The bishops talk about chastity

I was excited to read the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' new document, "Catechetical Formation in Chaste Living: Guidelines for Curriculum Design and Publication." As a chastity educator, I figured it was pretty important to learn what the bishops had to say about my job. It took some time for the document to become available on the internet, but I was finally able to read it.

Nothing really new was offered in the document. Most of the material was gathered from other Catholic Church documents ("The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality," "Catechism of the Catholic Church," "Familiaris Consortio," "Theology of the Body," and others). It's an easy and quick read for those looking for a summary of the Church's teachings concerning chastity and its importance.

I was impressed by the bishops' engaging of the culture in a statement that extended the wisdom of older documents to include modern problems:

"Christ's disciples need to be aware of and resist temptation to engage in activities which are violations of chastity with varying degrees of gravity, such as: (...) misuse of the internet creating easy access to virtual and anonymous behaviors for viewing pornography, for being preyed upon by others, for writing explicitly through blogs and instant messaging, and for posting inappropriate sexually explicit or suggestive photos, messages, rumors etc. on popular social networking web sites (...)."

Way to go, USCCB, in adding modern offenses against chastity to the typical list!