Theology of the Body

This website invokes the protection & guidance of St. John Paul “The Great” (canonized Apr. 27, 2014 [Feast of Divine Mercy]) and is dedicated to promoting his teachings known as “Theology of the Body”.  His “Theology of the Body” (TOB catechesis) is based on a pre-published Polish book, entitled: “Man and Woman, He created them”, composed from Dec. 8, 1975 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) to 1978, being completed just before he became Pope on Oct. 16, 1978.  His first task, after his election as Pope, was to send the completed Polish book to Krakow for publication. This text is considered to be the original and definitive source material. His next task was to have the original Polish text translated into Italian. Under his direction, the Sisters at Dom Polski prepared the Polish text for the Wednesday audience.  From 1979-1984, he delivered a total of 133 audiences dealing with the sacred identity of the human person in the image of God.

A Theology of The Body by Pope John Paul II
A Theology of The Body by Pope John Paul II

Because Christ tells us the Original meaning of Scripture, this text is authoritative, since  He is our Yahweh/Creator, Adonaih/Husband, Emmanuel/Messiah/Redeemer who comes, not only to reveal Divine revelation to us, but to reveal to us the truth and holiness of our humanity “in the image and likeness of God”(GS#22). However, since the editors for the L’Osservatore Romano did not have the original text, there were serious translation problems, from the Italian to the English, which needed to be corrected. For one thing, all the headings for each talk were created by the Editors of L’Osservatore Romano based on the subject material each week, since they did not have the source book.  Also, over 5 years, with different Editors, the same Italian word for “spousal meaning of the body” was translated in 8 different ways. But worse, where there were only 21 proper uses of “lust”, the original English translation used “lust” 343 times. Which means that there was a total distortion of words such as: spousal desire, sexual desire, spousal look, spousal urge, etc. which can actually be sacred and holy within the Sacrament of Marriage. This was corrected by Dr. Michael Waldstein in his 2006 English translation. He has stated that he would like to complete “the definitive Polish to English” translation, which will be more accurate and nuanced, but no news yet as to when it will be ready.