The Theological Roots of the Modern Crisis of Fatherhood, Sexual Differences, and The Family. On the Margins of The Radiance Of Fatherhood by Karol Wojtyła

Abstract

In no historical era have the topics of sex and gender occupied such space in academic and public debates. Today, an immense number of publications and conferences is devoted to subjects such as sexual differences, the definition of masculinity and femininity, the question whether and to what extent is sex part of nature, and to what extent of culture? These topics, always considered important in the anthropological and ethical fields, benefitted in the public debate from a certain social consensus on obvious and indisputable matters, as did those which were hidden from debate and concerned with that which is private and concerns the secrets of home life. Today, they have lost this double protection. Karol Wojtyła’s drama The Radiance of Fatherhood, written in the 1960s, surprisingly anticipates these contemporary discussions and proposes a philosophical and theological perspective appropriate for Western culture in which it is possible to give the right answers to the questions posed. In this perspective, these basic existential realities for every human being – being a son or daughter, mother or father, man or woman, husband or wife – do not only point to the sphere of human biology, nor are they contractual and subject to modifications. Rather, in the symbolic and sacramental interpretation which is proper to human life, they form the spiritual DNA of any human being from which that which is truly human can develop.