Thursday, July 22, 2010

Hildebrand and West

Here is an essay by Alice von Hildebrand comparing her late husband's approach to human sexuality to Christopher West's.

I have been wrestling with the Christopher West debate for over a year now. The critiques of Schindler, Hildebrand, and others seem to me to have some merit. A practical question, though, is how do we reestablish a culture of reverence for the intimate? I agree with Hildebrand that that is what the Theology of the Body properly understood would lead to, especially in light of Love and Responsibility. I also agree that the theology of the body isn't a theological revolution, even if there was a tendency to Jansenism in the American Church prior to Vatican II.

We need to have a very carefully written and documented monograph on veiling and unveiling.