The Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster has announced it will host its annual Theology of the Body lecture on September 14 in honor of Pope Benedict XVI’s scheduled visit to Great Britain that month.The lecture, entitled “In the Service of Woman - Men are Called to Greatness,” will be given by Brian J. Gail, author of the Christian novel Fatherless.
Edmund Adamus, the Director of Pastoral Affairs for the Diocese, told LifeSiteNews.com that the event “will hopefully play some small but not insignificant part in setting the proper and better scene and ambience in which to receive the Vicar of Christ.”
Both the theme of the talk and its speaker, he said, were chosen to highlight the modern secular crisis: the topic for the talk, for example, is intended to serve as a response to the blurring of gender differences that runs rampant in Great Britain and the world.
“More and more people are beginning to realize that the feminization of masculinity and the laddish culture that haunts the development of young girls and women is not providing the answers to life’s deepest questions about human love and relationships,” said Adamus.
This loss of gender identity, he said, leads to a loss of personal identity; to regain it, men must be willing to respect and sacrifice for the women they love. “In paying due honor and respect to all women in all circumstances … we as men grow towards the fullness of our manhood in Christ – we become heroes,” he said.
Adamus said that Fatherless author Brian Gail was a perfect fit for conveying the message to respect and honor women: in Fatherless, Gail explores the “fatherless-ness” of the twentieth century by, among other things, exploring how the Pill has shattered the relationship between men and women.
“The book Fatherless encapsulates so much of what is wrong in society in terms of family dysfunction and breakdown in spelling out the toxic nature of the contraceptive mentality,” said Adamus.
Adamus said that it was especially important for the Pope to re-evengelize Britain, as it has become a leading player in modern secularism - as exhibited by the hostility shown to the Holy Father’s upcoming visit.
“Whether we like it or not,” he said, Britain has been and remains “the geo-political epicenter of the culture of death.”
Thus, said Adamus, the lecture “is a heartfelt appeal to [Pope Benedict] as our leader to bring before the whole nation once again what was for the first apostle to the English, St. Augustine of Canterbury – a recipe for success – the Catholic truth concerning authentic human sexuality and the doctrine of marriage and the family.”
SIC: TPB