A modern dictionary of Catholic terms, both common and obscure.
Find accurate definitions of words and phrases. The virtue that
moderates the desire for sexual pleasure according to the
principles of faith and right reason. In married people,
chastity moderates the desire in conformity with their state of
life; in unmarried people who wish to marry, the desire is
moderated by abstention until (or unless) they get married; in
those who resolve not to marry, the desire is sacrificed
entirely. Chastity and purity, modesty and decency are
comparable in that they have the basic meaning of freedom from
whatever is lewd or salacious. Yet they also differ. Chastity
implies an opposition to the immoral in the sense of lustful or
licentious. It suggests refraining from all acts or thoughts
that are not in accordance with the Church's teaching about the
use of one's reproductive powers. It particularly stresses
restraint and an avoidance of anything that might defile or make
unclean the soul because the body has not bee