Two principles capture the essence of the official Catholic position on the morality of sexuality: first, that any human genital act must occur within the framework of heterosexual marriage; second, each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life. In this comprehensive overview of Catholicism and sexuality, theologians Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler examine and challenge these principles. Remaining firmly within the Catholic tradition, they contend that the church is being inconsistent in its teaching by adopting a dynamic, historically conscious anthropology and worldview on social ethics and the interpretation of scripture while adopting a static, classicist anthropology and worldview on sexual ethics.

While some documents from Vatican II, like Gaudium et spes ("the marital act promotes self-giving by which spouses enrich each other"), gave hope for a renewed understanding of sexuality, the church has not carried out the full implications of this approach. In short, say Salzman and Lawler: emphasize relationships, not acts, and recognize Christianity's historically and culturally conditioned understanding of human sexuality. The Sexual Person draws historically, methodologically, and anthropologically from the best of Catholic tradition and provides a context for current theological debates between traditionalists and revisionists regarding marriage, cohabitation, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, and what it means to be human. This daring and potentially revolutionary book will be sure to provoke constructive dialogue among theologians, and between theologians and the Magisterium.

Todd A. Salzman is a professor of Catholic theology and chair of the Department of Theology at Creighton University. He is the coeditor of Marriage in the Catholic Tradition: Scripture, Tradition, and Experience and author of What Are They Saying about Roman Catholic Ethical Method?

Michael G. Lawler is professor emeritus of Catholic theology at Creighton University. He is the author of What Is and What Ought to Be: The Dialectic of Experience, Theology, and Church and Marriage and the Catholic Church: Disputed Questions.

ForewordCharles E. Curran

Prologue

1. Sexual Morality in the Catholic Tradition: A Brief HistoryHistoricitySexuality and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and RomeSexuality and Sexual Ethics in the Catholic TraditionReading Sacred ScriptureThe Fathers of the ChurchThe PenitentialsScholastic DoctrineThe Modern PeriodConclusion

2. Natural Law and Sexual Anthropology: Catholic Traditionalists“Nature” DefinedThe Revision of Catholic Moral TheologyNatural Law and Sexual AnthropologyTraditionalists and Sexual AnthropologyConclusion

3. Natural Law and Sexual Anthropology: Catholic RevisionistsRevisionist Critiques of Traditionalist AnthropologiesKarl Rahner: Transcendental FreedomRevisionists and Sexual AnthropologyConclusion

4. Unitive Sexual Morality: A Revised Foundational Principle and AnthropologyGaudium et Spes and a Foundational Sexual PrincipleThe Relationship between Conjugal Love and Sexual IntercourseMultiple Dimensions of Human SexualityTruly Human and ComplementarityConclusion

5. Marital MoralityMarital Intercourse and MoralityNNLT and Marital MoralityModern Catholic Thought And Marital MoralityMarital Morality and ContraceptionA Renewed Principle of Human Sexuality and ContraceptionConclusion

6. Cohabitation and the Process of MarryingCohabitation in the Contemporary WestBetrothal and the Christian TraditionComplementarity and Nuptial CohabitationConclusion

7. HomosexualityThe Bible and HomosexualityMagisterial Teaching on Homosexual Acts and RelationshipsThe Moral Sense of the Christian People and Homosexual ActsThe Morality of Homosexual Acts ReconsideredConclusion

8. Artificial Reproductive TechnologiesDefining Artificial Reproductive TechnologiesThe CDF Instruction and Artificial Reproductive TechnologiesParental Complementarity, Relational Considerations, and Social EthicsConclusion

Epilogue