Theology Essays Familiaris Consortio

Theology Essays Familiaris Consortio In 1981, as a result of a Synod of Bishops specially devoted to further awareness of the (then) current understanding of marriage and the Christian family in the modern world, Pope John Paul II promulgated an apostolic exhortation entitled FamiliarisConsortio (On the family). The well-known biographer of John Paul II, George Weigel, claims that in private conversations held with the holy father he came to learn that the pope regarded Familiaris Consortio as one of his favorite letters he had ever written as pope to the family of God (Witness to Hope, 385). The document is a wide-ranging and broad one in terms of the sheer breadth of the content covered therein, and it is therefore hardly any wonder that a prominent Catholic encyclopedia should say of the apostolic exhortation that it is one of the most important sources for the theological meaning of the sacrament of Marriage (Stravinskas, Catholic Encyclopedia, 628). Many writers who have taken this exhortation as their springingpoint to launch into various issues, which are ancillary to marriage per se,have nevertheless been able to employ specific portions of FamiliarisConsortio, owing to its vastness of content. What we will focus on in thefollowing pages is a kind of reception of the document by Catholics (whetherclergy or laypeople) and its teachings over the more than two decades since itspromulgation. There are certainly areas of overlap among those who havecommented on the document, and these ought to be paid attention to in coming toan understanding of an authentically Roman Catholic awareness of the variousaspects of married life among Christians. Opening Observations Made in Familiaris Consortio Sectionone of the document expressly opens up the contents and applications of thedocument to a broad audience. It is written for (1) those living in fidelity tothe Churchs extant teachings and practices in the area of matrimony, (2) thosewho have become bewildered by the contemporary challenges encroaching upon thefamily, and even to (3) those who live in unjust unawareness of the freedom andhuman rights guaranteed to them to have all the fullness that marriage mightoffer. In other words, the intended audience of the document is anintrinsically ecumenical one. It is not merely addressing Catholics in goodstanding with the Church, but the holy father reaches his hand out to assisteveryone struggling with the sundry difficulties in contemporary married life.This is significant, since most prior documents, whether Casti Connubiiof Pope Pius XI, Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI, or even documents of theSecond Vatican Council, the intended audience has been, if not exclusively,certainly mai nly Catholics. PopeJohn Paul II notes in section six of the exhortation that the situation ofmarriage and the family in contemporary life is an ironic one in the sense thatthere are both commendable advances being made in Western culture and enormoussetbacks. It is not so simple a situation as to claim that Western culture isdoing nothing other than attacking and hindering the family and married life.Some of the good understandings reached by the contemporary Western world arethe following: an appreciation of human freedom for both sexes, a promotion ofeducation and love for children, and a promotion of the dignity of women andresponsible procreation. However, some of the setbacks against the familyshould also be noted. They include the following: the respective freedom of thespouses has been carried to an extreme sense of autonomy, the misconstructionof authority and the handing on of values with respect to the relation ofparents to their children, and the ongoing scourges of abortion, growingdivo rce rates, sterilization, and an overall contraceptive mentality. It is forthese reasons and many others besides that the Synod of Bishops met and wishedPope John Paul II to be the primary spokesperson for their conclusions reached.Everything is not well for the contemporary family, and Pope John Paul IIreasons that the family is not merely a part of an overall society(rather, it is the very foundation of all society, as we shall explore later),any attacks on its welfare must not go unanswered. Social injustices toward thefamily must be dealt with directly, and this is a primary reason for theappearance of Familiaris Consortio. Building on Prior Teaching for Fundamental Precepts Prior to the appearance of this apostolic exhortation, there hadappeared two very important documents on the nature of marriage and the family.They were the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae and an authoritativedocument coming out of the Vatican II Church Council called Lumen Gentium.Pope John Paul II, as all popes throughout history have done, takes the priorteaching on marriage and the family (especially that seen in the twentiethcentury) as his starting points on which to build. He references several timesthroughout his apostolic exhortation the encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV),especially when the content of his teaching has to do with the most explicitportions of HV on the conjugal act and contraception. Freedom Versus Autonomy There appears in this succinct encyclical Humanae Vitae a veryprofound line, which undoubtedly could be expounded upon. In section 21 of theencyclical, Pope Paul VI declares that selfishness is the enemy of true love. This recalls an earlier pointmade in our essay. John Paul II notes the dangerous tendency of contemporaryspouses to exemplify an isolationist and autonomous attitude in marriage (FC,6). In fact, for the problems listed above which are antithetical to marriageand family life, the Pope believes there is one problem most fundamentally thecause of the others. He writes, At the root of these negative phenomena therefrequently lies a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom,conceived not as a capacity for realizing the truth of Gods plan for marriageand the family, but as an autonomous power of self-affirmation, often againstothers, for ones own selfish well-being. And if selfishness is thought to bethe enemy of true love, then any spouse acting almost exclusively in his ownself-interest is destructive toward the very bond of his marriage to hisspouse, which bond is love itself. There is an interesting irony involved in selfish individualismversus a flourishing and mutually reciprocating action of love toward anotheroutside of oneself. Whereas one would suppose that, as is often franklyadmitted, couples will tend to not want to marry because they simply want tocontinue enjoying the other person in the relationship without giving over to aserious commitment (Cf. Barbara Markey, Cohabitation: Response over Reaction).Or, further than this, some married couples will either put off childrenindefinitely or decide to not have them at all for the expressed purpose ofwishing to sexually enjoy the spouse in an uninhibited manner. The strangeconsequence though, as Pope Paul VI noted in Humanae Vitae, is that thiseventually leads to becoming overly self-centered sexually, which eventuates inman (or woman) coming to see the other as a mere instrument of selfishenjoyment and no longer as the desired companion for life (HV, 17). Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo notes that the having of a family ina natural and ordered way (such as the Church teaches couple to do) does leadto the exact opposite of selfishness and isolationism in a marriagerelationship. And this is a necessary consequence (as in, it is intrinsic innature itself) of having children. Cardinal Trujillo offers some examples thatit is the nature of family to be other-centered in even the simplest ways. Henotes, Everyone has to help everyone else in thefamily, (FC and the Family, 3). It is simply a matter of beingpractically impossible to be rapped up in oneself in the context of a familywith numerous children. The older children will have to help the younger onesat times (e.g., to put on their shoes before they go outside), and the adultswill constantly have to help all of the children to grow into responsibleadults. It is simply intrinsic to the nature of having a family that one growsto be concerned with the well-being and interests of others arou nd. In these comments by Cardinal Trujillo there isan explication of the fundamental doctrines expressed in sections 42-43 of Familiaris.In these sections, Pope John Paul II notes that the daily life of a good familyis characterized by sharing and deep communion. The community of a family isthe very answer needed to thwart selfish isolationism. This type ofother-centered communion is seen in various aspects of which the Cardinal haselaborated. For example, the family is guided by an overriding principle offree giving, and this free giving takes the form ofheartfelt acceptance, encounter and dialogue, disinterested availability,generous service and deep solidarity (FC, 43). Children helping youngerchildren whenever there arises a need for such help is a ready example ofdisinterested availability. The older child helps the younger not because he isgaining something for it, but rather because when a child needs help,especially your own sibling, you simply help that child. This also fosters arecognition of the intrinsic value in each individual human being. Love and Life the Very Foundation of Marriage and Family In his recent speech Cardinal Alfonso Trujillo agreed with Pope JohnPaul II in seeing the family as that which forms societies. According tothe Pope, the family is societys foundation, which continually bolsterssociety by being its continual giver of life (FC, 42). Cardinal Trujillonotes that this thinking is in opposition to current worldly sentiment mostreadily embodied by the United Nations in their recent conferences. The generalattitude expressed in these U.N. conferences has been to think that societiesare simply collections of individuals (Familiaris Consortio and theFamily, 3). But, nature seems to argue against this mistaken idea. Societiesare not the ones producing and nurturing and giving the individuals to thesociety. These duties are fulfilled by families, and the individuals producedusually repeat this fundamental cycle of nature by creating their own familiesand producing and nurturing their own offspring. Underlying the teaching of the family as the ultimate antidote toisolationism, are the two most fundamental realities of marriage: love andlife. The two are hardly mutually exclusive, reasons John Paul II. On thecontrary, conjugal love expressed as it out to be expressed according to thenature of man tends toward the creation of life. Procreation is a naturalfruit of the conjugal act, according to Humanae Vitae. Many thinkerssince have latched on to this fundamental Catholic point, including John PaulII in this exhortation. According to Catholic teaching, man is a hylomorphicunity. That is, he is composed of matter and form, which for man correspond tothe body and soul, which are fundamentally united. That is, what it is to bea human is to be a soul-body unity (FC, 11). But, man is also created inthe image and likeness of God, who is love. It follows that Love is thereforethe fundamental and innate vocation of every human being, (11). In marriage,the love that man longs to express is done so most fundamentally in conjugallove, the mutual and complete self-giving of a man and a woman. So sexualitycould never be seen, on this understanding as something purely physical, norpurely psychological either. It is the whole human who engages in the sexualact, so the act itself is intrinsically physical and spiritual. This is how onecommunicates his or her love for another, by the mutual self-giving in theconjugal act. However, love is not the only principle intrinsic to conjugal acts.This fact is easily demonstrable by noting that birth control contraceptionamounts to little more than artificial means of birth prevention. But since itis ever thought that this or that birth is needing to be prevented, it must bethe case that there is a natural product of conjugal love. So, Donald Ascireasons, this is the other aspect of Pope John Paul IIs theology of theconjugal act. The body by its very nature in sexuality is fecund it is opento fertility (The Conjugal Act as a Personal Act, 138). Totalunion occurs with the giving of ones body and all of its finalities. In maleclimax, a finality is the releasing of semen, in which is contained thepossibility of forming a new human life (if united with the gift of thewoman-the ovum). There is a principle of totality inherent in this reasoning -the giving of ones total self his spiritual, physical and (innatelycontained within the physical) his fecundity. But, if by some various means the conjugal act is not completedaccording to its intrinsic order something like a contradiction takes place,according to Christopher West who cites section 32 of Familiaris Consortio.West argues that one cannot possibly hold that he gives his entire self to theother if at the most important (i.e., climactic) moment of intercourse thevery moment when the unity between the two ought to be felt most of all onewithdraws him or herself from the union. Fecund is what adults are bynature. Therefore, when one does such a thing as what West describes, he isengaging in a type of lie a serious contradictory statement which says, Igive you all of myself except my fertility. I receive all that you are exceptyour fertility, (Good News about Sex and Marriage, 108). Thus, as JohnPaul II reasons in this section of FC cited by West, the innatelanguage of the total and mutual self-giving inherent in the conjugal actbecomes overlaid with a contradictory idea when man ac ting as the ultimatearbiter of his own being and sexuality decides in a moment to nottotally give of his self (since his whole self includes, as Asci has shownabove, his fecundity as well). The Essential Tension of Becoming What You Are The discussion thus far leads naturally to what many later came tosee as a profound and highly important teaching of Familiaris Consortio:Families, you are to become what you are! This passage so often quoted runsthus, The family findsin the plan of God the Creator and Redeemer not only its identity, what it is,but also its mission, what it can and should do. The role that God calls thefamily to perform in history derives from what the family is: its rolerepresents the dynamic and existential development of what it is. Each familyfinds within itself a summons that cannot be ignored and that specifies bothits dignity and responsibility: family, become what you are (FamiliarisConsortio, 17). Of course, such anexhortation is paradoxical at first blush. As David Michael Thomas remarksconcerning this papal principle, This pope is a complex blend of realism andidealism. The tension between the two is not relaxed for a minute (Pope JohnPaul IIs Advice for Families, 7). And Cardinal Trujillo asks, how cansomething become what it is? (7) More specifically, how does a family becomewhat it already is? Donald Asci has some insight to share on this front. It isessentially a cart-and-horse dilemma. It is not always easy, in terms ofaction, to identify which is the horse that is pulling the cart. The family hasa nature, and it is given this by God. However, it also has a mission, which isalso given by God. These are two dimensions of the same reality: namely, the family(Asci, 126). The family has a static nature, but it also has a dynamic mission,which is to be realized. But the mission is never realized without an alreadyextant family, which has the necessary nature to realize the mission. Nofamily; no mission. However, part of the mission is the having, nurturing, andpromulgating of good families. No fulfillment of mission; no families. It is ascenario of interrelation and reciprocation. Each gives rise to the other. Ecclesia Domestica A phrase that first appeared in recent times in the Second VaticanCouncil document Lumen Gentium with reference to the nature of thefamily was that of ecclesia domestica (the domestic church). As DavidMichael Thomas notes, the Council got this phrase from the writings of theChurch fathers, and rightly so since from the very beginnings of the Church ithas always been comprised of those who wished to convert together with all[their] household, as the official Catechism of the Catholic Church states onthis matter (413). The metaphor to describe this in the Catechism is that thefamilies of converts were as little islands of Christianity lived out in apagan world. Leon Suprenant offers the biblical metaphor of the body of Christ(which is the Church, according to St. Paul) being comprised of the littlecells of families. Furthermore, for those Catholics living in fidelity to theteachings of the Church and having children as the natural result of conjugallove, they have as their primary resp onsibility the education and formation ofthese children according to the Gospel of Christ (The Real Presence of theMarriage Bond, 253). Surely, individual parishes in union with the Holy See ofthe Catholic Church contribute to the education and formation of children, butthis is primarily to be done in the home which is one of the qualities thatmake it the domestic church. In continuity with all this, Pope John Paul II in FamiliarisConsortio employs the phrase with some frequency and further elaboration. Itis a result of parents begetting in love and for love that they procreate newoffspring, for which they in turn take the responsibility of educating thesenew beings who stand in potential of great growth and development (FC,36). It is their duty, but more to the point of love, it is their solemnprivilege to be able to take the sacred product (i.e., their own child) oftheir mutual love for each other and see its development through to completion.In this way, the parents fulfill their own duty and honor to be the firstevangelizers of their own children in teaching them of the love of Christ. Concluding Thoughts As wasstated at the outset of this brief essay, the apostolic exhortation FamiliarisConsortio is a document rich in depth and broad in the topics to which itextends its teaching. However, we have only tried here to give what seem to besome of the most important and widely commented on portions of the text. Itcertainly seems to have had a welcome reception by many of the most well-knowncontemporary Catholic writers on marriage and the family. It also appears tohave filled a void that existed to some extent in the wake of Catholic teachingon conjugal love and marriage prior to the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.One can reasonably expect that future pontificates will continue to focus onthe theology of the body so ably developed by Pope John Paul II in FamiliarisConsortio. Bibliography Asci, Donald P. The Conjugal Act as aPersonal Act: A Study of the Catholic Concept of the ConjugalAct in the Light of Christian Anthropology. SanFrancisco: Ignatius Press, 2002. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2d ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. John Paul II, Pope. The Theology of theBody: Human Love in the Divine Plan. Boston, Pauline Booksand Media, 1997. Familiaris Consortio.Vatican Translation. Boston: St. Paul Books, 1982. Markey, Barbara. Cohabitation: Responseover Reaction. The Priest, November, 2000, 19-24. Availableonline from Catholic Culture. Thisencyclical in its entirety is contained within a work listed in ourbibliography. The Theology of the Body, which is a compilation ofvarious teachings of Pope John Paul II on marriage and conjugal love, has HumanaeVitae as its first appendix. The reader may freely find the encyclical hereand many places elsewhere (including the Vaticans official website).

Exploring The Novel Poisonwood Bible And Macbeth English Literature Essay

The drama Macbeth by William Shakespeare and the fresh Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, are literary plants that explore the deep desires of self fulfilment. While many different literary devices are outstanding in both plants, this paper will concentrate on the intervention of subjects by both writers. Namely the subjects of power and control. These subjects are best highlighted in Lady Macbeth from Macbeth and Nathan Price from the Poisonwood Bible. These two characters best develop the subjects of power and control through their shared features of aspiration, use and pitilessness. Ambition is a reoccurring tool of character development in both The Poisonwood Bible and Macbeth, employed by the writers to stress the overall subjects of power and control. Nathan is a clergyman from America in the Congo trying to conform the small town of Kilanga to the Catholic religion. His aspiration and motivations are powered by fright and blind religion in God, coupled with desire for personal power-which he self interestedly translated into taking control of the small town and holding power over the people. He besides believes that if he does non finish the undertaking he will be unable to come in heaven. His aspiration begins to over power his judgement, his ability to ground and his construct of household, which causes the small town people to beat up against him to seek and re derive their freedom and independency hence exercising their ain signifier of power and re-enforcing the overall subjects. Unlike Nathan ‘s gradual and increased aspiration, Lady Macbeth â₠¬Ëœs aspiration is instantly apparent from the beginning of the drama, and merely grows as the desire for the throne and its power direct her over the border. She right off begins to piece a program to kill King Duncan in order to put her hubby Macbeth in line for the throne. This compulsion drives her insane, and like Nathan her ability to ground, her judgement and her scruples are clouded by her demand for power and control. She acted in ways that showed that she would halt at nil in order to derive the throne even if it meant slaying. Both characters became so ambitious in their efforts to derive power and wield control, that it finally drives them to their ain deceases. Manipulation is another changeless, though more subtly employed, word picture tool in both plants. She manipulated Macbeth into killing Duncan, in order to derive the rubric of King and Queen. Lady Macbeth ironically, felt excessively guilty to kill Duncan herself-due to resemblance to her father-however, had no scruple or concern for Macbeths witting when she manipulated him into killing his friend. In order to carry through this she began oppugning Macbeth ‘s manhood, seeking to convert him that he was emasculate -hence weaker so she, so she and that he could non step up to the undertaking of killing Duncan. This mental use made him oppugn his judgement, which led to him going really baffled. In the terminal her uses were successful, assisting her achieve the power and control she so greatly desired. Nathan like Lady Macbeth, abused his household in order to acquire what he wanted. The villagers had become so fed up with Nathan seeking to command them and their faith that the y rebelled, killing all the white people in their small town. Nathan ‘s married woman and kids are in secret fixing to get away to America, but Nathan, out of fright of solitariness, begins to mistreat and pull strings his married woman, and endanger the lives of his kids, in order to acquire them to stay in the small town and let him to go on his quest. This maltreatment and use allowed Nathan to recover power and control over his household, while doing them even more anguish as they impotently watch the deceases of many people they loved. Both Lady Macbeth and Nathan ‘s uses and evident deficiency of guilt over them, show to the audience merely how pitiless both characters are. This pitilessness is a 3rd of import manner the characters are both developed and the subjects enriched. Nathan is so determined to complete the quest God sent him to make that he forgot his ethical motives and committed awful Acts of the Apostless in order to obtain power over the small town people and control over his household ensuing in the loss of many guiltless lives. His chief distressing act of pitilessness was working his girls and coercing them to remain in the Congo so that he could keep his control over them while the villagers fought for their freedom. These egoistic actions resulted in the decease of his four girls and married woman, go forthing him entirely. Lady Macbeth was far more pitiless so Nathan, upon hearing that Macbeth was to be king she immediately began to inquire God to do her into more of a adult male in order to be able to perpetrate slaying. â€Å" Come, you spirits that tend on moral ideas, unsex me here, aˆ?aˆ?And make full me, from the Crown to the toe, Top-full of direst inhuman treatment. aˆ?aˆ?A Make midst my blood. â€Å" ( Lady Macbeth- Act 1 scene V ) . She lost her scruples wholly and began to move without witting in the effort to derive the throne, her symbols of power and control. Lady Macbeth increasingly becomes more pitiless, until she does non even question the idea of killing Duncan in order to be following in line to the throne, she is over whelmed in her ain desires, that she forgot about everything else that use to affair. Throughout both Macbeth and the Poisonwood Bible both writers develop their several characters of Lady Macbeth and Nathan Price by foregrounding their picks and actions through aspiration, use and pitiless action. These characters therefore serve to foreground the overall subjects of power and control in both plants. Both Nathan and Lady Macbeth sacrificed everything for power and control non recognizing the true cost. Nathan losingss his full household and is left to populate entirely, and Lady Macbeth looses her saneness, driving herself to take her ain life. Their battle for power and control wrecked many lives and in the terminal their several triumphs was so little that it all did non look worth the attempt. COMPARATIVE ESSAY Having†¦ Lady Macbeth from Shakespear ‘s Macbeth and Nathan Price from the Poisonwood Bible By: Tori Skot For: Ms.Zaikos January 7, 2008

Culture and the Collective Consciousness: Nelly Richard and Crítica Cultural Essay

French born but Chilean based, Nelly Richard is an influential figure within contemporary Latin American cultural studies, though she has often taken issue with the use of this term to describe her work. A leading proponent of psychoanalytical and feminist understandings of the social, Richard, editor of the Revista de Crà ­tica Cultural between 1990 and 2008, is an innovative thinker responsible for creating a way of approaching cultural analysis which has been dubbed crà ­tica cultural. Her conceptual framework privileges theoretical insights gleaned from structuralism, which in French includes what is commonly referred to in the Anglo academy as post structuralism. Our discussion of her work focuses on her vision of the role of the social sciences in Latin America today. Richard questions the conceptual underpinning of these disciplines and argues for a more thoroughly contextualised understanding of the relationship between knowledge production and power. Richard, Nelly. â€Å"The Social Sciences: Front Lines and Points of Retreat†. In The Insubordination of Signs: Political Change, Cultural Transformation and Poetics of the Crisis. London: Duke University Press, 2004. Beasley-Murray, Jon. â€Å"Reflections in a Neoliberal Store Window: Nelly Richard and the Chilean Avant-garde†. Art Journal 64 (3): 126–129. PDF Pino-Ojeda, Walescka. â€Å"Critica cultural y marginalidad: Una lectura al trabajo de Nelly Richard†. Revista de Crà ­tica Literaria Latinoamericana, Aà ±o 25, No. 49 (1999), pp. 249-263. PDF Del Sarto, Ana â€Å"Cultural Critique in Latin America or Latin-American Cultural Studies?† Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies: Travesia, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2000. PDF

Odysseus Heroism in The Odyssey Essay - 584 Words

Being a legitimate hero is not all about having the extraordinary supernatural powers commonly seen on television. Heroes are people who aid others, often putting themselves at risk to do so. They made the decision to fight, not necessarily physically, for their values. Odysseus, the main character in The Odyssey, should be considered a hero. He put his own life in jeopardy to protect his men from the supernatural threats that they faced throughout their journey. Odysseus should be regarded as a hero because he is brave, clever, and cautious. Odysseus shows his heroism through his bravery. When Circe turned his men into swine, Odysseus confronted her: I drew my sharpened sword and in one bound held it against her throat(Circe, the†¦show more content†¦My name is Nohbdy(The Cyclops lines 312-315). Odysseus astuteness is apparent in this situation because he refused to reveal his identity to Polyphemus while he was vulnerable. His decision prevented the other Cyclops from coming to aid of Polyphemus. By precluding this beforehand, he demonstrated his heroic quality of wiliness. The ingenuity established by these actions personifies Odysseus as a hero. Furthermore, Odysseus reveals his cautious qualities that verify his heroism. In Sea Perils and Defeat, Odysseus does not notify his men about the Sirens: Odysseus decides to tell the men only of Circes warnings about the Sirens(narration). Odysseus noticeably gave forethought to this action because he knew his men would be fearful, and that it would interfere with their goal. His judgment forestalled his men from trying to avoid Scylla, as the anxiety of facing Scylla may have overwhelmed them, therefore, saving them from annihilation. Correspondingly, Odysseus shows his circumspect behavior in The Challenge: Odysseus took his time, turning the bow, tapping it, every inch(lines 1359-1360). 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