Sex, Morality, and Truth Embodied

Western culture is fading because its western roots are eroding. This failing culture has reached its lowest point in the emerging culture of death, which is antithetical to what John Paul II calls the culture of life in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae. There are four specific roots of the culture of death: individual autonomy; a debased notion of freedom detached from objective truth; the eclipse of the sense of God and, in consequence, of the human person; and the darkening of human conscience, indeed, moral blindness, resulting in a confusion between good and evil in the individual and in society.

The above quote is from Eduardo Echeverria’s Redeeming Sex: The Battle for the Body, a detailed exposition that meticulously examines the four roots of the culture of death and provides the needed doctrinal, theological, philosophical, anthropological, and spiritual correctives. It is a theological tour de force as Echeverria leaves barely a stone unturned in his examination of what has gone wrong, what it means to be human, and the significance of the body to the person.

Disputing modern Neo-Calvinist falsehoods

Echeverria’s work is comprehensive. He is not just addressing the “battle for the body” but laying the foundation upon which a proper appreciation for the body may be reached—thus several pages are devoted to anthropology, natural law, epistemology, hermeneutics, and the relation between nature and grace because a proper appreciation for the Church’s sexual moral doctrines requires a proper understanding of the foundations upon which those doctrines rest.

Having studied at the Free University of Amsterdam, Echeverria dedicates several pages to a commentary and critique of Neo-Calvinist thinkers, including Herman Dooyeweerd, Abraham Kuyber, G. C. Berkouwer, and Herman Ridderbos—names unfamiliar to most American Catholics. Nonetheless, the ideas expressed by such authors are especially pertinent. The book focuses in particular on Ad de Bruijne, Professor of Christian Ethics and Spirituality at the Theological University Kampen in the Netherlands.

De Bruijne articulates a very radical, one can even say odd, view of sexual morality. He claims that Christian sexual ethics have evolved even among those he characterizes as “orthodox”—as many believers have accommodated sexual morality to the culture. He insists that the Christian view of sexual morality is “no longer about procreation and the ordering of one’s sexual desires to the goods of human sexuality; rather engaging in sex acts is a matter of physical needs, indeed a private matter that renders such acts an instrument of pleasure, or about individual realization.”

Of course, one wonders in what sense such Christians may be considered “orthodox”—but we should note that many high-profile Catholic theologians paved the way for such unorthodoxy in their dissent from Humanae Vitae, such as Richard McCormick, S.J., Karl Rahner, S.J., Bernard Haring, Daniel McGuire, and Charles Curran, to name just a few. But De Bruijne goes even further in his peculiar argument that the sexual revolution—while recognizing its “break with Christian tradition”—nonetheless “in some respects is also the positive legacy of that tradition.” Where is he getting this? Christianity affirms the goodness of the individual and “sex’s intrinsic goodness rather than merely an instrumental good for the sake of procreation.” Echeverria addresses these claims to show how far some theologians will go to justify the overthrow of sexual morality based on natural law and Divine Revelation, and to emphasize what the Church is up against in fighting the “battle for the body.”

Echeverria’s primary partner in presenting counter-arguments to the heterodox Dutch Reform thinkers is the Dutch prelate Willem Jacobus Cardinal Eijk, currently the Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht. One of the pleasures of reading Echeverria’s book is to be introduced to this clear-headed, articulate Cardinal, who explains the problem with basing morality on proportionalism—that school of morality that rejects moral absolutes and instead argues that ontic evil may be directly chosen if there is a proportionate good.

Rooted in the thought and theology of St. Pope John Paul II

Chapter Two is focused on anthropology, with particular emphasis on the body/soul relationship. Here, Echeverria rightly relies on John Paul II’s theology of the body. Dissent from Catholic moral doctrines concerning the meaning of sex is largely based on neo-gnosticism that treats the body as insignificant to personhood. In this dualist system, the body is reduced to mere functionality, or is simply a kind of costume separate from the true person identified with the spirit, mind, or soul.

Throughout this book, Echeverria draws upon the writings of Saint John Paul II, in particular Man and Woman He Created Them—A Theology of the Body, Love and Responsibility, Person and Act, and the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, which corrected current problems in Catholic moral theology. We see that the body is not something we possess—rather, the body is the person.

One of the strongest sections of the book is Echeverria’s treatment of natural law in continued response to De Bruijne’s defense of homosexuality. Coupled with a defense of natural law’s basis for morality, the moral teaching of the Church is illuminated by going back to the beginning, as Jesus Himself based His teaching on marriage and human sexuality by citing the first two chapters of Genesis.

There is also an important discussion about and a clear explanation of the difference between what is called “the law of gradualism” versus “the gradualism of the law”—a distinction that can be difficult to understand. The gradualism of the law recognizes that there is a distinction between where the person is at the moment (perhaps caught in sinful habits) and the advancements that person can and hopefully will make in the moral life without “falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances.”

But many who do not accept Church teaching on sexual morality pose a “gradualness of the law.” According to this precept, a person can justify their immoral acts, a self-justification that the person is doing the best that he can, and given the situation, is the only moral standard he is obliged to meet.” In other words, the objective moral standard is only an ideal, not a moral obligation.

Addressing faulty presuppositions

The third chapter, titled “Culture Wars, the Sexual Revolution, Ethics, Hermeneutics,” focuses on contraception, homosexuality, and artificial reproduction. There is special attention given to the meaning of marriage and procreation, drawing again on the insights of John Paul II, in particular his book Love and Responsibility, published in 1960. Echeverria lays out four presuppositions that need to be considered in understanding and discussing sexual ethics.

They are: 1) “there is a distinctive sexual ethics, rather than just a general ethics, governing interpersonal relationships … The question here that needs attention is: what is the proper end of our sexual powers and their relationship to marriage?” 2) “…one of the reasons why a distinctive sexual ethic is denied by many is that there is no room, in their view, of a moral law grounded in human nature, willed by God.” 3) “… a key to understanding Catholic sexual ethics is the truth that the human person is a bodily being. This view rejects a dualistic view of the human person…”. 4) “… a rehabilitation of the ‘culture of person’ is necessary because the objective good of the person constitutes the essential core of all human culture.”

Echeverria’s work includes an extensive comparison between the theology of John Paul II and the sexual ethics of feminist theologian Margaret Farley as presented in her book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. In 2012, Farley was the subject of a Vatican investigation of her book in which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller stated Farley’s book “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality” and “is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church.” The CDF further decreed that her book “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.” Her ethics contradicts “all offences against chastity in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Rejecting natural law, Farley locates morality in “contemporary experience” and what she calls a “responsible relational” position according to norms that govern relationships as such—i.e. consent, honesty, lack of exploitation, and so on.

Furthermore, Farley believes that “human sexuality, embodiment, doesn’t essentially consist of sexual differentiation.” Echeverria stands effectively on the theological shoulders of John Paul II as the Saint beautifully explains that being male and female is necessary for a true communion of persons—the highest expression of such communion is realized in the sacrament of marriage. And, according to John Paul II, “Natural law points to the need for penetration into … ontic structures and the need to understand natures, i.e., the essence of things, essences which enter into the object of human action.”

When reading Echeverria’s numerous arguments against De Bruijne, I wondered if he would also address the controversial priest James Martin, S.J. Indeed, the last section of his book is devoted to Martin and may be regarded as the book’s climax in the battle for the body. This is one of the few places where one finds a full commentary on how Martin’s heterodox defense of homosexuality and the “LGBTQ” lifestyle contradicts the teachings of the Church as expressed in Martin’s book, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity.

For anyone wanting to understand Martin’s arguments and position and how they cannot be squared with Catholic moral teachings, Echeverria provides an excellent exposition. Much discussion here is focused on Martin’s complaint about how the Catechism of the Catholic Church (art. 2358), states that the homosexual orientation itself is “objectively disordered.” Martin’s main objection is that such characterization causes a person with same-sex attraction to “feel hurt” and “shows a lack of respect.” Echeverria responds to Martin’s pro-gay arguments with recourse to John Paul II, Benedict XVI, the teachings of St. Paul, Christian anthropology, the Magisterial authority of the Church, and the meaning of marriage according to natural law and divine revelation.

Conclusion

There is one shortcoming in Echeverria’s treatment of homosexuality. He states that Scripture’s condemnation of homosexuality “pertains not only to outward acts but also to the inward desires and inclinations constitutive of the condition itself.” He does not make a sufficient distinction that those desires are not condemned unless the agent wills them and approves them—and certainly not until the person with same-sex attraction acts upon them.

Moreover, one must take into account the level of freedom involved in persons with same-sex attraction being able to resist giving in to those desires and actions when evaluating such persons’ level of culpability. Nonetheless, Echeverria rightly shows that the Catechism identifies homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered” because the orientation disposes the person to commit disordered acts, contrary to the God-designed meaning of what it means to be embodied as a man or woman.

In this present moment, when our society and culture are dominated by a refusal to embrace objective reality on something so foundational to human existence as the human body, Echeverria’s book, rooted in the author’s love for Christ and His Church, offers a sophisticated, thoroughly researched, and scholarly rebuttal.

• Related at CWR: “The Triumph of the Therapeutic Mentality” (June 6, 2024) and “Call to Conversion and Holiness” (June 9, 2024), a two-part response to James Martin, SJ, on experience, respect, morality, and authority, by Eduardo Echeverria.

Redeeming Sex: The Battle for the Body
By Eduardo Echeverria
En Route Books and Media, 2025
Paperback, 565 pages

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