Denver Catholic

19 DENVER CATHOLIC | OCTOBER 24-NOVEMBER 13, 2015 J ames Parker came out at age 17 and later entered into a relationship with another man. He worked as a gay activist for a while, but his personal experiences of intimacy and human sex- uality eventually led him to grasp that "same-sex marriage just doesn't exist; even if you want to say that it does." He concluded that trying to persuade those with homosexual inclinations that they can have marriage like heterosexual couples is basically to "hoodwink" them: "Deep down, there is no mystery between two men, ultimately." This striking insight helps bring into focus the authentic and remarkable mystery we encounter in the joining of husband and wife in marriage. That abid- ing mystery touches on their one fl esh union and reveals an inner fruitfulness, enabling them to contribute together something greater than either can do alone, namely, the engendering of new life in the marital embrace. Ultimately, that life-giving mystery fl ows from their radical male–female complementarity. Pope John Paul II commented on this "mystery of complementarity" when he noted how "uniting with each other [in the conjugal act] so closely as to become 'one fl esh,' man and woman, rediscover, so to speak, every time and in a special way, the mystery of creation." The personal and bodily complemen- tarity of man and woman, along with the "duality of a mysterious mutual attrac- tion," reminds us, again in the words of the Pope, how "femininity fi nds itself, in a sense, in the presence of masculinity, while masculinity is confi rmed through femininity." In recent times, nevertheless, the importance of the bodily and spiritual complementarity of man and woman has come to be diminished and even negated in the minds of many, largely due to the di„ usion of contraception. This way of intentionally impeding our own procre- ativity has e„ ectively diminished and even undermined our ability to perceive the inner order and interpersonal meaning of our own sexuality. Pope John Paul II once described the root truth about human sexuality as that "characteristic of man — male and female —which permits them, when they become 'one fl esh,' to submit at the same time their whole humanity to the blessing of fertility." The routine promotion of contraceptive sexual relations across all strata of society has e„ ectively collapsed the mystery of sexuality into the trivial pursuit of mutu- ally-agreed-upon pleasurable sensations. This depleted vision of our sexuality strips out the beautiful mystery at its core and diminishes our human dignity. Human sexuality clearly touches deep human chords, including the reality of our solitude. In the depths of the human heart is found a desire for completion through the total spousal gift of oneself to another, a gift that profoundly contrib- utes to alleviating our primordial sense of human solitude. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have noted how the deeper mystery of communion that we seek through intimacy is connected to this desire to overcome solitude. We are ultimately intended for communion, so our experiences of human solitude draw us into relationship, and beckon us to an encounter with the other. Yet the union of friendship that arises between two men, for example, or between two women, while clearly important in helping to overcome solitude, can be predicated only on non-genital forms of sharing if their friendship is to be authentic, fruitful and spiritually life-giving. Genital sexual activity between members of the same sex fails to communicate objectively either the gift of life or the gift of self. Such activity countermands authentic intimacy by collapsing into a form of con- sensual bodily exploitation, contradicting the very design and meaning of the body in its nature as masculine or feminine. It represents, in fact, the lifeless antithesis of nuptial fruitfulness and faithfulness. The beauty and meaning of every sexual encounter in marriage, then, is rooted not only in faithful and exclusive love, but also in the radical complementarity of spouses manifested in the abiding mystery of their mutual procreativity. Pope Francis, speak- ing at the 2015 Synod of Bishops reiterated this divine design over human sexuality when he stressed: "This is God's dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfi lled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self." The Mystery of male-female complementarity Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., serves as director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, www.ncbcenter.org. Making Sense of Bioethics FATHER TADEUSZ PACHOLCZYK, PH.D. R idley Scott's The Martian is a splen- didly told tale of survival and pluck, reminiscent of the novel Robinson Crusoe and the fi lms Life of Pi and Cast- away. In this case, the hero is Mark Watney, an astronaut on a mission to Mars who is left behind by his crew- mates when he is pre- sumed dead after being lost during a devastating storm. Through sheer determination and an extraordinary application of his scientifi c know-how, Watney manages to survive. For example, realizing that his food supplies would run out long before a rescue mission could ever reach him, he endeavors to produce water and, through some creative fertilizing, grow an impressive crop of potatoes. At another critical juncture in the narrative, as his life hangs in the balance, Watney says, "I'll just have to science the s*** out of this!" In time, NASA o¨ cials, through a care- ful observation of surveillance photos, realize that Watney is still alive and they attempt to contact him. Some of the most thrilling and emotionally moving scenes in the fi lm have to do with these initial communications across tens of millions of miles. Eventually, the crew who left him behind discover that he is alive and they contrive, with all of their strength and intelligence, to get him back. The fi lm ends (spoiler alert!), with the now somewhat grizzled Watney back on earth, lecturing a class of prospective astronauts on the indispensability of practical scien- tifi c intelligence: "You solve one problem and then another and then another; and if you solve enough of them, you get to come home." This summary speech communicates what appears to be the central theme of the movie: the beauty and power of the technical knowledge the sciences provide. But I would like to explore another theme that is implicit throughout the fi lm, namely, the inviolable dignity of the individual human being. The circum- stances are certainly unique and Watney himself is undoubtedly an impressive person, but it remains nevertheless strange that people would move heaven and earth, spend millions of dollars, and in the case of the original crew, risk their lives in order to rescue this one man. If a clever, friendly, and exquisitely trained dog had been left behind on Mars, every- one would have felt bad, but no one, I think it's fair to say, would have endeav- ored to go back for it. Now why is this the case? Much hinges upon how one answers that question. The classical Christian tradition, with its roots in the Bible, would argue that there is a qualitative and not merely quantitative di„ erence between human beings and other animals, that a human being is decidedly not simply an extremely clever ape. Unlike anything else in the material creation, we have been made, the Scriptures hold, accord- ing to God's image and likeness, and this imaging has been construed by most of the masters of the theological tradition as a function of our properly spiritual capac- ities of mind and will. With The Martian in mind, let me focus on the fi rst of these. Like other animals, humans can take in the material world through sense experience, and they can hold those images in memory. But unlike any other animal, even the most intel- ligent, humans can engage in properly abstract thinking. In other words, they can think, not only about this or that particular state of a„ airs, but about fun- damental patterns—what the medieval called "forms"—that make things what they are. The sciences—both theoretical and practical—depend upon and fl ow from precisely this kind of cogitation. But truly abstract thinking, which goes beyond any particularity grounded in matter, demonstrates that the principle of such refl ection is not reducible to matter, that it has an immaterial or spiritual qual- ity. And this implies that the mind or the soul survives the dissolution of the body, that it links us to the dimension of God. Plato showed this in a simple but compel- ling manner. When the mind entertains an abstract truth, say that 2 + 3 = 5, it has in a very real way left behind the world of shifting impressions and evanescent memories; it has, to use his still haunting metaphor, slipped free of the cave and entered a realm of light. And this explains why the very science so celebrated by The Martian is also the solution to the moral puzzle at the heart of the fi lm. We will go to the ends of the universe to save an endangered person, precisely because we realize, inchoately or otherwise, that there is something uniquely precious about him or her. We know in our bones that in regard to a human being some- thing eternal is at stake. In the context of what Pope Francis has called our "throwaway culture," where the individual human being is often treated as a means to an end, or worse, as an embarrassment or an annoyance to be disposed of, this is a lesson worth relearning. "The Martian" and why each life matters Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series "Catholicism." Guest Column BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

• Cover