Three blockbuster books on our contemporary gender crisis

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 02, 2024

When the Pontifical Academy for Life muddied the waters of human sexuality still further in 2022 by casting doubt on the veracity of Catholic teaching on contraception, a group of distinguished Catholic scholars participated in a conference in Rome designed to offer a response to the PAL. Out of this conference grew three major works on the severe problems occasioned by our contemporary confusion about human sexuality and gender identity. All three have now been published, in time (one hopes) to attract notice at the Synod on Synodality in Rome.

As with earlier collaborative works on clerical sexual abuse (see my 2020 review of Clerical Sexual Misconduct), these new volumes are major collaborative efforts among outstanding Catholics in many different fields who are working diligently to lay the theological, philosophical, scientific and social foundations for a deeper and more accurate understanding of human sexuality. Much of this progress is due to Ave Maria University professor Jane Adolphe’s non-profit Catholic Jurist’s Forum. Each well-organized volume features roughly a score of experts in various fields in a combined effort to improve our collective understanding of who we are, what it means to be male or female, and how best to counter the damage caused by the reckless contemporary denial of reality when it comes to sex.

Ranging from the sublimity of truth to the practicality of counseling, I would list the three volumes in this order:

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Humanae Vitae and Catholic Sexual Morality (eds. Robert Fastiggi and Matthew Levering) 368 pp. Paper $39.95

The first book is a major study, in direct response to the Pontifical Academy for Life, which seeks to lay a firm foundation for a proper appreciation of the beauty and wisdom of Catholic teaching on sexual morality. Seventeen outstanding Catholic scholars make significant contributions in the book’s four distinct parts: Foundational Issues; The Doctrinal Dimension; The Anthropological Dimension; and The Beauty and Wisdom of Catholic Sexual Morality. As the introduction states:

[A]ll of the chapters seek to defend authentic Catholic sexual morality grounded in the natural law, Sacred Scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium. The authors seek to uphold the teachings of Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor, an authentic Catholic understanding of the theology of the body and conscience, and the sacredness of marriage and human sexuality.

We have been given permission to place the book’s Introduction in our library. It will give you a very clear idea of the purpose and scope of this outstanding text.

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Lived Experience and the Search for Truth (eds. Deborah Savage and Robert Fastiggi) 591 pp. Paper $34.95, Kindle $9.99

No fewer than twenty-five experts have contributed to this book which deliberately argues its thesis from the ground up, so to speak—that is, inductively rather than deductively—in an appropriately Catholic and natural effort to ground the truth about human sexuality in human experience. Divided into five parts, the first provides philosophical and intellectual foundations; the second offers reflections on the sexual revolution; the third is composed of “dispatches from the front lines”; the fourth deals with the science of love; and the fifth offers policy considerations. The theory behind this book is simple:

Though it must never be allowed to replace reasoned discourse, we cannot ignore the place of lived experience in arriving at the full truth about the human person. Above all, we must prevent any further advance of the idea that experience and reason do not share a common root in the mind of man. It is time to explode the myth that “lived experience” contradicts the foundational understanding of the Church on these matters.

Again, we have been given permission to place the book’s Introduction in our library so that you can get a sense of what the volume covers.

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Gender Ideology and Pastoral Practice: A Handbook for Catholic Clergy, Counselors, and Ministerial Leaders (eds. Theresa Farnan, Susan Selner-Wright, and Robert L. Fastiggi) 468 pp. Paper $29.95, Kindle $9.99.

If you find yourself in the position of having to counsel those confused about their sex-and-gender identities, this book may be the most helpful. Twenty-one experienced professionals contribute to this volume which, as the title suggests, is tailored to those who are called upon to help those who are suffering with these intensely personal difficulties. This is the situation so many priests, deacons, teachers and counselors in the front lines face on a regular basis. Once again, an extract states the problem clearly:

Most Catholics working in pastoral care were taken aback by the speed and scope of the embrace of transgender ideology by youth. They have been deeply affected by the pain they have witnessed—families that have been torn apart as a beloved son or daughter has rejected family members in favor of a chosen identity. They have watched with concern and alarm as young persons in their parish have embarked on a journey of psycho-social, medical, and surgical interventions that endanger their mental and physical health, as the media and secular culture cheer on these destructive decisions. They have encountered children and adults in religious education or formation programs whose understanding of the human person has been shaped by an anti-Christian, anti-realist philosophy that views the person in terms of desire and will, forsaking the unity of body and soul in favor of viewing the body as a malleable tool for projecting a desired identity.

And once again, we have permission to place the Editor’s Preface in our library so that you can easily grasp the full extent of this extraordinarily helpful book.

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These three books constitute an immense gift to the Church and to all who are confused, often through no fault of their own today, about their sure identity as sons or daughters of our Father God, brothers or sisters of His infinitely compassionate Divine Son, and—may we always hope and pray—beloved members of that Church we refer to as “she”, who is the very Spouse of Christ.