Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics by John S. Grabowski (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 157 author uses to illustrate that there may be a universality which is historical rather than metaphysical. The survey of recent biblical criticism regarding the giving of the law on Sinai and the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount forms a useful tutorial for philosophers, particularly those of an ahistorical bent. Most of Schockenhoff's partners in the debates over natural-law theory are German and it would have been interesting to see how Grisez, Finnis, the later Macintyre, and others would have been fitted into his schema. As it is, they remain in the footnotes. The translation by Brian McNeil, while generally clear, is occasionally ponderous (e.g., "nostalgic imprecations" [20]) or infelicitous (e.g., "orientate" fpassim]), and there are places where breathless sentences could have been divided without loss. University ofSt. Thomas Houston, Texas MARY C. SOMMERS Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics. By JOHNS. GRABOWSKI. Catholic Moral Thought Series. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Pp. 213. $39.95 (cloth), $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8132-1345-2 (cloth), 0-8132-1346-0 (paper). John Grabowski provides an introductory account of Catholic sexual teaching, portraying it as both liberating and life-giving. He presents this teaching by means of insights from biblical and sacramental theology, drawing on elements from psychology and Christian personalism. His study, however, is not entirely what the title would suggest. Although the book's stated goal is to "undertake a systematic application ofbiblical and virtue-based categories to the topic of sexuality" (xiii), the focus is not so much on portraying sexuality from within a psychology of virtue as on presenting it from within the Christian personalism ofJohn Paul II. Stated more precisely, insights from virtue ethics are presented from within the framework ofJohn Paul's personalist concerns: sexual union as an embodied self-giving and the self-mastery in conjugal chastity that makes this self-giving possible. The book's seven chapters form a study in four parts. First, the author examines briefly the historical genesis of contemporary Catholic attitudes about sex (ch. 1). Second, he advances a biblical theology of marriage that emphasizes the importance of covenant fidelity (chs. 2 and 3). Third, he develops a personalist account ofsexuality and marriage rooted in his biblical theology (chs. 4-6). Finally, he sketches the practices and institutions required to promote the virtues proper to an ordered sexual life (ch. 7). 158 BOOK REVIEWS Grabowski begins by noting that many Catholics are "alienated" from magisterial teaching on sexual issues. He sees this alienation as arising from the inability of the manualist tradition to offer a coherent view of sexuality in the contemporarycontext. Grabowski argues that contemporary culture portrays sex as an "innocent ecstasy," understood "as bearing the promise of ecstatic release, personal fulfillment, and salvific power" (7-8). After noting the "unrealistic expectations" and added burdens that this view places on a couple's sexual relationship, Grabowski focuses on the limitations of the manualist heritage. He asserts that by embracing a physicalist notion of the natural law and by portraying morality as principally about how law restrains individual freedom, moral theology failed to provide a convincing account of Catholic sexual teaching. The task, therefore, is to present sexuality from within a larger theological context with the aid of Christian personalism. Grabowski seeks to do this by placing sexuality in the context of biblical covenant (ch. 2). A covenant is "an agreement or oath of fidelity between parties made with or before God in which one promises one's very self to another" (29). Grabowski affirms that marriage in the Old Testament is viewed as a covenant analogous to Israel's covenant with God. They both require "a faithful and exclusive promise of self" (41). In the New Testament, the parallel deepens: marriage becomes an image of the relationship between Christ and his Church (41-42). Grabowski further explains that oaths and symbolic acts were integral to covenants and enacted them. In the marriage covenant, sex has this enacting role. Just as covenants with God were begun in an oath and enacted in a sacred act, so too the sacrament of marriage is ratified in...