J.R.R. TurKee

Friends, what is chastity—the second of the evangelical counsels? Though the clergy and religious practice chastity through celibacy, the virtue itself is just as applicable to the laity. Chastity simply means sexual uprightness or a rightly ordered sexuality—and this means bringing one’s sexual life under the aegis of love. As Thomas Aquinas taught, love is not a feeling but rather an act of the will—more precisely, willing the good of the other. It is the ecstatic act by which we break free from the ego, whose gravitational pull wants to draw everything to itself. Notice how the Church’s teaching that sex belongs within the context of marriage is meant to hold off this negative tendency. In saying that our sexuality should be subordinated to unity (the radical devotion to one’s spouse) and procreation (the radical devotion to one’s children), the Church is endeavoring to bring our sex lives completely under the umbrella of love. What would our country look like if, starting today, every Catholic lived out the counsel of chastity? We would make an enormous dent in the pornography business; human trafficking would be dramatically reduced; abortions would appreciably decrease; and families would be significantly strengthened.