THE CONCEPT OF SPONSALITY IN THE CATECHESIS OF SAINT JOHN PAUL II’S THEOLOGY OF THE BODY

Abstract

When the young Cardinal Wojtyla was elected Pope on October 16th, 1978, his first en-cyclical became the key to understand his pontificate: Redemptor hominis. He turned his gaze to the last years of the twentieth century on the Church and the contemporary human “family” seeking to make a claim to return the gaze to Christ the Redeemer. Shortly after this “pontifical program,” John Paul II begins on September 5th, 1979 until November 28th, 1984, a series of catechesis on “the divine value of human love.” These arise as a way of preparing the Synod of Bishops that would be held in Rome in 1980 and that would be entitled “On the duties of the Christian family”, because in it - the family - you can recognize the human and Christian community that is, from the beginning, fundamental for the life of the human being, the Church and the world. At the end of these Wednesday hearings, Pope Wojtyla said that this was a way to expose human love in the divine plan through the announcement of the redemption and the sacramentality of marriage.