Program Overview

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Program Details

The program details are as follows:

Unit Rationale, Description, and Aim

Understanding the theological and ethical underpinnings of Catholic perspectives on human sexuality, intimacy, relationships, and sexual ethics is valuable for anyone who seeks to integrate such perspectives in their work in a variety of fields, in future research into such topics, and in their own lives. This unit explores such issues by considering them in relation to our understandings of God, the human person, and human society, as well as to various approaches to moral reasoning.

Campus Offering

The unit is offered at the following campuses:

• Brisbane: Professional Term 7, Multi-mode
• OFF: Semester 2, HS

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this unit.

Incompatible Units

The unit is incompatible with THCP614 - Catholic Sexual Ethics.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completing this unit, students will be able to:

1. Reflect on the relationship between conceptions of God, human beings, and human society and Catholic thought relating to sexual ethics and intimacy.
2. Integrate faith-based claims and reasoned argument into analysis, critique, and reasoning about sexual ethics.
3. Create plausible solutions to the challenges of communicating meaningfully and effectively about issues of sexual ethics in contemporary society.

Content

Topics will include:

• Faith and reason as characteristic of a Catholic perspective
• The human person as the image of God
• The equality of male and female
• Relationships and human flourishing
• Love and marriage
• Natural law
• Sin and Sins against chastity
• Formation of Conscience and modes of moral reasoning
• Contemporary issues concerning sexual morality

Assessment Strategy and Rationale

The assessment strategy includes:

• Oral or Written Presentation (50%): Requires students to demonstrate their ability to think critically and reflectively.
• Written Presentation (50%): Requires students to demonstrate their ability to integrate values, knowledge, skills, and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession in the development of informed ethical decisions.

Learning and Teaching Strategy and Rationale

The unit will be taught in Attendance or Multi-mode. The attendance mode will be selected when this is required by the needs of stakeholders who are funding cohorts of students to undertake the unit to meet stakeholder requirements. The multi-mode mode will be used when the attendance mode cannot be run due to insufficient numbers on a single campus, or at the request of a stakeholder funding funded cohort.

Representative Texts and References

Representative texts and references include:

• Benedict XVI, Pope. (2005). Deus Caritas Est - Encyclical Letter. Vatican.
• Finnis, John. "Personal integrity, sexual morality and responsible parenthood." Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader (2014): 171-92.
• Francis, Pope. (2016). Amoris Laetitia – Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation.
• John Paul II, Pope. "Theology of the Body." The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 3, no. 2 (2003):165-176
• Knieps-Port Le Roi, Thomas, and Roger Burggraeve. "New Wine into New Wineskins: Amoris Laetitia and the Church's Teaching on Marriage and Family." Louvain Studies 39, no. ): 284-302.
• Paul VI, Pope. (1968). Humanae Vitae – Encyclical Letter.
• Rubio, Julie Hanlon. "Family Ethics: Beyond Sex and Controversy." Theological Studies 74, no. 1 (2013): 138-161.
• Salzman, Todd A., and Michael G. Lawler. Sexual ethics: A theological introduction. Georgetown University Press, 2012.
• Selling, Joseph A. "Regulating Fertility and Clarifying Moral Language." The Heythrop Journal 55, no. 6 (2014): .
• Sherlock, Richard. "The Beauty of Marital Love in the Thought of Saint John Paul II." Quaestiones Disputatae 6, no. 2 (2016): 120-131.

Locations

The unit is offered at the following locations:

• Brisbane
• OFF

Credit Points

The unit is worth 10 credit points.

Year

The unit is offered in the year 2026.