Although the word "love" has taken a multitude of meanings, explained Benedict XVI, "love between man and woman, in which the body and the soul meet as one… turns out to be the archetype and the epitome of love, compared to which, at first sight, all other types of love fade away". The lesson of the Church about love and sexuality, reads on the Encyclical, however, tells us that "euphoric and unruly eros is not an ascent, ecstasy towards the Divine, but a fall, man’s degradation. So it is clear that eros needs rules, purification, to give man not the pleasure of an instant, but some foretaste of the height of life, of that beatitude which all our being aspires to". This goes on the Pope- "depends above all on the constitution of the human being who is composed of a body and a soul". It is man, "as a unitary creature, composed of a body and a soul" who loves. Without such substantial "unity", eros "cannot develop to its real extent", states Benedict XVI. (segue)
