Spring 2022 ,

KAROL WOJTYLA’S Love and Responsibility

As a young priest and professor of philosophy, Karol Wojtyla gave himself over in a special way to the pastoral care of young couples. Grounded in the thought of Thomas Aquinas as well as phenomenological methods, Wojtyla brought his sharp philosophical intelligence and pastoral heart to bear on his experiences with these couples. The fruit of this was Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla’s first major philosophical work that lays a foundation for understanding his subsequent thought, especially his theology of the body. Love and Responsibility is a work of sexual ethics framed and informed by an adequate anthropology that does full justice to the human person in all of his or her dimensions. This course is chiefly a guided reading and discussion of this seminal work by this great saint, with a view not only to understanding Wojtyla’s teaching, but also (and especially) to reflecting on and perfecting ourselves as human persons whose sexuality provides both meaning and vocational trajectories in our lives.

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Matthew Walz

THIS COURSE HAS CONCLUDED. THE FOLLOWING LESSONS ARE PRE-RECORDED VIDEOS FROM THE SPRING OF 2022.

Text to be purchased:

Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. G. Ignatik (Pauline, 2013) [ISBN: 978-0819845580]

Note: All reading assignments refer to this translation of Love and Responsibility.

Course Content

Week One - 2/9

Wojtyla’s “authority”; Persons

Week Two - 2/16

Understanding the human sexual drive

Week Three - 2/23

Contemplating human love metaphysically and psychologically

Week Four - 3/9

Contemplating human love ethically

Week Five - 3/16

(Re)introducing chastity (and concupiscence)

Week Six - 3/23

Shame and abstinence

Week Seven - 3/30

Marriage in its fullness

Week Eight - 4/6

The call to perfection, i.e., motherhood or fatherhood

About Instructor

Matthew Walz

Matthew Walz was born in New York, but grew up mostly in Ohio. He completed undergraduate studies at Christendom College in Virginia, double-majoring in philosophy and theology and graduating as the valedictorian of the class of 1995. He did graduate studies in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). There he earned a doctorate in philosophy by completing a dissertation on Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of free will. Matthew has been teaching at the college level since 1998. As a graduate student, he taught for two years at The Catholic University of America. Then he began teaching at Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula, CA), where he remained for eight years. Since 2008 he has served as a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dallas (Irving, TX). In addition, since the summer of 2012, he has served has Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary (Irving, TX). His research and writing focus primarily on medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy, and philosophical anthropology. Besides Aquinas, his favorite philosophical authors include Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Bonaventure.

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Course Includes

8 Lessons
Course Certificate