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Human Sexuality and Christian Marriage: An Ethical Study
6/14/2010
 The institution of marriage is crucially important for human well being. Sex, a powerful source of energy and motivation, either works to strengthen marriage or to destroy it. The traditional Catholic ethics set forth the norms to be followed if sex is to strength marriage rather than destroy it. These assertions are made by Moral Theologian Father John Gallagher, CSB, in his book, Human Sexuality and Christian Marriage: An Ethical Study. The University of St. Thomas website features a full manuscript.
“It should not surprise us that many of our contemporaries reject certain moral teachings of the Catholic Church,” Fr. Gallagher said. “These teachings are based, after all, on perceptions of reality that are quite foreign to many in the modern western world. In no area of moral teaching is this more true than in sex and marriage.”
Fr. Gallagher believes that for Catholic teaching regarding sex and marriage to be persuasive today, it must incorporate several insights that have not been sufficiently stressed in the past. Pope John Paul II has shown how the body incarnates personal and spiritual meanings. In his book, Fr. Gallagher incorporates the contributions of the late pontiff and develops further the notion of sex as symbolic. Equally important, he shows that the full significance of Catholic teaching regarding sex appears only when it is considered in a wide cultural and social context with particular attention to the role of the institution of marriage and family.
The first part of the book sets out the philosophical, theological and sociological foundation for his ethics, and the second part explores the implications of that foundation for particular issues such as marriage permanence, contraception, marital fidelity and the virtue of chastity. The book is appropriate for undergraduate students and serious readers generally.
Fr. Gallagher presently serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Theology at the University of St. Thomas and is currently writing a book on the influence of culture on ethical beliefs and its implications for evangelization. Fr. Gallagher has authored a number of works in moral theology, including The Basis for Christian Ethics, Paulist Press, 1985, and Is the Human Embryo a Person?, Human Life Research Institute, 1985.
Fr. Gallagher was born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1934. He studied at the University of Toronto and at The Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome and obtained his doctorate in moral theology from the Alfonsian Academy in Rome in 1967. Since then he has taught moral theology at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, at St. Joseph’s College in the University Alberta and at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. He has served in several administrative posts, including Director of the Cardinal Carter Centre for Bioethics in Toronto, Superior General of the Basilian Fathers, and President of Newman Theological College, Edmonton, Alberta.
Fr. Gallagher can be reached a jcgcsb@stthom.edu or 713-525-6988.
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