Wm mmmi mmmm Wm xj THE SIXTH AND NINTH COMMANDMENTS /r-e-eccy^ dr?Zr-ct/’o/ £7 . -fe/T — JcxT/^cf cu^of ^S/rfzt/ . AAX X7iJ~ SACRED AND f V c Sex— Sacred and Sinral The Sixth and Ninth Commandments With Discussion Club Outline By REV. GERALD C. TREACY, S.J. New York, N. Y. THE PAULIST PRESS 401 West 59th Street Imprimi Potest: Nihil Obstat: Imprimatur: New York, March 29, 1941. James P. Sweeney, S.J., Provincial, Maryland-New York . Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D., Censor Librorum. © Francis J. Spellman, D.D., Archbishop of New York. Copyright, 1941 , by The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N. Y. DeacWfe' ! THE SIXTH AND NINTH COMMANDMENTS The Sixth Commandment is: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus xx. 14). The Ninth Commandment is: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” (Exodus xx. 17). T^HE sixth commandment explicitly forbids adultery. Im- plicitly it forbids all actions which are intended to lead to it, as well as all actions contrary to the orderly propagation of the human race. The ninth commandment forbids all lustful thoughts and desires. Both commandments enjoin the observ- ance of chastity, and the sixth that of modesty also. Chastity is the moral virtue that controls the expression of the sexual appetite. It is a virtue for every state of life. It applies to the married as well as to the unmarried. In the unmarried it excludes all voluntary expression of the sensitive appetite for sexual pleasure. In the married it implies the rational control of the sexual appetite in the marital relationship. The Church has ever taught the beauty of chastity. Just as the Church has taught the sacredness of marriage, well expressed by Pope Pius XI in the opening paragraph of his encyclical On Christian Marriage : How great is the dignity of chaste wedlock may be judged best from this that Christ our Lord, Son of the Eternal Father, having assumed the nature of fallen man, not only with His loving desire of compassing the redemp- tion of our race, ordained matrimony in an especial man- ner as the principle and foundation of domestic society and therefore of all human intercourse, but also raised it to the rank of a truly great sacrament of the New Law, restored it to the original purity of its divine institution, and accordingly entrusted all its discipline and care to His spouse, the Church. These two commandments enjoin the virtue of purity. Purity of body, mind, thought, desire. To understand them we must understand the dignity of marriage. And to do this we must first realize that marriage is established by God and [Page 3 ] not by man. In the Gospels we find our Lord declaring in unmistakable terms the true nature of marriage. St. Mark tells of the discussion that took place between our Lord and the Pharisees. The Pharisees wanted to know if it was lawful for a man to put away his wife. His answer to them was: “What did Moses command you? Who said: Moses per- mitted to write a bill of divorce, and to put her away. To whom Jesus answering said: Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you that precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined to- gether let no man put asunder. “And in the house again His disciples asked Him concern- ing the same thing. And He said to them: Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery” (Mark x. 3 - 12 ). A Sacred Bond It is clear then from the words of Christ that matrimony means a new life, beginning with the blending of two lives into one. The bond of matrimony is a sacred tie that constitutes man and wife a unit. They are one corporate whole. They form a true society. This society is established by God, not by man, for the perpetuation of the race. For the first object of matrimony is the begetting and education of children. So Pius XI in his encyclical On Christian Marriage says: By matrimony therefore the souls of the contracting parties are joined and knit together more directly and more intimately than are their bodies, and that not by a passing affection of sense but by a deliberate and firm act of the will. And from this union of souls by God’s decree a sacred and inviolable bond arises. Hence the nature of this contract which is proper and peculiar to it alone, makes it entirely different both from the union of animals, entered into by the blind instinct of nature alone in which [Page 4 ] neither reason nor free will plays a part, and also from the haphazard unions of men which are far removed from all true and honorable unions of will and enjoy none of the rights of family life. Marriage then, instituted by God, depends on the free will of man and woman giving and receiving those rights proper to the married | state. Once it is contracted man and woman are subject to its divine laws. Among its blessings children hold first place. God’s original command “increase and mul- tiply” makes of man and woman in wedlock His co-operators in the propagation of life. “I will create if you will co-operate” is God’s plan in instituting marriage. So those called to the state of matrimony are to produce not merely citizens of earth but children of God and citizens of heaven. That is the child’s true destiny—heaven. Children are a trust committed by God to parents, to be given back to God to Whom they belong. Parenthood is a great power for it is a power unto life. And life means both here and hereafter. And so those to whom God has given the right and power to have children possess the right and power to educate them. St. Augustine sums this up by saying: “Regarding children it is right that they should be begotten lovingly and educated religiously.” And Canon Law clearly states: “The principal purpose of marriage is the procreation and education of children” (C. 1031, § 7). It follows then from the very dignity of parenthood that there should be conjugal fidelity. And what does this demand? It demands the complete unity of matrimony as Pius XI de- clares in his encyclical On Christian Marriage : With reason therefore does the Council of Trent sol- emnly declare: “Christ our Lord very clearly taught that in this bond two persons only are to be united and joined together when He said: ‘Therefore they are no longer two but one flesh.’ Nor did Christ our Lord wish only to condemn any form of polygamy or polyandry, as they are called whether successive or simultaneous, and every other external dishonorable act, but in order that the sacred bonds of marriage may be guarded absolutely in- violate, He forbade also even willful thoughts and desires [Page 5 ] of such like things. ‘But I say to you that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already com- mitted adultery with her in his heart.’ These words of Christ cannot be annulled even by the consent of one of the partners of marriage, for they express a law of God and of nature which no will of man can break or bend. . . . It follows, therefore, that they are destroying mutual fidelity who think that the ideas and the morality of the present time concerning a certain harmful and false friend- ship with a third party can be countenanced, and who teach that a greater feeling of freedom and action should be allowed to man and wife, particularly as many are pos- sessed of an inborn sexual tendency which cannot be satis- fied within the narrow limits of monogamous marriage.” Adultery Is Condemned Adultery blasts at the foundation rock of marriage which is mutual fidelity. . It is not only a sin against purity but a sin against justice. For marriage as a true society confers on man and wife mutual rights. And every right entails an obliga- tion or a duty. The marriage contract, like every contract, is a promise to fulfill certain duties in return for certain rights. Complete, undivided love is pledged by man to woman and woman to man. This love is the noblest and highest of hu- man loves. It finds its perfect expression in perfect union, union of mind, heart, body. Man is drawn to woman and woman to man by an urge that is in everyone, placed there by God for a divine purpose. The modern moralist calls this the sex urge and talks of it as if it were an individual attraction to be satisfied for the good or pleasure of the individual. It is no such thing. The appetite for food or drink is an individual urge, to use the term of the moderns. It is for the good of the individual as an individual. It is part of the instinct for self-preservation. A hungry man is impelled by his hunger to seek food in order to keep alive. His individual life is the important thing. He thinks of nothing but that. He is right in so doing. For God has implanted in him this urge in order that he may preserve his life. [Page 6 ] When God implanted in man the sex urge His purpose was not merely to give pleasure to the individual by its satisfaction. His purpose was to draw man to woman and woman to man in a noble love whose fruit would be a new life. The Divine Plan was that marriage should be the result of what is called sex attraction. And the divine purpose of sex attraction is to kindle love, intensify it until there is complete and mutual surrender of two lives. Love in its highest sense is union. This union is of mind, heart and body. It is made sacred by God’s command for He instituted marriage to be the expres- sion of this perfect love. And it is holy for Christ raised this love to the dignity of a sacrament. The love of man for wife is the love of surrender. For the completeness of this surrender individual rights cede to mutual rights. St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians stresses the mutual obligations of husband and wife: “Let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render the debt to his wife and the wife also in like manner to the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband. And in like manner the hus- band also hath not power of his own body but the wife. Defraud not one another except perhaps by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer. And return together again lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency” (1 Cor. vii. 2-5). The debt is the marital act of bodily union so intimate and holy that God ordinarily blesses it with a NEW LIFE. For the child is the expression of the most perfect human love in terms of NEW LIFE. “Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” This is clear. And to make His Law always clear God founded His Church. And His Church in clarion tones proclaims: “The gateway to happy marriage is real love. Real love is impelled to real life fulfillment by sex attraction. This is God’s WILL expressed by an impulse He has implanted in human nature. If you direct that impulse into a separate channel you commit serious sin and spell ruin to yourself. There is no near-right and near-wrong in this T P age 7 ] matter. Sex relationship is the perfect expression of the love of husband for wife and wife for husband. It is sacred and holy as marriage is sacred and holy. Outside of marriage it is totally wrong.” Divorce Means Adultery Divorce is nothing more or less than legalized adultery. The State in granting divorce does all it can to nullify the Law of Christ. For the Law of Christ forbids divorce. Once the marriage bond is sealed it is sealed for life. This is God’s com- mand, reinforced by Christ’s teaching, reiterated century after century by Christ’s Church. The plague of divorce has spread through modern society with appalling rapidity. What Leo XIII foresaw in 1880 has taken place. In his encyclical Ar- canum Divinae, issued in that year, he stated: Divorce once being tolerated there will be no restraint powerful enough to keep it within the limits fixed or foreseen. Great is the force of example and the violence of passion even greater. With such incitements it must needs follow that the eagerness for divorce daily spreading by devious ways, will seize upon the minds of many like a virulent contagious disease, or like a flood of water bursting through every barrier. These are truths that are clear in themselves but they will become clearer if we call to mind the teachings of experience. As soon as the road to divorce began to be made smooth by law, at once quarrels, jealousies and judicial separations largely increased. And such shamelessness of life followed that men who had been in favor of divorce repented of what they had done. They feared if they did not seek a remedy by repealing the laws sanctioning divorce the State itself might suffer disaster. Divorce generates divorce. The conditions foreseen by Leo XIII are prevalent today. Pius XI writing On Christian Marriage fifty years later, sadly declared: The advocates of the neo-paganism of today have learned nothing from the sad state of affairs, but instead, day by day, more and more vehemently, they continue by legislation to attack the indissolubility of the marriage bond, proclaiming that the lawfulness of divorce must be [Page 8 ] recognized, and that the antiquated laws should give place to a new and more humane legislation. Many and varied are the grounds put forward for divorce, some arising from the wickedness and the guilt of the persons concerned, others arising from the circumstances of the case, the former they describe as subjective, the latter as objec- tive; in a word, whatever might make married life hard or unpleasant. They strive to prove their contentions regarding these grounds for the divorce legislation they would bring about, by various arguments. Thus, in the first place, they main- tain that it is for the good of either party that the one who is innocent should have the right to separate from the guilty, or that the guilty should be withdrawn from a union which is displeasing to him and against his will. In the second place, they argue, the good of the child demands this, for either it will be deprived of a proper education or will too easily be affected by the discords and shortcomings of the parents, and drawn from the path of virtue. And thirdly, the common good of society re- quires that these marriages should be completely dissolved, which are now incapable of producing their natural re- sults, and that legal separation should be allowed when crimes are to be feared as the result of the common habi- tation and intercourse of the parties. This last, they say, must be admitted to avoid the crimes being committed purposely with a view to obtain- ing the desired sentence of divorce for which the judge can legally loose the marriage bond, as also to prevent people from coming before the courts when it is obvious from the state of the case that they are lying and perjur- ing themselves—all of which brings the court and the law- ful authority into contempt. Hence the civil laws, in their opinion, have to be reformed to meet these new require- ments, to suit the changes of the times and the changes in men’s opinions, civil institutions and customs. Each of these reasons is considered by them as conclusive, so that all taken together offer a clear proof of the necessity of granting divorce in certain cases. Others, taking a step further, simply state that mar- riage, being a private contract is, like other private con- tracts, to be left to the consent and good pleasure of both [Page 9 ] parties, and so can be dissolved for any reason whatsoever. Opposed to all these reckless opinions stands the unalter- able law of God, fully confirmed by Christ, a law that can never be deprived of its force by the decrees of men, the ideas of a people or the will of any legislator: “What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” And if any man, acting contrary to this law, shall have put it asunder, his action is null and void, and the conse- quence remains, as Christ Himself has explicitly con- firmed: “Everyone that putteth away his wife and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that mar- rieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” Moreover these words refer to every kind of marriage, even that which is natural and legitimate only. For, as has already been observed, that indissolubility by which the loosening of the bond is once and for all removed from the whim of the parties and from every secular power, is a property of every true marriage. Let that solemn pronouncement of the Council of Trent be recalled to mind in which, under the stigma of ana- thema, it condemned these errors: “If anyone should say that on account of heresy or the hardships of cohabita- tion or a deliberate abuse of one party by the other, the marriage tie may be loosened, let him be anathema.” America's Real Enemy The following table reveals the divorce record of America from 1929 to 1937: MARRIAGES DIVORCES Year Number Per 1,000 Population Number Per 1,000 Population Per 100 Marriages 1929 .... .... 1 , 232,559 10.14 201,468 1.66 16.3 1930 .... ... 1 , 126.856 9.15 191,591 1.56 17.0 1931 .... .... 1 , 060,914 8.55 183,664 1.48 17.3 1932 .... 981,903 7.87 160,338 1.28 16.3 1933 .... .... 1 , 098,000 8.74 165,000 1.31 15.0 1934 .... .... 1 , 302,000 10.28 204,000 1.61 15.7 1935 .... .... 1 , 327,000 10.41 218,000 1.71 16.4 1936 .... .... 1 , 369,000 10.66 236,000 1.84 17.2 1937 .... 1 , 426,000 11.03 250,000 1.93 17.5 At present we are engaged in a great defense program. Billions are poured out all over the land to make America an [ Page 10 ] unassailable fortress. The manhood of the nation is being called to the colors. What is the reason for all this? The reason is that those responsible for the welfare of the people believe rightly or wrongly that the life of the nation is in dan- ger. So no effort is spared to make America safe. Yet all this expenditure of men and billions will never save America unless America saves herself. Tanks and bombers and ships of war may repel an enemy from without. They cannot reach the enemy within. The enemy within is the broken home, for the nation built on broken homes writes its own doom. The rising divorce rate of the last few decades brands America as a nation fast meriting the title of a Nation of Broken Homes. What God and the Church, the Voice of God, proclaim on true marriage is substantiated by the Law of Nature. A real scientist peering into Nature must conclude as Doctor Jen- nings, professor of zoology at Johns Hopkins, concludes in his book, The Biological Basis of Human Nature : Marriage and the family, even lifelong monogamous mar- riage, are not an invention that is original with man. These institutions, in various forms, have been worked out independ- ently by many different organisms. There is little doubt that our ancestors had them. . . . Certainly many organisms that are not men now have them. In many animals exist powerful biological influences that favor a co-operative career of the parents lasting for more than one season, or for life. The attraction of the mates for each other, combined with the effect of habit, itself acts powerfully in this direction. In the eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey, this keeps the mates together for life; a permanent monogamous marriage is here found. Successive families of young are produced, and though there intervene periods in which the parents are without young, the union of mates is for life. In other animals this tendency toward a permanent co- operative life career on the part of the two parents is power- fully reinforced by the long period of dependence of the young. The development of the offspring to maturity requires not one season, but many. The two parents, caring jointly for the / [Page 11] young, remain together. The offspring come, not in broods, but singly. Succeeding children overlap in their developmental careers. There is no time when the two parents can separate without breaking in upon the functions they have undertaken in relation to the young. Such is the situation we find in the higher anthropoids, in the orang and gorilla; such is the situa- tion found at its highest development in man. To break the mating relation at any particular time is to bring all this into confusion; is to leave children and mate in distress; is to leave unfilled the mating impulse; is to force the separated mates anew into the intensely distracting pursuit of finding a new mate. All this is avoided by the mates remaining together. Even as age comes on and the last of the offspring has taken up its own career, so that the biological relations with progeny no longer require co-operation on the part of parents, long use and habit, the persistence of the need of companionship, keep together the two parents. Marriage is life-long , even though the care of the offspring is not. Permanent monogamous mar- riage has arisen independently, through similar functional re- quirements, in the mammals and in the birds; the biological needs giving origin to it being much the more numerous and powerful in the higher mammals. The Catholic Church has never sanctioned divorce because Christ never sanctioned it, and the Catholic Church is Christ’s Voice speaking to the world of men. The Catholic Church in special circumstances will allow a separation or will declare an annulment. A separation means that man and wife may live apart but neither may marry another. An annulment means the declaration that there has been no marriage even though there may have been every appearance of marriage. It means that the marriage contract is no contract because it was not validly executed. Every true contract is dependent on the right fulfillment of the necessary conditions of the con- tract. In ordinary contracts the State by its laws specifies those conditions. In the marriage contract, the Church by God’s authority specifies the proper conditions of the marriage contract. If on investigation the Church finds these condi- [Page 12] tions have not been fulfilled, the Church proclaims an annul- ment. That is the Church declares that no matter what the appearances have been, there is no contract. The real result of annulment is to strengthen the idea of a true contract by nullifying a defective one. Chastity and Modesty When Pius XI wrote his encyclical On Christian Marriage he entitled it “Chaste Wedlock.” Just as the unmarried are bound by these two commandments to abstain from every thought, word or deed against holy purity, so are the married bound to exercise their marital rights according to the law of nature and nature’s God. “Matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other but as Christ loves the Church,” are the words of Pius XI. We get a picture of the beauty of that love from St. Paul: “Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life. That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church. Because we are members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh” (Ephes. v. 25-31). Modesty is the bulwark of purity. It partakes of the virtue of temperance. It is, of course, mainly evident in be- havior. “Let your modesty be known to all men,” St. Paul urged upon his converts. It was not a pagan virtue because paganism was pride and modesty is the expression of humility. It is the guardian of purity because it governs the senses and is alive to the danger of sense indulgence. St. Ignatius in urg- ing his followers to strive to imitate angelic purity in clean- ness of body and mind, added a rule which reads: “All must, [Page 13] be exactly careful to guard the gates of their senses, especially their eyes, their ears, their tongue from all disorders. . . . And in the care of the body, temperance, modesty, both inte- rior and exterior must be observed in all things.” Modesty has to do mainly with external behavior. Action reveals thought. It is really good manners following from good morals. It is the proper behavior of one who wishes to preserve himself from the allurements of the flesh. It is the proper avoidance of any act that would induce in self or others an incitement to lust. Father Henry Davis, S.J., in speaking of the sixth and ninth commandments says: “Since modesty is a virtue it is a mean between pruriency and prudishness. Modesty in act is expressed by reasonable concealment of those parts of the body whose exposure might be an occasion of lustful desire. . . . Modesty of the eyes is expressed by abstaining from all prurient and dangerous curi- osity. Modesty of speech consists in the avoidance of all sug- gestive expressions, and much more of all gross expressions in the sexual sphere. . . . When modesty is violated the way is prepared for impurity” (Pastoral Theology , Vol. II, p. 204). Birth Control Birth Control, which is the prevention of conception by artificial means, is a sin against the virtue of marital chastity. The husband who practices birth control regards his wife not as his wife bound to him by a love both sacred and holy, but as his mistress whose whole claim is based on body lure or lust. The wife who practices birth control regards her hus- band not as a husband united to her in the noblest of human loves but as a paramour—an instrument for sex gratification, whose claim is merely the claim of the brute. Birth control violates the sixth commandment for it is the sin of mutual masturbation. Pius XI speaking in his encyclical On Christian Marriage minces no words on this subject: First consideration is due to the offspring which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matri- mony. And they say this is to be carefully avoided by married people, not through virtuous continence, which [Page 14] Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent, but by frustrating the marriage act. Some jus- tify this criminal abuse on the ground that they are weary of children and wish to gratify their desires without the consequent burden. Others say that they cannot on the one hand remain continent nor on the other, can they have children because of the difficulties, whether on the part of the mother or on the part of family circumstances. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, there- fore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it de- liberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. Small wonder therefore, if Holy Write bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death, as St. Augustine notes: “Intercourse even with one’s legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the con- ception of offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it.” Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninter- rupted Christian tradition, some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has en- trusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which sur- rounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of Divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. . . . Holy Church knows well that not infrequently one of the parties is sinned against rather than sinning, when for a serious reason he or she reluctantly allows the perversion of the right order. In such a case there is no sin provided [Page IS] that mindful of the law of charity, he or she does not neg- lect to seek to dissuade and to 'deter the partner from sin. Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner, al- though on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of matrimonial rights, there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivation of mutual love, and the quieting of concupis- cence which husband and wife are not forbidden to con- sider, so long as they are subordinated to the primary end, and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved. Birth Control Propaganda The advocates of birth control have been skillful in pre- senting their movement as an endeavor to benefit the race and ease the burdens of the poor. The irony of it is that the practice of birth control is much more prevalent among the better-off classes, the very people who, according to birth controllers, are best fitted to improve the race. The real truth is that the birth controller, rich or poor, is not thinking of the race, or the nation, but of SELF. For birth control is self- worship. It thinks of self, first, last and always. Instead of admitting the fact that man is not merely an individual but a member of society, and as a member of society owes duties to the social body, the birth controller would make man a law unto himself. The policy of the advocates of birth control is anti-social to such a degree that if it became universal there would be no society left. What the birth controller really says is: “I will betray society. I will take a God-given power and defeat the purpose of God and nature for my own sensual pleasure. God and nature give me the pleasure attached to a responsibility. I will shirk the responsibility and grasp the pleasure.” Quality rather than quantity, the small family rather than the large family for the good of the race is a popular and appealing argument for birth control. If it were only true. But it is not true. For history has shown in nearly every century that from members of large families have come some [Page 16 ] of the greatest benefactors of the race in every line of human endeavor. “The Catholic Church is for unlimited child-bear- ing, and is the only great opponent of birth control,” is a fre- quent statement of contraceptionists. Father Victor White, O.P., writing in the Clergy Review , discusses this point as follows : Many knowing that the Church condemns contraception have assumed from this that she thereby condemns all rational control of parenthood, and have from that concluded that she anathematizes eugenics en bloc; that she encourages indiscrim- inate propagation without reference to the exigencies of health, of society, or even of morality. They say that she asserts the absolute right of all married couples to have children when- ever they feel inclined; that she desires quantity rather than quality in propagation, and even encourages or permits irre- sponsible reproduction of the unfit. It must be asserted emphatically and proclaimed from the housetops that this is a complete travesty of the Catholic position. The first and most elementary postulate of our ethic is that all human activities must be subjected to right reason. The more important the activity, the more imperative the con- trol. And parenthood being among the highest and most re- sponsible of human functions, more especially demands the control of reason. The Church certainly asserts conjugal rights, but like all rights they have their corresponding obliga- tions and must be subordinated to the general welfare of all concerned and of society at large. Nothing can be further from the truth than to suppose that the Church encourages instinctive, indiscriminate breeding of all and sundry. Mar- riage itself, it has been said, is itself a method of birth control; and the Church has constantly asserted the necessity of con- jugal chastity, which is precisely the virtue of regulating inter- course and reproduction according to the requirements of right reason . . . . Why then do we hold birth prevention to be intrinsically immoral and vicious? It was, says the Pope, be- cause it is “a frustration of the marriage act,” an “abuse” of sex, an “unnatural” sin in the strict technical sense of the word. Let us make no mistake about what that means. It [Page 17 ] means that contraception is in the same class with other sins called unnatural, and for the same reason—with homosexual intercourse, self-abuse and the rest. And the reason is that it is like them a perversion, an abuse of the sexual act and conse- quently a positive destruction of sexual energy and activity. Sex Education and Sex Propaganda The Church advocates sex education. The Church stands foursquare against sex propaganda. Sex education means the proper instruction in sex knowledge by the right teachers under right conditions. The home is the first teacher, and the father is the right teacher of the boy and the mother of the girl. The school is the next teacher, and the Catholic school is the only qualified teacher as the Catholic school stems from the Church, the one Teacher appointed by God and qualified to teach the moral law. Sex belongs to the moral law. Sex propaganda is not teaching. It is broadcasting indis- criminate sex information to all and sundry under all condi- tions and on every occasion. It is the most vicious form of propaganda in the modern world that is deluged with propa- ganda. Pius XI exposes its viciousness when speaking of the dangers of modern education in his encyclical On Christian Education, he declares: Another grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex education, falsely imagining that they can fore- arm youth against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardly initiation and precautionary in- struction for all indiscriminately even in public; and worse still by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, as it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers. Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the [Page 18 ] Apostle speaks fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts , from which it is clear that particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of an intellectual ignorance as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace. The sex propagandist who assumes the role of educator misses the true object of education. For the true object of education is the whole person not the mind of the person or the body of the person. For that reason sex, by the sex propa- gandist, is looked on as something apart. The greatest of edu- cators, the Church, brands that attitude as false and vicious. Sex is not a thing apart. Sex attraction and the relation of the sexes is bound up with the most sacred thing in human life, true, lasting love sanctified in matrimony. For real sex attrac- tion is a sacred thing implanted in nature by God Himself. It is not merely body lure. That is lust. That by itself is brutish. But sex attraction means man and woman drawn to each other by a special urge of mind, heart, will. Heart throbs through the body. But unless mind and will are with the heart there is not love. And love should be the fruit of sex attraction, real lasting love. For true love cannot be a thing of the moment. It is eternal. God teaches us that. “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” The Last Supper was not the end. The Last Judgment will not be the end. There is no end for all true love is a reflex of Divine Life and so it is eternal. For a man to say to a woman or a woman to a man: “I will love you for five years” makes as little sense as to say, “I will love you for five minutes.” That is, it makes no sense. Love means forever or it is not love. A Sacred Power The sex propagandist is a separatist. He would separate sex from soul and man from God. God gave the sex urge and blessed it for one purpose. The sex propagandist destroys the purpose and focusses his mind on sex life by itself, as if it were destined by God to be merely a means of personal enjoyment. It is not so destined. It is a sacred power given [Page 19] by God to man that man may co-operate with God’s creative power. “I will create if you will co-operate” is God’s promise expressed by implanting in man and woman such an attrac- tion for each other that they gladly surrender their individual lives, blend them into one life which procreates other lives. Marriage follows sex attraction. It gives sex attraction its true meaning. Separate sex attraction and its fulfillment from marriage and you reduce man to the level of the brute. But man cannot maintain that level. For his is a higher des- tiny. He accepts that destiny in his sex life or else he sinks lower than the level of the brute. If the sex propagandist prating about the grandeur of sex as if sex were a separate thing, a private and individual matter, really converted a na- tion to his ideology, that nation would go down to its doom. An Old Paganism Sex propaganda is not new. It is as old as paganism. It is paganism. The early Church came to grips with it in pagan Rome. And St. Paul writing to his Roman converts told them just what its effect had been on the nation they were so proud of: “Professing themselves to be wise they became fools. . . . Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. . . . For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the nat- ural use into that use which is against nature. And in like manner the men also. . . . And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense” (Rom. i. 22-28). It is a far cry from the days of St. Paul to our own. But the sex propagandist of the twentieth century relying on in- tellect and excluding God from human life is leading the mod- ern world into the same position that ancient Rome was in when St. Paul issued his words of warning. So today as in the days of St. Paul the Church is ever proclaiming the sacred- ness of sex. In our own country thinking people outside the Church are awakening to the fact that God’s Law proclaimed unceasingly by the Church is the only way of human happi- [Page 20] ness and national and international security. In a recent issue of the Saturday Evening Post Will Durant boldly calls for self- discipline as the only means of self-preservation for America, and in fact for the whole western world, No nation has ever been overcome , until it has destroyed itself. And the writer proceeds to follow the trail that for some years has been lead- ing America to self-destruction: War is no time for philosophy. Reflection should pre- cede action. Let us like unembattled Martians contemplate our time. . . . The reign of liberty spread over morals and brought an exhilarating emancipation. . . . Whatever the newly emancipated intellect could not understand was rejected as false, and ideas were venerated in inverse proportion to their age. Ancient faiths began to lose their hold on the mind and their moral influence on urban life. . . . Every restraint aroused resentment; standards faded from conduct. . . . Individualism flourished in morals. . . . A thousand brave experiments were made in the rela- tions of the sexes, a million lives were ruined, a million mar- riages and families were broken up. The stoicism that had cleared the wilderness and made a civilization, passed, in many men and some women, into the epicureanism that re- veled through night after night, exhausting the body and emptying the soul. Women ceased to be women, longing to be men; the masculinization of women was the correlate and result of the demasculation of men; intellect without character unsexes either sex. The ancient authority of the husband over the wife was replaced by a soul-searing tug-of-war called equality, in which each partner struggled for years to win dominance over the other, and peace came only with the surrender of one or the exhaustion of both. Women ceased to be mothers, and became fragile, ex- pensive toys; men played with them, spent fortunes on them, but did not respect them; education lavished itself upon them, but the more knowledge they collected the more superficial they became. Powerful instincts, formed for the care of off- spring, fretted in frustration. Man did more and more for [Page 21] woman; but since he could not bear children, and she would not, fertility fell, the race lost the will to live; and as the best bred least and the worst most, Western society began to die at the top, like a withered tree. Education for Purity Education for purity belongs to the home and the school. It is not the Catholic attitude to leave the growing boy and girl in utter ignorance of the biological, social, moral and reli- gious significance of sex. The home and the school bear a serious responsibility in this regard. Today when pagan sex propaganda is prevalent, that responsibility is greater than ever. The home and the school must realize that there is noth- ing more important in the education of youth than education in purity. The greatest temptations that beset the growing boy and girl are temptations against purity. It is generally agreed that purity and faith are complementary virtues. It is not hard to see that if the habit of purity is constantly weakening, the habit of faith cannot be growing stronger and stronger. The mind beclouded and besmirched by the im- pure, is the mind that gradually turns against the sacraments, especially Confession and Holy Communion. As these sacra- ments are the great bulwarks against impurity, their neglect will bring about a general weakening of the whole moral fiber of the individual. They cannot be long neglected without loss of faith. And once faith goes there is nothing left to stem the rushing tide of brute passion and immorality. Defensive tactics are not enough. Real religion and real love for God imply the offensive as well as the defensive. The best defense against temptations to impurity is an offense, the strong offense of a deeper and deeper love for God. Our Lord calls upon His followers not only to watch but to pray. Watch against temptation and pray for God’s help and God’s love. The soul that loves purity will dread to lose it, or even tarnish it in the slightest degree. That love is shown in flying from every occasion that threatens impurity of thought, word or deed. The soul must strengthen itself by the frequent recep- tion of the sacraments. Sacramental life means the develop- [Page 22] ment of the life of purity. And the soul in love with purity is ever mindful of the strong protection that always comes from devotion to the Blessed Mother, Virgin Most Pure, St. Joseph, and the Guardian Angel. The Beauty of Purity These two commandments, as is true of all God’s com- mandments, point out a way of life. As our Blessed Saviour called Himself the Way of Life, so did He bid all men follow Him by observing the commandments. “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” These two commandments call all men to a life of purity. They have a positive scope. In Christ’s sinlessness a divine seal was placed on the ideal of purity. That same ideal God made evident again in the Immaculate Conception. Redemption makes us the children of the God of All-Purity. Our bodies in baptism become the temples of the Holy Ghost. In Holy Communion we are incorporated into the sinless Christ. And through divine grace we become members of the Body of which He is the sinless Head. From the beginning the Church has upheld the sacredness of purity and so has exalted virginity. And in so doing she has ever defended amid all the changing views of changing ages the dignity of matrimony and the sacredness of sex. Be- cause she has taught that virginity is the perfect way of life she has done more than any merely human teacher for the good of human society. As Father Walter Farrell, O.P., states in his commentary on St. Thomas: Virginity has its special value in Christian thought not for what it is but for what it aims at, not as an end but as a means. Man’s goods can be summed up under three head- ings: external goods, goods of the body and goods of the soul. External goods are ordered to the body; the goods of the body are ordered to the soul, and the goods of the soul are ordered to God. To abstain from external goods for the sake of the body is reasonable; to abstain from corporal things for the good of the soul is eminently reasonable. It is because of this higher spiritual end that virginity has its privileged place in Christian thought. [Page 23] Virginity has the same relation to purity that magnifi- cence has to liberality. It carries the bank roll, purity handles the small change. For virginity is not the surrender of illegal pleasure for divine good; it is a gay discarding of perfectly legitimate pleasure for a more perfect and more direct sur- render to God. Sacred as matrimony is, virginity is its supe- rior. Here we approach the heroic, here the human is put aside for the divine, the body for the soul. Christ choosing a Virgin Mother, taking a virgin disciple for His closest friend, or Paul championing virginity was not an enemy of love. Rather they recognized the truth so many ages have missed — the Christian virgin is head over heels in love. So true is this that the sacrifice of human love, this utter dedication to the Divine, is demanded as the only adequate expression of the virgin’s love . The difference between the love of the vir- gin and the love of the wife is that the virgin rushes directly and immediately into the arms of God, while the wife goes to Him through the holy, natural and beautifully graded steps of human love. . . . It is not surprising that when the Church or Christ Him- self was seeking a fitting expression for the highest things a man can reach, both Christ and the Church should come back again and again to the same figure: the nun’s vows which dedicate her life to God make her the Spouse of Christ; at Holy Communion the Catholic receives the bridegroom of his soul; the saint scaling the last peak of heroic sanctity is said to be mystically married to Christ; the Church itself is the spouse of Christ. This seems to be the only figure that even approximates these sublime things. The reason is be- cause matrimony and the acts proper to matrimony are the highest physical expression of human love ( The Fullness of Life , by Walter Farrell, O.P., Vol. Ill, pp. 440, 441). Purity in all its beauty is of the heart and soul not merely of the body. Our Blessed Lord promised the vision of God, which is eternal happiness not to the pure of body but to the pure of heart. And in His lesson to the Pharisees who were the muddled modern moralists of their day He insisted that: “Not that which goes into the mouth defiles a man but that [Page 24] which comes from the mouth defiles a man. . . . For the things that proceed from the mouth come forth from the heart and these things defile a man. For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications. . . . These are the things that defile a man” (Matt. xv. 11-20). Purity is not skin-deep. It is heart-deep and soul-deep. It is beauty, lus- trous beauty, God-like beauty, making man like unto the an- gels. And from the soul that is pure radiates a happiness and a goodness that is of heaven. Recently a great deal of magazine space has been given to a discussion on chastity and unchastity in American life. Sur- veys have been made showing the progress of unchastity and the diseases connected with it. Everything has been done quite scientifically with facts and statistics and graphs. One outstanding magazine claimed that the manufacture and sale of contraceptives has become one of the biggest of American industries. And all this has had what objective? To make the American nation pure in mind and heart? Not at all. Its motivating idea has been fear. Fear that the nation break- ing down the age-old standards of morality is courting physi- cal ruin. Not fear of sin and the eternal consequences of sin which is a noble fear inculcated by God Himself, but fear of disease, of physical discomfort, of loss of bodily health. This is the gospel of the modern propagandist of eugenics and sex education. The physical welfare of the race and the nation and only the physical welfare is as far removed from the Christ-given ideal of purity as heaven is from hell. To quote Father Farrell: We have missed the significance of purity for human life. Perhaps there is no more damning indictment of our age than that oversight. . . . We have missed the intimate relation be- tween purity and humanity. In some mysterious way we have overlooked the obvious fact that since human life is a reason- able life and human activity a rational activity, of course human passion is passion under reason. The name of this supreme passion under reason is purity . The attack on purity is an attack on the domain of reason; its defense in the name of merely physical considerations is itself an attack on the hu- [Page 25] manity and freedom of man ( The Fullness of Life , Vol. Ill, p. 427). Summary The sixth and ninth commandments forbid every thought, word, and action against purity. They enjoin purity and modesty. To understand the beauty of purity it is needful to understand the dignity of marriage. God established mar- riage, Christ raised it to the dignity of a sacrament, the Church has vindicated its sacredness through the ages. Adultery shat- ters the foundation of marriage. Sex attraction has only one answer and that is marriage. The sex urge is not for the benefit of the individual but for the good of the family and the race. Divorce is legalized adultery. Far from correcting any real or supposed evil, it multiplies evils. Birth control is a serious sin against purity and can never be justified. Mod- esty, partaking of the virtue of temperance is the bulwark of purity. It means good manners following good morals. There is a big difference between the real and the alleged objects of birth control propaganda. The position of the Church on the birth control question is reasonable and clear, as it rests on the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. It is frequently misunderstood and mis-stated. The Church favors real sex education, and is opposed to modern sex propaganda. Not birth control but self-control is the need of our age as of every age. In exalting virginity Christ and the Church have shown the grandeur of love and the beauty of purity. The pure life springs from the pure mind and heart. The world needs and the Church calls for purity of mind, heart, and soul for the good and happy life here and hereafter. The Church being of God and for man’s happiness has the real answer to impurity. As Cardinal Newman said: “It is the boast of the Catholic Church that it has the gift of making the young heart chaste. And why is this, but that it gives us Jesus Christ for our food and Mary for our nursing Mother?” Holy Communion which is “the bread of the elect and the wine springing forth virgins” (Zach. ix. 17) and true devotion to Mary Immaculate are the true educating forces for purity of life. [Page 26 ] QUESTIONS LESSON I (Pages 3-6) What does the sixth commandment explicitly forbid? What does it forbid implicitly? What does the ninth commandment forbid? What do both commandments enjoin? Define chastity. Does chastity apply to every state of life? What does chastity forbid to the married? To the un- married? Where do we find the true meaning of marriage explained? What did our Lord teach regarding the Mosaic bill of divorce ? What is clear from our Lord’s teaching on marriage? What was God’s purpose in instituting marriage? What union is effected by marriage? What is meant by the bond of matrimony? How does marriage differ from the mating of animals? Does marriage depend upon God alone? Explain in a sentence God’s plan in establishing marriage. Why is parenthood a great power? How does Canon Law express the principal purpose of marriage ? What follows from the dignity of parenthood? LESSON II (Pages 6-8) In our Lord’s teaching on matrimony is polygamy alone condemned? Quote His words as Pius XI cites them and explain their application. [Page 27] If each party in marriage agrees, is extra-marital relation- ship lawful? What is the twofold evil in adultery? Does marriage confer only rights? What follows from the fact that marriage is a contract? What is promised in the contract? How does marital love find its expression? What is the difference between the sex urge and the hunger urge? How does sex attraction fit in to God’s Plan? What is its real meaning? What is the difference between marital love and the ordi- nary love of friendship? What is love in its highest sense? Explain how marital love is sacred and holy. How does St. Paul express the obligations of marital love? hi LESSON III (Pages 8-12) Define divorce. Is the State empowered to grant a divorce? What did Leo XIII say would follow from legalizing divorce ? State the three arguments for divorce and the rejoinder of Pius XI. Cite the pronouncement of the Council of Trent on divorce. What has been the divorce rate in America from 1929 to 1937? What is the significance of our defense program? Name the weak spot in our defense theory. Name the real enemy within America. What is the biological argument against divorce? [Page 28] LESSON IV (Pages 13-14) What does Pius XI say of chaste wedlock? Give St. Paul’s teaching on true marital love. How is modesty related to purity? Of what virtue does modesty partake? How is it evidenced? Was modesty a pagan virtue? How is modesty related to sense life? What does St. Ignatius say of modesty? What is modesty of act, of the eyes, of speech? LESSON V (Pages 14-18) Define birth control. How do man and wife who practice birth control regard each other? Why is this sin a violation of the sixth commandment? State the arguments for birth control mentioned by Pius XI and his rejoinder. Is birth control sinful merely because the Church declares it so? What did St. Augustine say of birth control? How does Pius XI state the stand of the Church on this question? What does the encyclical On Christian Marriage say of the primary and secondary ends of marriage? What are the alleged benefits of birth control? What is the real motive for birth control? Express the sentiment of the birth controller regarding human society. What does history prove regarding the small and the large family? Does the Church encourage unlimited child-bearing? [Pace 29] Does the Church condemn all rational control of parent- hood? Does the Church assert the right of parents to have chil- dren whenever they wish? What does parenthood really call for according to Church teaching ? Birth control resembles what other sins? Does the Church condemn sex education? LESSON VI (Pages 18-22) What is the difference between sex education and sex propaganda? What does the encyclical On Christian Education say of false sex education? Why is instruction on sex incapable of deterring from sin? What is the basic error of the sex propagandist? What is the true meaning of sex attraction? What is the outstanding characteristic of real love? How is the sex propagandist a separatist? What is it that gives sex attraction its true meaning? If man looks upon sex as an individual urge for indi- vidual enjoyment, what does he become? Is sex propaganda new? What does St. Paul tell his converts of the consequences of considering sex by itself? LESSON VII (Pages 20-22) What effect will sex propaganda have on a nation? What followed in our country from “individualism in morals” according to Durant? What is the duty of the home and the school in regard to purity? [Page 30] Is ignorance a weapon against impurity? What relation does purity bear to faith? What is the normal result of the growth of the impure mind? What two sacraments are the great bulwarks of purity? Are defensive tactics enough in the battle for purity? Explain the command of our Lord to watch and pray. What devotions are especially helpful in the cultivation of purity? LESSON VIII (Pages 23-26) What do these two commandments point out? What is their positive scope? What is the message of the sinlessness of Christ and the Immaculate Conception? Why does the Church exalt virginity? Is virginity an end or a means? What relation has virginity to purity? Does virginity mean the discarding of illegal pleasure? What is the difference between the love of the virgin and the love of the wife? What figure does the Church use to express the noblest love? To whom did Christ promise the vision of God? What did our Lord tell the Pharisees about purity? What has been the objective of the recent magazine sur- vey on chastity? How does the ideal of the eugenist differ from the Catho- lic ideal of purity? What does the modern attack on purity lead to ? Summarize the doctrine of the sixth and ninth command- ments. [Page 31] A Prayer for Chastity Daily Dedication to Mary Immaculate My Queen, my Mother, I give myself entire- ly to you; and to show my devotion to you I I consecrate to you this day, my eyes, my ears, my lips, my heart, my whole being without re- serve. Wherefore, good Mother, as I am yours, keep me, guard me, as your property and pos- session. TEN COMMANDMENT SERIES By REV. GERALD C. TREACY, S.J. This new series will be representative of the finest in pamphlet publication. Each title will be forceful, instructive and interesting and will con- tain an eight-lesson discussion club outline. The covers with their original designs in varied colors will make the booklets attractive in bookracks and on mission tables. I Am the Lord Thy God The First Commandment Honor God’s Name The Second Commandment Keep God’s Day Holy The Third Commandment Respect and Obey! The Fourth Commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill! The Fifth Commandment Sex—Sacred and Sinful The Sixth and Ninth Commandments Deal Honestly and Justly ! The Seventh and Tenth Commandments Curb Thy Tongue! The Eighth Commandment 5c each, $3.50 the 100, $30.00 the 1,000 Postage Extra THE PAULIST PRESS 401 West 59th Street New York, N. Y.