ASJ: Bishops’ Guidelines on Chastity Catechesis are Full of Problems

Despite some positive steps, the U.S. Bishops' ideas for teaching chastity contain the same old mistakes.

At their annual meeting this past November, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a document titled “Catechetical Formation in Chaste Living: Guidelines for Curriculum Design and Publication.”

The stated purpose of the USCCB document was to help select textbooks and develop grade school curricula in Catholic schools and other youth programs where chastity is a key part of catechesis.

In advance of the meeting of bishops last November, ASJ issued our own outline for youth catechesis, though not as comprehensively as the bishops have done.

In spite of their thoroughness however, we will see that the bishops merely outline the same sexual theology and catechetical plan that has gotten the Church into the present sexual quagmire to begin with.

But first we must mention the positive aspects of the document. First among these is a section in which the bishops list areas of great concern with respect to chastity. In the ordered list of topics that follows, the bishops list pornography first, then birth control, and then fornication. These are exactly the three things ASJ would list as the greatest plagues on Christian chastity today—and we would list them in the exact same order. This gives great relief to ASJ in that at least the bishops are aware of the issues. We agree on the basics.

Furthermore, nobody can say that the American bishops shy away from any of the harder-to-accept Catholic sexual teachings that contrast most with the surrounding culture. From birth control to gay “marriage” to masturbation, the bishops do not veer from traditional sexual morals. For this, the U.S. bishops are to be roundly praised.

We should also mention that the mere recognition by the bishops of the need to call attention to catechetical formation in chastity is a very positive thing in itself.

But it is not enough just to state our received beliefs. The bishops must surround these teachings with a coherent theology that explains them. Yet the theology of the document reflects all the same errors about sexuality that ASJ has been exposing for over three years now. But this is in a sense good for us, because it is very convenient to have all the theological points we oppose located in one place. For in laying out all their beliefs on the table, the bishops give us a chance to more clearly contrast our proposed sexual theology with the logical and doctrinal difficulties in the catechesis they propose.

Of course, their theology is based on ASJ’s nemesis, John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.” It repeatedly lists citations from the ToB when documenting the “Received Teaching” that supports the bishops’ theological points. Now one might be able to defend using a papal encyclical or apostolic exhortation as a source of doctrine, but thoughts gathered from Wednesday audiences simply cannot be put on the same level as Scripture and Church councils. Calling the “Theology of the Body” a “Received Teaching” is laughable given that we received it as late as the 1980’s.

Another big problem with the document is that it nowhere re-affirms the Scriptural, dogmatic truth of the true Christian faith that virginity and celibacy please God more than marriage, they are better for the Church, and they result in more blessedness for the individual. This fact is of course a cornerstone of our apostolic work, just as it was a cornerstone of Catholic catechesis just fifty years ago. The document does say that “The virtue of chastity shines out with incomparable splendor in the virginity of Jesus Christ.” But this does not state the truth that virginity is an incomparable form of chastity even if the sinner living it out is no Jesus.

Along these lines, discernment of the gift of celibacy should lie at the heart of any youth catechesis on chastity. But not only does Guidelines neglect this topic, it continually acts as if a person’s state in life, married or single, is simply a given, something that is in place before the Church’s message reaches a person. While this is often true in the case of adults approaching the Church, it most certainly is not the case for young people! Since this document aims to structure catechesis programs for youth, an integral part of these programs should be to help a young Catholic in his or her decision whether to marry or not. To simply ignore this all-important question as the document does is to abdicate the responsibility of the episcopacy.

But it only gets worse and more puzzling as the document goes on. For example, the bishops have the gall to state that “chastity is not a matter of repression of sexual feelings or temptations[.]” But it most certainly is! The word chastity itself comes from the verb to chastise, which the dictionary tells us means to discipline, especially by corporal punishment. This certainly implies that the virtue of chastity consists not only in being able to “beat down” lustful impulses as they arise, but also in avoiding situations that might give rise to these impulses. Furthermore, the word continence comes from the root word “contain,” meaning the continent person is he or she who can successfully repress these feelings, or contain them. What on earth is wrong with that understanding? If the word “repression” has bad connotations, perhaps the word “suppression” should be used. But it’s the same point: chastity consists in counter-punching our sinful desires. All over the New Testament, the apostles admonish their disciples to exercise “self control” in sexual matters. Like any other discipline, the self-control of chastity is a virtue acquired through instruction and practice.

The bishops are going to have to do a lot better than circular definitions if the Catholic teachings on chastity are to have any credibility with our young people. ASJ can help.

The bishops must know this because they repeatedly insist in the document, to their credit, on the need to teach modesty in dress as a key component of chastity catechesis. But is this not done in order to curtail sexual feelings and temptations that can arise in others who see immodest apparel? Of course it is.

But let us humor the bishops for a moment and have them tell us what they think chastity is. For the bishops’ answer to this question, more than anything we feel, proves our point that they really have no idea how to go about teaching the strange view of chastity they describe. “Chastity,” they write, is “the successful integration of the gift of sexuality within the whole person. To integrate the gift of sexuality means to make it subordinate to love and respect through the practice of chastity.” But this is a classic case of using the word being defined in the definition! The bishops talk in a circle, defining chastity with the word chastity, leaving the Catholic still wondering what it means. Such a circular definition, which wouldn’t be accepted in the Catholic grade schools for which they’re preparing a curriculum, simply cannot be taken seriously.

Another huge problem with the curriculum the bishops propose is that it fails to teach Catholic kids the primary reason for chastity in the first place—God wants us to be chaste. Instead, the document repeatedly emphasizes that the main reason for chastity is the development of the person. Their justification is man-centered, not God-centered. But in 1Thess. 4, Paul writes, “This is what God desires—your sanctification, that you be free from fornication.” Avoidance of sexual immorality is listed here as God’s first and foremost desire for us. Paul does not say that God wants us to integrate our sexuality into the whole of the person, whatever that even means. Our youth should be anxious to please God.

One last point. The bishops mention the “complementarity of the bodies of men and women” makes the self-gift of marriage possible. But they should at least mention that this complementarity is not realized without loss of the “tokens of virginity.” So one could draw the legitimate conclusion from the facts of biology that God’s plan has placed a deterrent in the way of this “gift of self” with which the bishops are wrongly obsessed. Yet as we have said the bishops never mention the inherent value of virginity, or that the real “gift of self” is celibacy.

If Catholic catechesis on chastity is truly shaped according to the wishes of the USCCB, the sexual confusion currently plaguing the Church is bound to continue. But the good news is that these Guidelines clearly show both the need for the work that ASJ is doing, and the salient differences between our chastity catechesis—which is more faithful to the apostolic message—and theirs—which is faithful to the sexual revolution.

 This article appeared in the February 20, 2008 issue of The Loyal Lion.