No matter how hard we try we cannot separate God from sex, and when we lose the meaning of sex, we lose the meaning of God.

That was one of several key messages as over two days the local Church ‘limed’ at the Created and Redeemed conference with internationally-renowned Theology of the Body (TOB) exponent Christopher West to gain a better understanding of our human sexuality.

Venue for the December 6-7 event, organised by the Archdiocesan Family Life Commission (AFLC), was the Chaguaramas Hotel and Convention Centre.

More than 1,000 people attended with more than half registering a few days before. Beside Catholics from this archdiocese, others came from Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia, Bermuda, Bahamas, Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela and the United States. Archbishop Edward Gilbert and Trinidad-born Bishop Francis Alleyne of Georgetown, Guyana sat in the front row. SEE Archbishop's Column

West, accompanied on the trip by his events coordinator Christine Rizzo, did eight hour long sessions.

Saturday’s five talks were Theology of the Body: An Education in Being Human; Created as Male and Female: God’s Original Plan; Redeemed as Male and Female: Christ Restores God’s Plan; The Heavenly Marriage and the Joy of Christian Celibacy and The Two Become One Flesh: Living the Great Mystery of Marriage.
On Sunday, West dealt with Authentic Chastity: From Legalism to Liberty; Theology in the Bedroom: Love, Sex and Fertility and finally Put out into the Deep: The New Evangelisation.

A workbook from the Theology of the Body Institute was distributed so participants could follow the teachings.

The simple but effective stage backdrop was constructed by Clifford Hamid and team. It comprised the outline of a house, taken from the AFLC’s logo, and three ten foot high prints of an icon of the Holy Family.

West, on his first trip to the Caribbean, said a “Christopher came 510 year ago to claim the land for the Trinity, and another Christopher has come to help reclaim this island for the Trinity”.

He said everybody had a deep hunger to understand the meaning of their sexuality. Unfortunately, modern culture has warped God’s plan. He used the imagery of a crumpled paper to represent this. He said we need to uncrumple the paper to see the true picture.

“TOB is the cure for this cancer”, and while it may cause varying degrees of pain, “each person has to inject it into the blood stream,” West added.

Using popular movies and the lyrics of American pop songs, West was animated, interactive and engaging in every one of his talks, even having participants singing along.
He said because we are all called to relationship, sexuality is being violently attacked today and “marriage and family are at the centre of the battle”. “Each of us is in need of redemption”, he remarked.

He said we were created by God for ecstasy, and when we follow God’s plan, we have vertical wildness.

Obviously doing research before arriving, West said our Carnival is our look for “the vertical wildness (ecstasy with God) but we see only horizontal wildness… If Catholics want to redeem Carnival, we must become witnesses to vertical wildness”.

He urged married couples not to see their spouses as the ultimate source of satisfaction, and thanked consecrated celibates for their witness.

West also commented on the controversial issues of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, abortion and contraception. “It’s impossible for two men to have sexual love as they make a mockery of the sexual union, a mockery of marriage”.

Commenting on this country’s reported ranking as the number one country which searches for online pornography, West said this was a sign people here are starving for this (TOB) message and “you are charged to share this message”.

He said chastity is the virtue that rescues us from lust and “only when we are free from compulsions are we free to love”. He said dating today was not preparing couples for marriage, but divorce, and also apologised to all women for the lusts of men.

West stressed time and again that he did not come to condemn but to state the truth. He said some thinkers say the way to end abortion is to promote contraception. To this he remarked: “That’s like throwing gasoline on a fire….contraception is the homosexualisation of marriage, and makes the goal of sex only pleasure.”

He said he left the Church 25 years ago because of its anti-contraception stand but returned because of it, noting that the Catholic Church is the only Christian denomination that has not fallen for the culture’s promotion of contraception. He urged each participant to pray, seek penance and frequent the Eucharist as “you continue journeying with your sexuality”.

During the breaks on Sunday, entertainment was provided by Raymond Edwards and Debbie Nahous, Dr Hilary Bernard (as the good and bad Midnight Robber) and Judith Valentine, who sang the theme song written by Winston Garcia.

The conference ended with concelebrated Mass at which Bishop Alleyne was the main celebrant, replacing Archbishop Gilbert who took ill that morning.

Before the final blessing, Vicar for Family Life Fr Robert Llanos thanked all participants for attending and introduced the AFLC Executive and those who worked in parish Family Life Units.

He told Catholic News at a farewell dinner for West and Rizzo that the conference exceeded all expectations.

“A lot more people came than we anticipated. I think everybody, down to the last person, had a really powerful experience of God. Everyone had only good things to say about the experience.

“I am extremely pleased both in terms of implementation of the weekend, and in terms of its outcome. I think Christopher West is a tremendous blessing to the archdiocese at this time and we would like that blessing to multiply in the form of all those persons who were there, going out now and spreading the word of the Theology of the Body.” - RS

Visit the Archdiocesan website for more information