Our actions against new life, such as the use of contraceptive pills, condoms, and surgical sterilizations, send this message to the newly conceived person: we do not want you to exist because you will interfere with finances, desires for more things, or a career.
Now if someone is willing to prevent a possible person from existing, then once he does exist and someone still has reasons for not wanting “it,” then the same spirit of violence will be effective by having “it” killed. Contraception and abortion are indeed, fruits of the same tree.
It is alleged that in today’s modern and “enlightened” world, ‘hooking up’ is a great good and cohabitation (living together before marriage) is an even better good because sex is meant to be used for recreational purposes. It is the morning, afternoon, and evening delight to those in love with sexual pleasure or as it was called in a bygone age, lust.
To think that living together before marriage is a great way to discover the meaning of marriage because a couple gets to “try it out” is misguided because marriage involves much more than just living together as sexual partners. The meaning of marriage is based on communication and sacrifice for a lifetime. It is permanent.
Cohabitation only reinforces a vision of marriage that says: I can leave when I become dissatisfied. If one cannot sacrifice one’s sexual urges before marriage for a total commitment to the beloved in the future, it is becomes unlikely that one will remain faithful to one’s spouse after marriage. Statistics identifying the impact of cohabitation on fidelity within marriage and success rates of marriage make this abundantly clear.
Chastity, the reasonable control over human sexuality, is essential for growth in the other virtues and thus in intimate relationships. Without chastity, the human person is led (or rather leads himself) to a path of self-indulgence or narcissism. Consequently, a person uses other people as his or her object of pleasure rather than respecting the dignity of the human person for his or her own sake.
Chastity has three phases: premarital chastity, marital chastity and post-marital or individual chastity. The celibate or consecrated chastity of the priest or religious, whereby a person bypasses the normal way of growing in the love of God and neighbor through a deep attachment to another person is unique. Notwithstanding, without the virtue of chastity lived in the ordinary way, one easily becomes a slave to one’s disordered emotions for any state of life.
The Catechism reminds us of this fact when it teaches:
Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. ‘Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end’ (2339).
Lust the enemy of chastity
With this perfection of self-mastery, one becomes free to exercise restraint in many other fields of human life and so becomes self-possessed. These deep values then make one ready for self-giving to both one’s spouse and one’s children rather than self-taking for one’s own exclusive sensual benefit. The great enemy and immediate adversary of chastity is lust, which the Catechism defines as the “disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure.” The Catechism continues, “Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes” (2351).
St. Thomas speaks of the “daughters of lust” by quoting St. Gregory the Great. In retrospect, these daughters of lust are the symptoms and causes of the culture of death: “blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, rashness, self-love, [the] hatred of God, love of this world and abhorrence or despair of a future world” (STh. II-II, q.153, a. 5, r. 1). One does not need to be an outstanding theologian to see the present culture reflected by these daughters of lust. Nor does one have to be a profound philosopher to see the great value of chastity because it is the antithesis of these psychological and moral problems which emerge. It does not take a genius to figure out that when lust rules or enslaves a country, it is on the brink of falling.
Inordinate parenting as a cause for lustful actions
More often than not, sexual expression in youth is the yearning desire for affirmation and affection, which adolescents have not or are not receiving at home from their parents. Often, home life is not based upon mutual trust but rather mutual manipulation, either from overly indulgent parents giving their children whatever they want materially and never correcting their faults, or excessively strict parents who rarely praise their children or show them much affection. Neither kind of parenting knows the art of modeling true virtue.
As a consequence, the child becomes either a selfish or self-centered young person, or one emotionally starved for reasonable affection from one’s parents. This can lead to an excessive focus on one’s self to the point at which one ignores the needs of other people.
St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa teaches that inordinate or disordered self-love is the basis of all sin (STh. I-II, q. 77, a. 4). It is also related to the queen of the vices, called pride, which refuses to accept the limits God has placed within human nature and to follow the plan God has created in human nature (STh. I-II, q. 84, a. 2 ad 2). So enters lust, which is a kind of lieutenant of this queen of vices, called upon to falsely heal these wounds (STh. I-II, q. 162, a. 8).
A country already having killed over 50 million of its children through abortion and prevented untold millions more by contraception is headed down a short road to ruin. A country blinded by lust will never become pro-person or pro-life. Chastity is required if we are to transform our society into a culture of life and love.
Father Basil Cole, O.P. is currently a Professor of Moral and Spiritual Theology, Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Father is also author of Music and Morals, The Hidden Enemies of the Priesthood and coauthor of Christian Totality; Theology of Consecrated Life. A native San Franciscan, Father has been a prior in the Western province of the Dominicans, a parish missionary and retreat master, and invited professor of moral and spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome.
