On the Absorption of “Headship” by Christ: Reading Casti Connubii (and the Tradition) In Light of the Insights of John Paul II

Abstract

Pope St. John Paul II, in his many writings on marriage, man and woman, and sexuality, never affirms the notion of the headship of the man in marriage in the manner seeming to flow from St. Paul and through the earlier tradition of the Church. Rather than the headship of the husband and the submission of the wife to it, he stresses mutual submission in Christ. Evidently, he offers a tremendous development of the tradition concerning the equality of the spouses. Does this mark a sharp break or even rejection of previous teachings, themselves scripturally based?  If so, what does this say about the inerrancy of scripture and the reliability (or indefectabilitiy) of church tradition? Is there a serious problem here? Or is John Paul II offering us a truly creative development of the tradition, not a contradiction. In this paper, I investigate these questions, comparing John Paul II’s Mulieris Dignitatem with the more “traditionalist” encyclical of Pope Pius XI Casti Connubii (1930). I include a major opening section showing the development of Karol Wojtyla's thoughts on this topic in his literary, philosophical, and theological works in the several decades before his ascendancy to the papacy.