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The Importance of Chastity
Where Immorality Reigns,
There is No Solid Political and Social Order
Recently, Wal-Mart pulled magazines
with racy covers from its shelves. Since the corporation
can account for up to 15% of all single copy magazines,
this measure is an extremely effective way to promote the
too often ignored values of morality and decency.
This effort deserves applause. It
is also opportune to republish an admirable defense of chastity
based on words delivered by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de
Oliveira, who demonstrates how a solid social and political
order must be based on the practice of chastity, among other
virtues. -Ed
“In the midst of today's moral
decay, the Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church presents
Saint Maria Goretti as a model in the fight against immorality.
She is diametrically opposed to every tendency in our contemporary
world.
“Saint Maria Goretti invites
us to be faithful to the traditional doctrine of the Church.
She is a role model of the Church's zeal in defense of purity
and that unique bravery purity imbues. The Church has always
instilled this bravery in defense of virtue. That is why
a faithful Catholic should prefer death to losing his purity.
“Much has been said about
a truly Christian social order. There can be no true social
order without the family and there can be no true family
without purity whose very name fills men with human respect
and whose practice must be carried to perfection and which
must be honored as a value in and of itself.
“Few dare to talk about another
aspect of the practice of this virtue: chastity according
to one's state of life, be it perfect chastity or married
chastity. Purity must be practiced and defended in these
two holy forms.
“The political and social
order will inevitably crumble in ambiances where the virtue
of purity is disregarded. Thus, there can be no preservation
of the social and political order, nor the serious building
of Christian Civilization without a foundation based in
purity, among other virtues.”
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