Mark S. Latkovic
Professor of Moral Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, MI
“Charity” or “love” is the virtue which most adequately captures the Christian view
of human existence (cf. Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, no. 1). Love should
characterize all relationships – whether sexual or non-sexual – with God and other human
persons. As Jesus instructs us, to love God above all else is the greatest and first
commandment and to love our neighbor as ourselves is like it see (see Mt 22:34-40; Mk
12:28-34; cf. Lk 10:25-28). But what is love?
We can define human love as “the disposition to achieve fulfillment” or, in less
technical language, as the “willing of the good for the person.” As St. Thomas Aquinas
teaches, love has the character of friendship, when, “together with benevolence…we love
someone so as to wish good to him” (Summa theologiae, II-II, Q. 23, a. 1). “Yet neither
does well-wishing suffice for friendship,” Thomas adds, “for a certain mutual love is
requisite, since friendship is between friend and friend: and this well-wishing is founded
on some kind of communication.”
Sexual love between a man and a woman (eros) will be but one form or mode of
love that some of us are called to share or communicate with a spouse in marriage and
family life.
The late Pope John Paul II spoke often and eloquently (even before his papacy as
Karol Wojtyla) of the human person as that creature “towards which the only proper and
adequate attitude is love” (Love and Responsibility, 1981, p. 41). Because the human
person, God’s very image and likeness (see Gn 1:26-27), has an inherent dignity and
value, we owe him or her nothing less than the response of love.
In theological language, we speak of love/charity as the principle or source of the
Christian life. It is the “norm” by which we are to conduct and evaluate all of our
personal and social behavior. To quote Pope John Paul II again: “Creating the human
race in His own image and continually keeping it in being,” the God of personal loving
communion “inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the
capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental
and innate vocation of every human being” (Familiaris consortio, no. 11).
Yet the Christian understanding of love is quite unique. It goes beyond mere
philosophical definitions or humanistic conceptions and takes its meaning directly from
God himself. In accord with the New Testament, Christians speak of agape, that is, the
divine love of God for us as well as the love that we share with one another out of love
for God and whose source is God himself (cf. Deus Caritas Est, nos. 3-18).
St. Thomas will say that, “since there is a communication between man and God,
inasmuch as He communicates His happiness to us, some kind of friendship must needs
be based on this same communication, of which it is written (1 Cor 1:9): ‘God is faithful:
by Whom you are called unto the fellowship of His Son.’ The love which is based on
this communication, is charity: wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of
man for God” (S.T., II-II, Q. 23, a.1).
Unlike many in our world who view love as merely a feeling or sentiment, or
primarily as some particular action that we do (an “act of charity”) or as an act of so-
called “compassion” (e.g. mercy-killing), Christians believe that love is foremost a gift
given to us by the God who is love: it is the love of God himself “poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5).
We believe therefore not only that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), as Pope Benedict XVI
has reminded us in Deus Caritas Est, no. 1, but also that God imparts this love to us, and
in doing so makes us his adopted sons and daughters: “See what love the Father has given
us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 Jn 3:1). The
expression “child of God” moreover is not simply a quaint pious phrase but a reality:
because of our faith we truly have the “power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).
This life of faith though must take shape in a life of good works – that is, it must
bear fruit. Love involves both knowing the good and willing it. Just as God the Father
has concretely shown his love for us in Jesus Christ, his Son, so too must we love our
neighbor in deed with the same love that Jesus has for us. “If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love” (Jn 15:10). And only for the one who loves,
St. Augustine tells us, in commenting on 1 John 5:3-4 (God’s “commandments are not
burdensome”) will these commandments be in no way burdensome, unless of course we
do not love (see De Natura et Gratia, 69.72).
Thus, God’s love is seen as both the source of the Christian’s moral activity and
the rationale underlying the Catholic Church’s teaching on matters of marriage, family,
and sexuality. Take for example the issue of contraception. The Church understands the
sexual act of intercourse as an intimate body-soul realization and expression (“two-in-
one-flesh”) of the conjugal love between a man and a woman. This act obviously can
potentially initiate new human life. And since every human person is to be loved, is to be
wanted precisely because they are persons – the only creatures on earth, Vatican Council
II informs us, “that God has wanted for their own sake” (Gaudium et spes, no. 24) –
anything that would distort this attitude toward the person is to be rejected as harmful to
his or her dignity.
Hence, contraception is morally wrong not because it contradicts “nature” or is
“artificial,” but because it violates the possible child’s right to be “loved” into existence
rather than merely “tolerated” either as an “accident” or “mistake” resulting from
contraceptive “failure.” When a child does come-to-be despite the use of contraception,
that child does so despite the original “no” to its existence voiced by its progenitors.
Thus, when Humanae vitae no.16 speaks of the wrongness of impeding “the order
of generation from completing its own natural processes,” I take the pope to mean that
interfering with these natural processes is wrong not so much in this case because it is a
matter of tampering with human nature as it is intentionally impeding the human life that
could possibly come-to-be as a result of that God-given process.
Even in instances where no child comes-to-be, contraception is nevertheless a
“no” to human life (here and now in this one sexual act) and a “no” to the total, personal
and mutual self-giving which should be present in every marriage (marriage being the
only “place” where this can be possible) and in every marital act (whether or not the
spouses actually intend procreation or not) (cf. Familiaris consortio, no. 11).
To “love our neighbor” can only mean, as Pope John Paul II notes in Veritatis
splendor, no.13, that we love the various fundamental goods of the person which perfect
him or her in community. That is, loving the person means willing that these goods be
for that person while not doing anything to will or act against them. One such good is the
good of human life-in-its-generation. The Church’s teaching on contraception and other
topics of sexual morality follows logically from its vision of the principle of the
“inseparable connection” between the goods of life and love in marriage (cf. Humanae
vitae, no. 12).
Such is the Christian understanding of sexual activity, indeed of all moral activity.
Followers of Christ are those who, respecting life and love, affirm of the human person:
“It is good that you exist!” and “We can love you because we have first been loved by
God in Christ Jesus!”
Jesus Christ our Savior has shown us the way of true love by dying for us on the
cross. “It is from there,” argues Benedict XVI, “that our definition of love must begin”
(Deus Caritas est, no. 12). We therefore know from Jesus that we can “fully discover”
our true selves and realize our personal vocations – whatever they are or might be – “only
in a sincere giving” of our lives as human persons (cf. Gaudium et spes, no. 24).
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