The embodied self: Educational and Pastoral challenges

Abstract

The practical, mercantile, and dialectical materialism that permeates our current society represents a monistic reductionism concerning the human body. This reductionist approach denies the spiritual dimension of the human person while leaving the complexity and unity of the body and person unresolved. Anthropologically, it is a reductionism that separates agapeic love from sexuality as fundamental aspects of human existence, leading to a devaluation of the person's dignity. The Second Vatican Council emphasized the personalistic anthropology as an ecclesial response to the secularization of the human body, yet after half a century, this remains a pastoral and formative void in university education, failing to address the contemporary world's underlying issues.