A Chastity Manifesto

  1. There will be no return to civilization as long we permit legalized abortion. Civilization protects its most vulnerable members. Mother Teresa said it well: "If we accept that the mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"

2. There will be no stopping abortion without a rebirth of chastity. An adulterous and unchaste people demand abortion to eliminate their "mistakes."

3. There will be no breaking of the cycle of poverty without a rebirth of chastity . The greatest source of new poverty is the household headed by a single woman with children.

4. There will be no widespread return to non-marital chastity without a rebirth of marital chastity. It is easier to be chaste when married; married couples need to lead the way.

5. There will be no return to marital chastity without a rejection of marital contraception . The sexual revolution started with the acceptance of marital contraception, the idea that husband and wife can take apart what God has joined together in the marital embrace.

6. There will be no widespread rejection of marital contraception without the equally widespread acceptance of chaste natural family planning.

7. There can be no widespread acceptance of chaste natural family planning without the widespread promotion, availability and teaching of natural family planning.

Therefore, pastors must make every effort to persuade married couples to use only natural family planning when they have sufficiently serious reasons to postpone or avoid pregnancy. This makes most reasonable the strong recommendation of the NCCB Bishops' Committee for Pastoral Research and Practices:

 "We urge that premarriage programs require a full course of instruction in natural family planning as a necessary component in the couple's effective realization of what they need and have a right to know in order to live in accord with the clear teaching of the Church."

 
Last modified 1-1-2004