Papal Explosives
Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body
by Pope John Paul II
translated and introduced by Michael Waldstein
Pauline Books and Media, 2006
(735 pages, $29.95, paperback)
reviewed by Patrick C. Beeman
The person is a body; he does not have a body. In a series of 129 catecheses delivered early in his pontificate—collectively known as the “theology of the body”—Pope John Paul II defended this thesis and brought out its implications for Christian life, examining man as male and female from the state of original innocence to lapsarian confusion and culminating with a penetrating study of “redeemed man” in his eschatological condition wrought by Christ.
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Patrick C. Beeman was formerly a lecturer in philosophy at Cleveland State University. He is currently the president of the Catholic Medical Students Association and in 2008 was a Pellegrino Fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Clinical Bioethics. He is a medical student at the University of Toledo and attends Holy Rosary Cathedral with his wife and two children.
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