Visiting professor to discuss ' John Paul II on Transforming Sexual Desire'
Ethicist and author Dr. Janet Smith, who is a scholar in residence this semester at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas, will discuss "Stop! In the Name of Love: John Paul II on Transforming Sexual Desire" at 7:30 p.m. today, Oct. 20, in the auditorium of O'Shaughnessy Educational Center.
Dr. Janet Smith
The talk, free and open to the public, is part of the Archbishop Ireland Memorial Lecture Series. A reception will follow the talk.
"While many are growing familiar with John Paul II’s 'Theology of the Body,' fewer are familiar with his text 'Love and Responsibility,'" Smith said. "There he provides a justification for Catholic sexual ethics by unfolding a true understanding of the sexual urge and the value of the person. Whereas the sexual urge is fundamentally selfish, love is unselfish. He explains how to transform what is essentially selfish to something unselfish."
Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Steubenville and the Thomas Aquinas Award from Ave Maria University.
She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and Life Issues, Medical Choices, Questions and Answers for Catholics. She also is editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader. Her newest book, The Right to Privacy, was released in August by Ignatius Press.
More than a million copies of her talk, "Contraception: Why Not" have been distributed .
