#394 Pope John Paul II's insights into Culture and How The Body Is Portrayed In Art and the Media

And St Athanasius , an early church father and the doctor of the church , said the son of God became man so that we might become God . You know , I beg a while to guess at this , but I bet you , most of us , are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to .

Yet St John Paul II said there's an echo of this story , of this divine life that we're created for , inscribed in each human heart , in your human heart , and if you put on a proper lens , if I put on a proper lens , we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment .

See , that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology of the body . It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today . Who am I ? What's my purpose ? Why were we created male and female ?

How do I find happiness here on earth ? How do I find love that satisfies forever ? Hey , glad you're with me . I'll be right back for today's episode . I'm excited to be back with my good friend , linda Piper , all the way from Pennsylvania . How are you , linda ?

three audiences , so four all together , and he takes this leap of theology , the body , what it means to be a human being , what it means to be a person of love , and he extends that out into our culture and how and what happens when a culture is twisted and distorted into human heart . What kind of culture do we create ?

What kind of art , what kind of media do we create ? So this becomes very interesting . You know that we're making a connection between all this beauty of this teaching that we've been pulling through and now we're going to move it all out into the culture . I just I was , I was thinking about yesterday .

I woke up this morning , yesterday morning , as I always do , and I look out the window and I just want to see what's happening with the sun , because it's always something cool going on in general , and so I went out and I'm praying the rosary and I , and so I was sitting down for a second looking at it outside of my patio , and then I realized that I

need to get closer , and , and so there's a field across the street from me .

So I have no shoes on I've just got my shorts and a t-shirt on and I got , I grabbed my coffee , I put the coffee down and I walk across as I'm praying the rosary and in my beer feed , and I'm walking down the sidewalk and I stop in front of a big field and it's all full of flowers and wildflowers of all different colors .

But I'm watching that panorama , that landscape against the sky , and the sky was fantastic because the sun , what drew me there , was throwing up these , these orange and pink hues , all , all , all around it , all through the sky , all through the clouds .

And as I was there , christ's words , you know from today , strike me this morning , as I'm , as I'm looking at this teaching today , and he appeals to the beginning , to this , and I'm thinking about the Garden of Eden and the beauty of nature not touched yet by the sin of man .

And then then he , he turns to the Sermon on the Mount and he reminds us that Christ appeals to the human heart . And as I as I remember praying the rosary yesterday , looking at all this , I'm an objective body . I get sense that I'm a body looking at all of this nature , but yet I'm different than all of nature that I'm .

I'm observing this , you know , kind of like a like , like an artist would do , and he's getting ready to draw all of this . You know and try to express this and you feel this in your heart .

You know this Ru'wah , that we're biology and God blows himself into it and we observe everything around us through our body , through our senses and the objective reality of my body , the truth of my existence , in a body that expressed Jack . But yet there's a subjective person that if somebody was driving by they , they wouldn't .

They wouldn't see that unless they had the right heart to see me not only as a body , but say I wonder what that person's like , I wonder who that person is . I wonder if I , if I , if I walked up to that person , would he reveal himself ? And what the other person started to reveal themselves to me ?

You know this deep mystery of the beauty , of the , of the inner life of a person you know , and that's kind of what we start to walk into when we talk about artists and media . They're looking at the body and portraying the body in our culture . How do they do that ? What do they see ? Yes , right .

And the ethos of the body , he's saying , is that attraction to the beauty , both of the beauty of the body and the beauty of all that Surrounds us . But he says that's a piece of it . The other side of the coin is that we have an experience , as self-awareness , of all of that .

So it exists out there , separate from us , and we observe it , and so we have this Experience of observing it . So we talked about that way in the beginning , with our Self-awareness and our self-determination . So how do each of us view that ?

How are we responding to that inner Call to Beauty , which is that ethos , that attraction to the good , true and beautiful ? And there could be someone really Enhaste on their way to work seeing that same sunrise that you were seeing and and barely notice it , barely notice any of the beauty around it . Yeah , it's there . Okay , great , you know .

So our experience of the world outside of us , and other people in particular , can be vastly different and the Pope is wanting us to just have a level of awareness of how it works for us , with the objective reality and then subjectivity of Us being body persons .

What is that it's ? It's a call to inner personality , this , this intersubjectivity that we see the other person as a Person within a , within a body .

Now , in order for us to bring this out into the culture , this beauty , then we have to have step two , which is what Jesus said on the Sermon of the Mount , when he appeals to the purity of heart and he quotes St Paul who , in one Thessalonians , who extorts men and women to keep their bodies with holiness and reverence .

Purity of heart , and he points , without any doubt , to these two dimensions that we're just describing , that not only am I a person looking at the world and and how do I see the world depends a lot on my purity of heart , my own heart .

In other words , do I become and I'm just gonna get right to the chase and we can unpack this do I look at the bodies of others men , women and Do I portray them in my own heart and then project this out into the world ? It is love as beauty , as as naked without shame . Or or do I see them as objects to use ?

Do I turn those bodies into pornography ? Or do I turn them into Wonderful masterpieces , like Michelangelo did in the Sistine Chapel per se ?

Just to recall , jack , where we had talked earlier , christopher West commentary makes a statement here within this context of Saying that the question becomes is it possible to see the human body with the eyes of God ? Because if we have that purity of heart , essentially that's what we're doing .

We're seeing the other person the way God sees that person and hopefully we're even , we're even seeing God within that person . As we say , we're made in the image of God , and he says that Mechanicism , in number 2519 talks about this .

It says , even now , purity of heart enables us to see according to God , it lets us perceive the human body , ours and our neighbors , as a temple of the Holy Spirit , a manifestation of divine beauty . So All of this comes together .

I mean the catechism does talk about this and I want our listeners to understand , while even for me this gets pretty deeply philosophical and I have to Really take time with it and think through this it isn't something Unreachable for any of us , because the cat is .

Catechism kind of brings it back to a level that I think all of us can understand , whether we're philosophers or not , that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and Recognizing that begins to make it possible for us to see the other person as God sees them .

Everything , everything in creation reflects something of God , of God's beauty . But in the midst of that is , jack , is this human body and the human body , as you said , that expresses something more , that expresses the love of God . Well , this is , this , is what it was in the beginning . You know , we lived in a Maloo , or the ambit of God's love .

So this is the connection , the purity of hearts going to be connected to the , the heart of Jesus Christ himself .

If you live in this connection , you will see the world , that landscape and all of that around us no longer is a sacramental sign pointing to the , to where we're going and to lift our hearts up , but we , you will see it as something to grasp and take , and and when you walk away from that landscape or that beauty , you know there's , there's an ache in your

heart that you might even get down a little bit you know , you can get very debased even from that or if I walk away and I'm down a little bit because I walked away from this beauty , but I know that that beauty in my heart is Elevating me , then I could take it at that point and elevate it in my mind and my heart to God himself , because I know that

when I walk away and I feel that ache , I can recapture that Because my unite my heart to the heart of our Lord and Savior , jesus Christ . So so in essence , that ache is a good thing . I want to stay in the ache because I want to open that ache up to God and allow him to film it , because he is the Real beauty that we seek . And so it's a .

It's a beautiful way to to kind of connect art and beauty around us To our own hearts and to God himself .

One experience I've had recently being out here with the grandchildren is the oldest is 14 and he has an interest in becoming a filmmaker , so he's very interested in the way producers actually create films and so on . It's kind of interesting to watch how he's teaching himself about all of this .

But so we've watched a few movies with him , just as having the experience . Some of the ones Christopher Nolan , I guess , is a producer or director that he's particularly interested in , and so he's 14 , and so we scan , looking for movies that we think might be of interest to him .

And I'm very aware of the ratings of movies , so the PG-13 , the G , the R and so on , and there are movies rated PG-13 that in my mind mean a 13 , 14 year old . They're pretty appropriate . So I chose one that I had not heard of and looked at the description and it said Inutility , sex , violence , language .

It was rated PG-13 and yet had that list and I thought , well , wait a minute . In my mind that would be the description of an R rated movie . And so I'm thinking , you know what is going on here , not only with the people rating the movies , but in our conception of what constitutes appropriateness and how all of that is portrayed to adults versus children .

And it seems to me as though , as we've talked before , that we just have pulled further and further away from that understanding of that dignity of the human person and what used to be something that would be generally considered not appropriate for children and , in my view , a lot of it not even for adults , because it goes against the dignity of the human person

. And why would I want to watch that anyway , you know ? And so we've , like , pulled away even further with that understanding and I think that we are in real darkness about the beauty as God has intended it . I know I went on here for a while , but yeah , no , those are great points .

When we build out a culture around us , you know , and or a father or a mother brings pornography into the house somehow , or doesn't see other people and gossips a lot , all these things are going to affect a child's heart .

So very often when I'm speaking of stolen innocence , I am speaking the innocence of a child , because I need to focus that audience on this , otherwise their minds will wander all over . You know , what about my gay neighbors ? What about this ? What about that ? So it's very important for me to say look , let's focus on the innocence of our children .

Let's work on that first and see what they're doing to our children and then project that out . Because who's doing that ? Who's doing that ? Well , the educators . Well , why are the educators doing that ? Why is the culture attacking the innocence of our children ? Netflix , now we get back to .

You know , netflix , disney , all these artists that are supposed to be bringing good things into the world are not doing that anymore . Pornography that they can get on their phones the average young person now is eight , nine or 10 years old between eight and 10 years old , when they view hardcore pornography .

So while I'm focusing on the innocence of children , then I start to reflect back out and say , now , who's bringing this into the children's lives and why ? And you see how important this is .

You start to see , and so John Paul talks about in this St Paul's Encyclical , humane Vite , and this gets back to our sexuality as a sacramental sign , being open to life and say , well , what's that got to do with anything ? It's got everything to do with it , because it's how we view the body , right .

So everything that we're talking about here now , linda , unfortunately , is being mirrored in the public school system . In other words , we've taken that toxic culture that we're talking about and this twisted and distorted way of looking at another person , and we're using that to attack the innocence of our children and say , well , why would we do that ?

Well , what John Paul is getting to here and shining light on is that this purity of heart , or lack of purity of heart , infects the culture , but this culture infects the human person .

And so you walk out into the culture and if you're surrounded by this toxic sludge day after day after day , and especially when you infect the innocence of children with this and don't give them time . See , innately in a child is the sense of right and wrong . Innately in a child is ooh , something's wrong with that .

But then they need to be guided along , and hopefully by people with a purity of heart , including their parents first .

But when the parents say , abdicate that to say a school system that has been indoctrinated and infiltrated themselves by this toxic sludge and promotes this in the school , you're doing damage , and this is what's going on right now in our school system . It's really tragic .

In paragraph 3 he says the whole sphere of aesthetic experiences Lies at the same time within the realm of the ethos of the body . So he's saying all of these experiences are directly related to what is in our heart and that pulled towards the good , the true and the beautiful . And it goes on to say something really important in my mind .

It's therefore quite right to also think here about the necessity of creating a climate favorable to purity . And In fact this climate can be threatened not only in the manner in which relationships happen with living human beings , but also in the realm of the Objectifications Proper to the works of culture . And he goes on with that idea .

But I want to focus really on what he's talking about here with creating a climate favorable to purity . In your work with stolen innocence , do the conclusions come around to that fact that that's exactly what we're not doing ? In fact , we're doing the opposite , that the climate Unfavorable .

The purity is the normalization of the objectification and the the stealing of the innocence of the children . All of that is what we're creating , versus the opposite , which is favorable to purity .

Well , there's many Millennials , for instance , and not only a millennials , and this can go all the way up the ladder , but millennials especially because they've been indoctrinated .

So in , in other words , you know , you're , you're speaking , or I'm speaking , to people that have already been blinded and become Apathetic to the evils attacking their very children and their very marriages . So they're like the frog sitting in the proverbial pot of toxic switch and they're sitting in there and you wonder why they don't wake up , why ?

That's why I appeal to the innocence of their children , because that's the only way To wake them up sometimes is to say do you see what they're doing to your kids ? Now , sadly , some of them , to your point , have there , they've normalized the fall , and they don't see it .

You can actually blatantly show them on slide projectors what they're teaching or what they're doing and and it , and they are gonna walk out of there and not do anything . Now there's enough , right . Hopefully there's a handle in every single crowd that will start to stand up and shed lights on this .

And this is the only Hope that we have , because now you know , this is the , that's maybe the third generation now that's been indoctrinated , are these young people , and it's getting worse and it's accelerating it . In other words , this pornographic culture of use , of using one another , of normalizing the fall . It entered the school system . And why ? Why ?

You say why ? Well , there's some perverts and pedophiles and people that that are just this is their hearts , right , but there's also a much more nefarious Evil behind it . And what do they know , linda ? What do they know ?

They know , if they could , if they can inject Moral relativism into these hearts of these young people , if they could tell them that it no longer matters what they do , because Truth is just subjective , what I or what you think . So , in other words , there's no objective morality anymore .

So when there's no objective morality , we've disconnected our own hearts from truth . What is true , what is good , what is beautiful ? Well , matter , it's just subjective now . So I can look at pornography and say , well , that's good and that's beautiful . And they say and no , that kids heart is disconnected .

So well , if he looks at porn , I don't care , it doesn't matter to you know what . At the end of the day , what happens is these are powerful movements of evil and they will take down the country , and this is what's happening now . It's , it's amazing when you project this into the politicians and into the hearts of our educators , into our businesses .

Today They've , we've taken the purity of heart out of our hearts and we're trying to run a whole nation , a whole state , right with people that are actually Adened to what's true , good and beautiful . And so you see that .

You see the destruction , destruction going on at every level , from the education system to our families , to our marriages , in our churches , and then also projected into the culture and into our political and economic life .

It's all falling apart right now in the United States , which is really sad , and it's falling apart because of everything we're just talking about .

most of them , maybe all of them , are connected to the fact that we don't see the , the body , the person , as a person any longer . We are body and soul , and when that disconnection happens , then that's exactly how we get what we call the culture of death .

I think it's very easy to make the connection when we look at the issue of abortion , because People who think that killing the child in the womb is okay have convinced themselves that that's not a person yet , and the whole personhood movement has been struggling for many , many years to say no , it is a person , it's a live human being , a person , body and soul

. And if we lose that , as you say , we See the ramifications everywhere . So how do we bring it back , jack ? What do we need to do ?

At the end , and you either Open yourself up to be redeemed , your heart to be redeemed there's no other way around of it . The good news is , it's very clear . You know GK Chesterton would talk about years ago . He would enter into a discussion which he did very often with public , with a public discussion .

They'd invite people to this forum and he would say you know , we should start out with the facts . You know , because if you don't start out with some facts , that we're just going to be debating Opinions . And often he would say let's start out with the fact of sin . Let's start out with the fact of sin . So I think that's how we do it , linda .

We start out with the fact of sin . You know what is going on around us . You know what are they . Why are we allowing this on our watch , to take away the innocence of children ?

Now , if you are , stand on the side of you don't care , then you're , you're the frog , you know , in the pot , and I feel bad not only for you , but I feel bad for the culture , I feel bad for your family , I feel bad for all of us , because if enough people sit in that pot , the tyrants of the world come in and they fill the vacuum that's left there ,

right . So it's moral relativism . I open my heart up to nothingness but that . But nature abhors a vacuum . So you have to show people , linda , that you , when you sit in that , in that vacuum , it will be filled . You have to decide what you want to fill that with .

Do I feel myself full of truth , good and beauty to see another person and and take them , you know , as a person , and lift them up ? Or Do we start to use one another or do we don't care ? But apathy will allow tyranny and the tyrants of the world will now Tell you how to live and tell your kids how to live . You will lose freedom .

And on my last thought on this is is what John Adams and James Madison said . John Adams said very clearly the founders right , one of the founders of the Constitution , said that this Republic was made only for a moral and a religious people .

Madison would add that if you don't , if you don't live out Virtue , that you will be filled with vice , and the only thing that will control the streets of Chicago . Look at the streets of Chicago right now .

At any night you could watch the news and on that news you're gonna see mobs of people looting stores and and and you know what's even sadder They'll walk up to a woman . I just saw a video of an 89 year old woman carrying her purse .

A guy didn't just take her purse , a Guy swung at her and pushed her and just knocked her down and she hit her head and she just laid there and and so he grabs her purse that he runs off with it . The next guy walks up and doesn't reach down to help her , reaches in her pockets , well , takes whatever's left and walks away .

And this is caught on see video .

Hopefully it would drive home to people that this is , this is truly happening and we need to take a long , hard look at it .

I think that video images like that are very powerful and look on the flip side , with the Pope talking about art and media and particularly , let's say , movies , how powerful they can be in , in playing a role in that , creating that climate of purity or favorable to purity and to chastity , because you can think of really powerful movies that have done that .

And when are they now ? Where are the producers of movies that will instill and cause to flourish that Innocence of our children ?

You know , let me go back to Showing how old I am , but when you think about love stories and you know how the girl imagines herself in her wedding , marrying the man of her dreams and that's all good , and yet it could be so uplifting to see that it's possible that when we View everyone as a person made in God's image , that's the starting point of being

able to recognize all of what TOB is teaching us about why we're even here , the meaning of our lives and the spousal meanings of the body to be self Gift to others . And so in the next few audiences he builds on that with helping us understand the powerful role that art and media can play .

And one last thought with the recent movie Sound of freedom , I think doing a very powerful job of shedding light on the human trafficking and the trafficking of children For the sex trafficking Purposes .

You only need to look at how they're trying to clamp down on it and do everything they can to make sure people don't see this movie and so on , to let you know the power that a movie which is shedding light can have . And so the Pope will take us further down the road in this reflecting on art and media and how it can help change the culture .

There is no night and shining armor that's going to be able to do this by themselves . It doesn't matter , you know , of course . You know having politicians and stuff you know , that are supportive of human dignity . This helps , you see this around the country , with governors that are good governors and care about people .

And then you have states like Illinois , where we're just in the belly of the beast here . So we need our politicians , of course . But who votes for those politicians ? How do they get into office ? You know , because we have allowed corruption at every level and they're in bed with with the big corporations , and the big corporations are in bed with social media .

So this is one big game . How do you change this around ? You have to realize that each person has a responsibility . This comes down to the laity . Now , you know . You know . You know that there are shepherds in the church are very few and far to come , you know , to find that actually speak the truth anymore . So who's responsible for this ?

Linda , I am , just like I said with you know , gk Chesterton , you know what's wrong with Christianity I am , what's wrong with the culture I am what's wrong with the evil in the world I am . We have to each stand up . That's the only way is that each person has to become a light .

John Adams again our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people . It's wholly inadequate for the government of any other . So what is he saying ? Each person has to be the light . Each person has to be a moral and a religious person , otherwise we won't make it . He wasn't the only founding father to hold this view .

James Madison wrote that our Constitution requires listen to the sufficient virtue among men for self government , not among just our political leaders , among all of us . He said otherwise . Nothing less than the change of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another .

This is what's going on , and I want to end with Humanae Vitae , because this kind of sums it up Promotion of chastity . This is called number 22 . If you want to look it up , you can just Google Humanae Vitae . Looked at number 22 . And so Saint Paul ? Saint Paul , I guess he is Saint Paul , isn't he ? We canonized Pope Paul the 6th , didn't we ?

So , saint Pope Paul the 6th , he wrote this . We take this opportunity address those who are engaged in education and all those who's right in duty . It is to provide for the common good Of human societies . This is the common good .

Going all the way up the ladder right , like we're just talking about , we would call their attention to the need to create an atmosphere favorable to the growth of chastity , so that true liberty may prevail over license and the norms of the moral law may be fully safeguarded .

Everything , therefore , in the modern means of social communication which arouses men's baser passions and encourages low moral standards , as well as every obscenity in the written word and every form of indecency on the stage and screen , should be condemned publicly and unanimously by all those who have at heart the advance of civilization and the safeguarding of the

outstanding values of the human spirit . It is quite absurd to defend this kind of deep , deep gravity in the name of art or culture or by pleading the liberty which may be allowed in this field by the public authorities .

So , in essence , you know what I hear from our governor here in Illinois we tried to ban certain pornography really books that are showing pornography in libraries and in the schools and he put a law together that says you can't ban books . I mean , you know , otherwise the financial support will be taken away from that particular public library etc .

And you see what they're doing . You know they're bringing this the the gravity which Pope Paul VI wrote about here in the name of art or culture and by pleading that we must be free to just allow anything to go in a culture . We go , you are free , but we are responsible for making decisions on what is good and what is bad .

The state doesn't own my kids . You know this . This corrupt governor doesn't own my kids . I right , I'm responsible for my kids . These are children of God , but he gave them to me to be responsible for . And no , I do not allow you to show my kids pornography in their classroom . It's ridiculous . And if we don't stand up , so what's the solution ?

I am Linda . I am .

So , any action , any activity , with regards especially to my children , does this advance that climate of chastity and virtue or does it move me more towards the depravity that he speaks of and it becomes doable , and , jack , to always put it in that light of you know , is this a choice bringing me closer to God or away from God ?

Is this a choice that's virtuous and moves , creates the climate there of virtue , or does it create the climate of vice ? And so if we could begin to train our thinking that way , I think it would become clearer to in many folks minds what they would have to do and how they need to speak out . And I am praying for the situation in Illinois .

We live there for many , many years , you know , but it's not much better .

You know , kind of sum up what you were just saying , right , when every time I look out in the world , what would Jesus think or do about this ? And I tell you what , it clarifies your thinking quite a bit when you think through that lens . Sure , all right , goodbye , thanks everybody . Talk to you soon .