Dean of JPII Institute Responds to Smith/Waldstein

I appreciate the not unexpected personal testimony on behalf of Christopher West by my former Notre Dame colleagues, Janet Smith and Michael Waldstein. Both of these Catholic professors are justly well- respected for their work on behalf of embryonic human life and the family, and Waldstein also for his fine translation of John Paul II’s discourses on the theology of the body. The differences between Smith-Waldstein and myself with respect to the propriety of my statement regarding West’s work seem to me to stem most of all from our differences with respect to the nature and seriousness of (possible) problems embodied in that work. I will first respond regarding “methodological” issues (I), and then return to the substance of the issues raised in my posted statement (II).