Catholic Sexual Ethics

What’s Included: This online course introduces students to the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual ethics in light of St. John Paul II’s theology of the body. Beginning with a very brief overview of the foundations of Catholic Morality, drawn from the Catechism and John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor, (discussing issues such as freedom, virtue, conscience, and moral action), the course will turn to the Church’s vision of sexuality, rooted in the proper theological understanding of the human person. Consideration will be given to the importance of the body within Christian anthropology, along with an examination of the virtue of chastity, the vocation of marriage, and John Paul’s understanding of the ‘nuptial meaning of the body.’ We will study the Church’s teaching on contraception, procreative technologies, sterilization, abortion, homosexuality, fornication and cohabitation, masturbation, pornography and more.