New Book by John Wijngaards: "Amrutha"; Eye-Popping Read Challenges Catholic Church on Natural Law!

You find more information about the book and its background on http://www.thepopesman.com/.
Since the book is quite large (a long tale of 544 pages!), it is worth ordering a copy directly from the publisher with a 35% reduction.
For the USA: click here!
For the UK (Europe): click here!

Our academic advisor, John Wijngaards, has published a book called AMRUTHA.

What the Pope’s man found out about the Law of Nature, Author House 2011. The unusual feature about this book is that it presents a ‘theological story’.
The areas of Christian sexual ethics and the role of women in the Church both touch on natural law.
In recent decades Pope after Pope has appealed to natural law to impose painful prohibitions. Contraceptives may never ever be used in planning the family. Why? They ‘go against the law of nature’. . . Homosexual intimacy is always ‘intrinsically evil’ as a sin against natural law. . . Women’s nature defines and restricts their role . . .

What is at stake?

Theologians in the Middle Ages revamped the notion of ‘natural law’ already discussed by the Greeks and the Romans a thousand years earlier. The idea was: when God created humankind, he/she laid down a law in their nature. For instance: you may not kill needlessly. And no one may ever transgress the law of the Creator. In our time the principle resurfaced as the dignity of the person, as human rights; becoming a useful starting point for international agreements. However, the problem is: what does fall under natural law?

The traditional norms for deciding what is natural and what is not, are purely arbitrary. Thomas Aquinas, for example, worked out that poligamy, a husband marrying more wives, though not ideal, does not go against natural law, while natural law totally forbids a woman to have more husbands. Surely mutilating the male sexual organs is against natural law, you would think? No, not so obvious. Enter the castrati, male singers castrated before puberty so that they retained their high soprano voices. Pope Clement VIII declared it was not against natural law. The ethics of natural law have in past centuries mistakenly been used by the Church to justify slavery, the colonial conquest of nations, the inferior status of women, torture and wars of aggression.

Back to 'Amrutha'

Wijngaards wrote the book thinking: what would happen if a naïve monsignor from Rome would try to implement utter fidelity to natural law in everyday life? Also: what do the celibate lawgivers in Rome really know of the lives of ordinary people, especially the lives of women? The main character in his story - Mgr. Shamus McKenna - demonstrates what might take place. His quest for the truth brings him to explore options that he never considered before. He meets extraordinary women who invariably push out his boundaries. At every point his determination to follow natural law leads him into more murky and untested waters of sex, morality, heroism, and women’s lives. His salvation lies in Amrutha whose name means: nectar & immortal. She is a fighter: resourceful, intelligent, able to overcome incredible challenges. With her he eventually finds out that for human! beings 'natural law' is the use of reason, that is: of our conscience.

We hope the book will amuse and enlighten many readers. Please, pass this information on to other lists and channels. Thanks!