This is an edited version of Fr. Habiger's speech at Human Life International's 13th world Conference in Irvine, California, April 6-10,1994.

My topic today is on the role of morality in chastity formation and any type of sex ed. So I'm trying to clarify what is needed today with the controversy about sex ed / formation in chastity, and I will be arguing for this position: that there is no substitute for full-blown courses in morality; that basically since 1968 and Humanae Vitae there has been a vacuum in teaching morality in the schools, and so what we need to do is to return back to what we have lost, namely the teaching of full-blown courses in morality / moral theology.

This talk is basically about the virtue of chastity. And we all know that sex is out of control in our culture, neighborhoods, and schools. This means that there is a lack of appreciation for the virtue that regulates the human passion of sex. The fact that many people could not even define chastity today is a clear proof of the problem facing us. Some people think it's the daughter of Sonny and Cher. I think that it is easiest to begin a talk on chastity by saying that abortion is an abominable crime which everyone should want to prevent. That abortion is the greatest human rights violation of today. The violation of the basic right to life. We will not go very far with the problem of abortion, resolving abortion, until we are willing to address the root causes of abortion. We have got to get beyond mere symptoms down to the root causes. If we won't deal with the causes, the problem will never get better. And the root causes are the abuse of sex, primarily promiscuity and contraception. The virtue which regulates the sex drive is chastity. And the church constantly teaches the importance of this virtue, both when politically correct and incorrect; when in season and out of season.

Now Planned Parenthood (PP) takes the completely different approach. They think that total sexual freedom is a good thing, and that's why they have the advantage on us. They pander to the lowest common denominator. It's kind of like if you are trying to teach the virtue of honesty instead of theft, your opponents say, "No, it's OK to rob banks!" So PP teaches our youth that once they are capable of sexual pleasure, they have a right to pursue it whenever they want it and however they want it. A new right constructed out of nothing. There are only two restrictions: first, don't get pregnant, don't get AIDS; and two, be considerate, don't force yourself upon an unwilling partner. However, seduction is part of the game. Planned Parenthood knows that if you can unleash the sexual drive of youth, then you can turn them against their parents and moral leaders, turn them inwards upon themselves and their own desires, and destroy their freedom. Destroy their freedom while telling them they are liberated from the taboos of their elders. See? They are free to become enslaved to their passions. For Planned Parenthood, the words chastity and virginity are ridiculous. So this talk deals very much with the need for chastity and how it is best taught.

So what is chastity? Well, a preamble here: I speak to you as a human being on the same pilgrimage with you, and as a Catholic priest trained in the moral teachings of the Catholic church. And with all the scandals in the news about priests and bishops violating their vows of chastity, you might ask who are priests to speak about chastity? To which I say thank God - Sixty Minutes and Mike Wallace expect Catholic priests and bishops to honor their vows, and find it unconscionable to find them doing what Wallace would say very little about others doing. There is a double standard here but people naturally and legitimately expect moral guides, priests, bishops, ministers, rabbis, to teach God's moral law and to live by it. Clergy and religious have the same struggle to remain chaste as you do, and that is why we are credible, believable; my preamble. So what is chastity? Chastity is our victory over our fallen nature.

Makes good sense, doesn't it? We say it's possible to rise above our lower selves, that we are not just animals. It's our victory over our fallen nature. We're not born to be losers. We are born to struggle to be winners. Chastity helps us pursue all the transcendental human goods. So the human project is that we are to pursue the good throughout our lives. The goods - the human goods- are all those things which fulfill us as persons, which you can never exhaust such as life, love, truth, friendship, beauty, justice, all the transcendentals. Chastity helps us pursue all these. Chastity is the virtue that enables us to come into the possession of our passions - come into the ownership of our passions. It is closely related to other virtues which regulate human appetite like sobriety in drinking, like moderation in eating. All of these fall under the cardinal virtue of temperance. This is a subset of temperance. Chastity is the strength to be pure in mind, heart, and body; to abstain from all genital sexual activity before marriage, and to be a pure spouse in marriage. The virtue doesn't stop at marriage.

All the virtues are interrelated. If we remove one from the tapestry of life, then the whole garment is disrupted. You see what happens when you pull a thread from a garment? We can't be unchaste and expect to be just, prudent, strong, generous, humble, self sacrificing. What we need today is a return to a study of morality, how to make good choices, how to construct good moral reasoning, how to form conscience; a morality which includes all the commandments, all the virtues, all the vices and their many relatives; the formation of conscience. We need to rediscover the great sources of morality, such as the Scriptures, the great church fathers, the great councils; our Christian heroes, the saints; and reliable teachings of God's appointed moral guides. That's where the Magisterium comes in.

Now we grow into the virtue. Human sexuality is a mystery that we are all called to grow into,by living out our sexuality the way God meant it to be lived. It's part of the mystery of life. We are all called to grow into sexual maturity as we are called to grow into emotional maturity, mental maturity, physical maturity. Notice it's by degrees; you grow into it. That's what maturity is all about.

I'll talk about chastity and love, and then chastity and life. Chastity enables us to give completely of ourselves to the beloved. We're dealing here with the gift of self, with self donation. Lust means I want to have what I want when I want it. Chastity means I am preparing myself to give the total of self and whatever that requires - God's plan versus my druthers. For the young chastity means caring about a friend's well being and future happiness more than your own pleasure. For the engaged it means all of that plus saving sex for marriage, the only true home for sex. For the married chastity means never turning against the gift of their God given fertility as does contraception, sterilization, and abortion.

For the single celibate, priest, and religious, it means that they are in love with God the author of love, the one who designed the human heart. It would be a terrible mistake for anyone to confuse sex for love. Sex is an act of love only when expressed according to God's plan for it. And that is the virtue of chastity. Otherwise sex is an act of violence and selfishness. Chastity challenges us to be a truly loving person. To love, as says St. Thomas Acquinas, to love is to know, to will, and to do the good of another. Lovely, brief, pithy definition.

Chastity and life- Because human life is so sacred, the virtue which guards and regulates the expression of sex is extremely important. We know that all life is a gift, and that God alone is the source of all life. Right? Parents have little to do with it when you think of it. God's the author of life.

Chastity helps us to honor life and to keep our passions under control out of respect for life. The vital urges of our sexuality are powerful. We are not healthy unless they are powerful. And they become obstreperous unless we keep them under control. We must respect the power of sexual drives. They are not a domestic poodle, are they? They are more like a majestic lion, and you don't tempt a majestic lion - because he roars; and a lioness roars.

Chastity is meant for everyone. Can you think of any exceptions? Everyone can be chaste, no matter what their background. You could be in the worst situation possible, but there is hope for all of us. An example: At HLI we deal with children, young boys and girls under 12 who have been forced into prostitution and slavery. We combat sex tours coming out of Japan, Germany, Canada, and the United States going into Thailand, Manilla, Vietnam, India, elsewhere. We help set up Magdalene centers for the rescue and rehabilitation of prostitutes all over the world. We know that there is hope for anyone who is ensnared by the chains of lust and the slavery of sexual sins. Chastity applies to everyone, to teenagers, young couples, the married, the elderly, singles, priests, religious. It applies to every sexual orientation. It is something that we all know something about, and we all have to work at it. Blest are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. It is obvious that God wants us to keep ourselves pure and chaste. Our bodies belong to God. So the feminists' cry, "Whose body is it, anyway?", is usually not answered correctly.

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. God wants us to choose to be chaste, even when it comes at a certain cost to us. I noticed nobody is chaste by accident or automatically. It's always by choice. And God wants to make sure we have to choose. Usually you have got to make at least three to five choices every day. So there are many good reasons for keeping yourself chaste. I think it's a good idea for each of us to think about what would you tell someone who asked you why you try to be chaste. Why are you chaste? It's a good question to be able to answer.

Now, sex ed is in contrast to training in chastity. You see, there are two approaches today being used. One is just what you call raw sex ed, and the other is kind of an improvement upon it, but not sufficiently enough: formation in chastity, or training in chastity. I'm arguing we should be not satisfied with either.

One's better than the other, but not enough. Sex ed has no place in schools. When discussion of sexuality is separated from moral principles, it becomes mere biology, and an attack upon natural modesty and sensitivity, if not an outright occasion of temptation and sin. Sexuality and morality go together. You cannot separate the two. They come together or not at all. Planned Parenthood wants to separate the two completely. With the current legal interpretation of church-state relationships, public schools obviously cannot teach morality. They cannot therefore teach sex ed courses.

It's impossible. All this should be left to parents and the churches who will provide the moral principles that are indispensable to the teaching of such a virtue. In Catholic schools sex ed sprinkled with holy water and spiritual cache should also be banned. What is desperately needed are classes in basic Catholic morality. Morality, the determination of what is right and wrong in human behavior, should be taught K through 12. And I would suggest, I know, also throughout tertiary, higher education. Morality deals with formation of conscience, with a true sense of freedom, with all the virtues, all the capital vices and their many relatives, all the ten commandments, prayer, the sacraments, moral reasoning, the role of the church. Catholic morality cannot be reduced to sexual morality, and sexual morality cannot be reduced to sex ed. So if we're down here, we've got to work to getting back up here.

Why do chastity programs limp, stumble, and fail? Will chastity programs help our young people, our sons and daughters to appreciate their God given sexuality and enable them to preserve their virtue of chastity? That's the question we now address. We hear much about chastity programs today. The hope is that they can counterbalance all of the slanted sex education K through 12 in the public school system. The immediate question is how can a two hour presentation on chastity or even a several week segment possibly counteract the damage done by a constant barrage of Planned Parenthood / SIECUS variety sex ed?

We find that school boards sometimes throw in an abstinence course or chastity program, along with all the other sex ed programs, to give the impression of fairness, even handedness, impartiality. You would hardly call this giving equal time to a Christian view of human sexuality. This is somewhat akin to a marriage preparation course in which responsible parenthood, NFP, is placed alongside with every form of contraception, and the customer is always right, you decide. What can we expect to accomplish under the best of circumstances in a sex ed program or chastity program? I think very little. It's better than nothing, but should we be satisfied with crumbs? Presenting in the schools understanding of the human reproductive system takes very little time. Like the time needed to learn other human systems, like the respiratory system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, about that much time. We cannot expect a secular institution to provide what is most important in courses dealing with sexuality, namely moral principles. Moral principles deal directly with morality, and morality comes directly from God. See who determines morality? Only God. Only God determines what is right, what is good, what is true. Nobody else. Unless they play God. So only God determines what is right and what is wrong, what conforms to His plan for the moral order, and what does not. Sexuality and morality are inseparable. If you attempt to separate sexuality from morality you are left with body parts and a pleasure machine. Public schools cannot deal with morality, since there are so many competing moralities. And morality like politics is always controversial. In our faith, notice you don't understand morality, which comes from God, unless you have faith, in our faith, we know that morality is divinely revealed since God alone determines the moral truths which comprise the moral order. However, morality deals with all the commandments, not just two. Morality bears directly upon sexuality. We know that through our faith, contraception, sterilization, and abortion are serious sins. They're more than just bad choices, they're sins. We know that occasions of sin must be avoided. We know that ours is a fallen nature, a victim of original sin. The secular world can't understand these matters. How can a public school system teach them? How could it deal with morality? Sex ed should be banned from all schools as out of place in the schools. It does not reduce pregnancies or teach virtue. It only aggravates the situation in which sex ed is out of control.

I would like to move on here to what then can be proposed in their place. If sex ed doesn't work and formation in chastity is a beginning, is a step in the right direction; I'm arguing, we should never be satisfied with it. Then what is being proposed? What is the solution? What do we have to offer that is better than chastity education programs? Fortunately, very much. What we need desperately is a return to what has worked successfully for generations of Catholic catechesis, and that is teaching basic morality in a systematic way, K through 12. What does this all include? Well, I remind you that the Church teaches in two basic areas. She has two basic competencies, faith and morals. Faith deals with what we believe on divine revelation, such as the creed, the articles of the creed, the sacraments, and prayer. Morality deals with the choices we make and the deeds we do, whose consequences last forever. Most people don't appreciate the importance of choices. By our choices, we constitute the kinds of persons we are. And those choices endure forever until they're changed. And so if we choose in favor of something which is deadly to goodness, if we choose sin, then we have so constituted ourselves as being open to sin and against virtue, and those choices endure, they continue on forever, unless they are changed, repented from, given up. Choices are terribly important. We don't talk enough about them.

Morality deals with these things, with the choices we make and the deeds we do. Morality touches all our actions and assists us in making good decisions, good choices which lead us to a fuller and more complete life. Many things go into the teaching of morality. What would all courses include? They would deal with the nature of human freedom and its many counterfeits. They would deal with the sources of morality; sources which are divine revelation and natural human reason. A course in morality would deal with good systems of moral reasoning, and fraudulent ones. Good systems, for instance basing things upon an understanding of the various virtues as St. Thomas does; or upon the pursuit of the various human goods. They would avoid things such as are cautioned agianst Veritatis Splendor such as proportionalism, or consequentialism, or other moral systems which lead into a dead end. Such courses would deal with the Ten Commandments, the nature and formation of conscience, with all the human goods which fulfill us as persons made to the image and likeness of God. They would deal with human acts. What goes into a human act? What differentiates us from the animals? Courses would deal with the role of moral principles. Where do we get them? How do you use them? They would deal with divine law, natural law, human law, with all the virtues; the cardinal and supernatural, with the capital vices, with each of the seven sacraments, especially the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. They would deal with the reality of grace, supernatural aids to virtue; the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, with prayer, with devotion to the saints, especially the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, and the example of the great Christian heroes. All that goes into morality.

Now each of these topics could be expanded tremendously. Every year a young person needs to be brought more deeply into the meaning of these various aspects of morality. He or she has a right to be taught the entire moral order. The entire moral order, not just segments or snippets; and at a depth which meets their particular stage of development. You know when you teach in education, you're trying to provide the tools a young person needs to be able to meet the challenges of their particular stage of life, right? So also with morality. You give young people the tools they need so that they can live the Christian life, so they can meet the challenges which come their way. You give them what they need. If we don't provide them with the tools they need, we leave them defenseless.

At the present, there is a great moral vacuum in our schools and CCD courses. A vacuum; and it's not too hard to figure that out. After 1968 most people or certainly all you heard about in the press, the Catholic press and elsewhere were dissenting in thier thinking from Humanae Vitae. Once you reject a major part of morality, what do you expect about the rest of morality? And do you really expect most teachers to take a position which is unpopular with the parents back home? Do you expect teachers to be talking about chastity to children when the parents know, or maybe the teachers themselves are of such a mind that things are kind of up for grabs these days? You sort of have to make up your own mind, and how can we take a firm position here when the parents are taking a firm position elsewhere? And so what's the agreed upon gentleman's agreement? Silence my friends is not always golden. People usually get hurt. There's a vacuum out there. Without solid moral teaching, our young people are left to their own shaky resources to ward off false ideologies and temptations while seeking after the truth.

I'd like to use one of Bill Coulson's comments here. You know he goes around the country talking about the confessions of a Catholic school dismantler. I think he's very, very right, that it's unfair to throw young people back upon their own resources. They don't have many moral resources. They don't know what's right or what's wrong. They have very little experience.

Coulson says they're not working with a fully developed brain. We must lend them ours. And to deprive them of that is to cheat them of what they need. Now it should be obvious by now that formation in chastity cannot happen independently of formation in basic morality. Morality deals with the full richness of the human project. Think of what morality involves. It deals with all of us, everyone right? It's broad enough to encompass all human beings, and that is because God devised a moral order for the entire human universe, and He intends it to be known, accepted, and lived by every one of his sons and daughters.

Morality is much broader than sexual morality. I repeat, we cannot reduce morality to sexual morality, and sexual morality cannot be reduced to sex ed.

There's so much to be said about teaching basic morality, but so little time now. Let me just touch upon a few highlights and address your concerns during the question and answer period.

Who should teach morality to your sons and daughters? Very carefully selected individuals. Your children are the most precious treasures you have. You dare not entrust them to teachers of unknown or untested quality. Catholic schools have generally capitulated to the times and treat the moral teachings of the church as either enigmatic or a source of embarrassment.

A complicating factor in teaching chastity is you cannot teach it if you yourself are not chaste. You can't. In North America 85% plus of couples are contraceptors, Catholics included, and that is why we hear so little about chastity even in Catholic schools. You know morality has to deal with reality. You've got to talk about the real world you live in or you go nowhere.

So what can be done? Well there is a way out of this morass. In the best of circumstances parents must see themselves as the primary educators of their children. You know the church documents remind parents of that all the time. Familiaris Consortio insists upon this; you are the primary educators. Parents do not teach their opinions when they teach chastity to their sons or daughters. They must teach God's plan, moral truth for love, life, and family. One clearly reliable source of God's truth on these matters is the new catechism. By the way 30% of the catechism is on morality, and for those of you who came up in the schools, the good schools in the 40's, 50's, you'll find that this is old as the hills, very originally presented; but for most people it's going to be brand new. The advantage of the Catechism is that it presents to the universal church the same moral principles which can be known by all. Henceforth all catechisms, religion text series, and moral theology books can be measured against a common standard. They must be judged according to their conformity with God's moral truth. And the claim being made here is, there is truth. We're supposed to know it.

Something's wrong with us if we don't know it. Can you imagine a teacher teaching something he doesn't know anything about? Why give tuition to that kind of a turkey? So these texts, catechisms, must reflect God's moral law, church teaching, and enduring truth. I have a suggestion to make here with regard to the Catechism. I suggest that you parents form study groups in your homes dealing with the new catechism. Invite in about 5 or 6 other couples with you, including the religion teachers of your sons and daughters. So you should insist upon this.

You're dealing with something very precious, your greatest treasure. Renew your own understanding of Catholic morality, then find ways to pass these treasures on to the next generation. You don't have to get anyone's permission to do what is good or right. Form study groups in your homes. The catechism was meant for anyone who can read. So I would hope that in every parish there would be at least two per cent, go for three, two to three per cent of the people in that parish, the adults, who have read what the church teaches on faith and morals. Go for that. At least two per cent. Try for three.

Now some other areas, some basic areas of morality that need to be highlighted just a little. A brief description of various components of basic morality; moral reasoning. What is moral reasoning? It's the process whereby we make good moral decisions. Catholics believe in making choices. See we're the original pro-choice people; but we know what we are talking about. We're after good choices. Not just any old choice which I happen to make. The ones which lead to greater life instead of greater death. Because we know choices, although you can't hold on to them, you can't hit them, you can't see them or smell them, they last forever. Marriage vows - they last forever. They're more important than what you can see or smell or chew.

How do we go about good moral reasoning? How do we apply valid moral principles to concrete situations? We do this by observing how the church, a moral teacher, moral guide, has come into the possession of Christian wisdom over the centuries, by applying the light of the Gospel to practical problems. Generations of Christians penetrate more deeply the realities of faith and reason, and we've come into the possession of that. That's part of our heritage. So for instance we begin to see how the principle of legitimate self defense, there is such a thing, right? Legitimate self defense. How that differentiates between killing and murder. Not all killing is unwarranted. And I take it for granted that police officers in your cities still wear something here. Those aren't water pistols, are they? They're there should they be warranted, to protect the innocent. A very important distinction, right?

Or other examples of this Christian wisdom that has developed, the principle of responsible parenthood. Natural family planning. Responsible parenthood differentiates, distinguishes between contraception as wrong, and natural family planning is quite virtuous and good. Most people still don't know that. They think NFP is Catholic contraception. Very important: moral reasoning, to understand why certain acts are evil, what makes them evil, what makes them wrong. Most people could not explain to you, hopefully all of you can, what's wrong with contraception. They couldn't explain it. Then others couldn't explain, I suppose, what's wrong with robbing a bank. And God knows, many people can't explain, and ardently advocate why it's right to pursue abortion. Formation of conscience is another very important area. It's probably the most important aspect of morality. We form our conscience when we listen to good teaching, discover true moral principles, and attempt to apply these to present decisions. A basic formation should take place early in life. But the process continues throughout one's entire life. New problems and new challenges always come up, have you noticed that? You never go through a repeat. Every year is new. See there's more to learn. We deepen, we go more deeply into the richness of the human mystery, the human experience. And we want to find the best responses we can make about these problems and challenges.

When you talk to a pro-abort why abortion is wrong, you are dealing with formation of conscience. When you try to explain to dissenting priests or laity why contraception is always wrong, you are forming conscience. Come to think of it, most all moral teaching from the pulpit is formation of conscience. Now notice what happens when silence is considered golden: no formation of conscience.

Another crucial area that must be retrieved and appreciated is natural law. It is neither dead nor buried. Rather, it continues to bury it's undertakers. A steady stream of articles are written on various aspects of the natural law. Natural law fits somewhere between divine revealed law, such as the Ten Commandments, and human law, human positive law, such as your state laws, or one step above the state laws is the constitution. It's very low on the level oflaw. Natural law is somewhere between divine law and human positive law. Natural law, natural moral law -- this is available to any reasonable person open to the truth. St Thomas describes natural law briefly as our participation in the divine law by the use of good reason. And by that he means that just reflecting upon the world in which we live and our own experiences should bring us to an understanding of God's moral order, open to everyone. And then we are to proceed to establish moral principles which enunciate the basic goods of that order. An example would be all human life is sacred and requires our care and fostering. You get into moral order by the principles, moral principles. And so all of us come up eventually you know with a fistful or a pocketful of principles,by which we organize our lives, by which we determine and shape our choices. Notice how important moral principles are? The advantage of natural moral law is that it provides an avenue ofdiscussion with people who do not have the gift of faith. We can reach out to pro-death people, secularists, and new agers by appealing to their minds, by using good arguments and clear headed thinking. Of course, good reason does not convince everyone. I mean you could use it at medical schools, you could use it in law schools, you could use it in post graduate studies; this does not always work, but it's always worth the effort and prayer.

A final area that needs to be raised here briefly is the realm of virtues and vices. Virtues are still the preferred way to teach morality. The virtuous person has learned the various goods which fulfill us as human persons and has developed good habits for the consistent pursuit of these goods. For instance, truth is one of these human goods which fulfills us as persons.

A lover of truth disciplines him or herself to read, to reflect, to organize their thinking, to strive for clarity, and is open to deeper and broader understandings. That's the virtue of the pursuit of truth. You never totally exhaust it. It's always open to further pursuit. You cannot exhaust any of the basic human goods which fulfill us. Teachers, educators, professors, dedicate their lives basically to the human good of the truth. The cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude; deal with crucial areas of human life, and show us how to take full advantage of the opportunities God provides to us each day.

The theological or supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity take us beyond this world and introduce us to the transcendent; a world you can't see which is more real than the world you can see. They help us see beyond these seventy or eighty years, and assist us in seeking supernatural fulfillment as well as natural fulfillment. The virtues are very, very rich concepts, and give us a picture of what kinds of persons we are called to become if we are to become better images of God.

I would like to conclude this presentation with what I call a chastity pledge. In various denominations among Evangelicals and others, they are rediscovering something which is very much part of a Catholic tradition earlier in years about young people or not so young people pledging themselves, choosing on behalf of the difficult, the virtuous, and the good. I understand some educators would discourage young people from taking pledges because they might not keep them. Or others would say they can't keep them. Isn't that the attitude pervasive in our society today? Young people are incapable of virtuous sexuality. They're only capable of safe, and if that doesn't work, safer sex. The old adage, you know, for the sailors: if you can't be good, at least be safe. Well, we came up back at HLI with a four page thing on this thing. I'll just read you the pledge at the end. See what you think. After all the introductory things, thus:

"I publicly pledge myself to abide by God's plan for me while a teenager, and refrain from all sexual activity until marriage. I make a commitment to God, to myself, my family, those I date, my future mate, and my future children, to be sexually pure until the day I enter a covenanted marriage relationship. I will set a good example for my peers. I will pursue wholesome activities and avoid occasions of pornography and seduction. I will resist any peer pressure or attempts to deter me from my ideals. I want everyone to know that what I stand for and hope that they too may have the courage to take a public stand for chastity". Signed, dated.