexual person is in a stable relationship, that's the best they can hope for."
Grabowski reminded the audience that although the Catholic Church condemns homosexuality, it condemns hatred as well.
The majority of the talk centered around the idea that the body is a person's means of expression.
"Our intellect and our freedom display themselves through our bodies," he said.
In addition to speaking about pre-marital intercourse, Grabowski discussed religious celibacy, saying that it is still giving the body as a gift, but to God instead of a spouse.
Grabowski also explained how important it is for married couples to share different types of intimacy, such as spiritual intimacy.
"When sex is the only intimacy that the couple enjoys, there is no real depth to the relationship," he said.
