About the Book and Authors

"St. Paul's analogy between the husband-wife relationship and the rapport of Christ with the church sheds light on the divine mystery…"

Wael Farouq is a visiting professor at Catholic University of Milano. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Professor Farouq was previously a fellow at The Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law & Justice at New York University and assistant professor for Islamic studies at the Copto-Catholic Faculty of Theology in Cairo. He has been a visiting professor at Macerata University since 2005 and an instructor at the American University in Cairo since 2006. He is a columnist in several Arab and Italian newspapers and magazines as well as president of the Tawasul Cultural Center for Inter-civilization Dialogue.

"In the Arabic language and the Qur'an, 'husband,' 'wife' and 'married couple' are all indicated by the same word, zawj, which means 'two persons, different from one another, bound together, who cannot manage without each other.'"

Tsui-Ying Sheng is a lecturer of Taoist Life Education at Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan, where she is also a PhD candidate in Religious Studies.

"Though Yin and Yang look opposite to each other, they can't exist independently.… If there is no Yin, Yang can't appear alone. Likewise, if there is no Yang, Yin won't exist. That's the thought of coexistence, complementarity, and reciprocity. They form a perfect unity with two in one."

Sr. M. Prudence Allen, PhD, of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, is the author of a study titled "The Concept of Woman," tracing the understanding of woman in relation to man in the work of more than seventy philosophers through the ages. She has done extensive research on the development of feminism throughout history and has authored numerous scholarly articles on theological and philosophical themes. She was instrumental in the formation of Endow, dedicated to the promotion of a new feminism based on the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Sister Allen was previously a philosophy professor and department chair at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver.

"We are most fortunate to live in a time of history when many important truths revealed in Scripture about the integral complementarity of woman and man have been verified by science and philosophy.… There is no excuse left to defend anything other than the equal dignity and significant difference of women and men."

Abbot Nissho Takeuchi is chair of the Sohjoh Nichiren School of Buddhism in Japan. He has been teaching corporate strategy and leadership to executives for over thirty years. He organized an International Peace Ceremony through Interreligious Cooperation and Dialogue annually from 1981 through 2011. Since 2012, he has been hosting the Citizens' Forum for Learning from Interreligious Dialogue.

"Buddhism talks about two orientations of love.… The love of Bosatsu is not rooted in the ego. It is not until we start to pursue the truth and justice as the objectives of our love, that our love becomes the love of Bosatsu.… Love becomes eros when directed to the opposite sex; it becomes the love of Bosatsu when directed to God and Buddha."

Ignacio Ibarzábal is the founder and president of Grupo Sólido, an organization based in Argentina that seeks to educate young adults about the nature of authentic love and marriage. A member of the Policy Strategy Group and The World We Want 2015, Ibarzábal is professor of family law at the Universidad Austral in Argentina. Previously, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.

"We are tired of what Pope Francis has referred to as 'the throwaway culture.' We are a large group of young people who don't want to see any more broken families and are fed up with seeing so much unnecessary suffering."

President Henry B. Eyring is First Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was named to the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1995. He has also served as church commissioner of education and as president of Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho (now Brigham Young University-Idaho). President Eyring earned an MBA and PhD in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. A former member of the US Air Force, President Eyring and his wife, Kathleen, have six children.

"I have become a better person as I have loved and lived with her. We have been complementary beyond anything I could have imagined.… I realize now that we grew together into one – slowly lifting and shaping each other, year by year. As we absorbed strength from each other, it did not diminish our personal gifts. Our differences combined as if they were designed to create a better whole. Rather than dividing us, our differences bound us together."