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 CONTENTS
Prayers
Dedication
Foreword

INTRODUCTION

PART I
THE BATTLE AGAINST COMPULSION

SOME UNDERSTANDING ABOUT MASTURBATION

LITERATURES FOR BEGINNERS
A MASTURBATOR MARRYING?
SINGLE BLESSEDNESS
THE LIFE OF THE EMOTION
EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH GOD
DOES GOD WILL MASTURBATION?
DESPAIR AND DOING THE GOOD
AM I READY FOR A LIFELONG BATTLE?
OBEYING ST. THERESE
A SUMMARY: MY FIGHT AGAINST QUASI-COMPULSIVE MASTURBATION
ADDITIONAL INSIGHT FROM RELATED FIELDS (PSYCHOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY, MEDICINE)
MORE PEDAGOGICAL AND THERAPEUTICAL GUIDE

PART II
A MASTURBATOR IN LOVE

BEING ROMANTICALLY IN LOVE

REASON’S PRIMACY OVER EMOTIONS
TO PRAY WHEN YOU ARE IN LOVE
A SHORT AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY LOVE LIFE
FALLING OUT OF LOVE
SPIRITUALITY VS. SEXUALITY ATTITUDE
POPULATION EXPLOTION AND ITS CAUSE: A CALL FOR A UNITED ACT TO END PORNOGRAPHY
AND LEWDNESS
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POPULATION CONTROL, CHASTE CELIBACY,
AND CHASTE MARRIAGE
THE BEST AND COMPLETE MEANS: A FAMILY IN PRAYER
AN ATTEMPT: MONOGAMY—TO LOVE ONLY ONE’S WIFE IN THOUGHT, IN WORD, AND IN DEED
THE REASON BEHIND
AN ANGEL’S LIFE
THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE: A SIGN OF CONTRADICTION
ANOTHER ATTEMPT: CELIBACY FOR THE KINGDOM, A SACRIFICE THAT IS
CONSCIOUSLY DELIBERATED
PORNOGRAPHY—SEX WITHOUT LOVE—IS NOT AN ART
TO COURT OR BEFRIEND A LADY?
MORTIFICATION OF THE EYE
TO BE ROMANTICALLY IN LOVE OR NOT
AGAPEIC AND FILIAL LOVING SHOULD BE DEVELOPED AND ENHANCED
BEING ROMANTICALLY IN LOVE CAN BE SINFUL
FRIENDSHIP IS BETTER THAN ROMANTIC LOVING WHICH DOES NOT LASTS
“NON-SEXUAL” FRIENDSHIP
SEXUAL EXPRESSION AND NON-SEXUAL EXPRESSION OF LOVE
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES A MASTURBATION-FREE LIFE MAKES?
WHY ROMANTIC LOVING IS NOT THAT BAD
BUT ROMANTIC LOVING WILL PASS AWAY, MUST PASS AWAY
MY CHOICE OR CALL IN A MARRIED LIFE MAY NOT DEPEND UPON MY UNCONTROLLABLE
SEXUAL APPETITE
A CALL TO CONVERSION OF ATTITUDE

PART III
A LIFE WITHOUT A BELOVED

TRANSITIONAL STATES
WET DREAMS
CONTINUOUS EVALUATION AND REFLECTION
NOT A HYPOTHESIS TO BE PROVEN BUT A VALUE OR VIRTUE OR HABIT TO BE FORMED
OR ACQUIRED
INTROSPECTION, REPLICATION AND…CANONIZATION?
ANOTHER ATTEMPT: THE CURE OF HOMOSEXUAL MASTURBATION CAN BE THE CURE FOR
HOMOSEXUALITY AS WELL
AN ANONYMOUS GROUP IS ENORMOUS
GREEN JOKES ARE NOT JOKES
AN ANALYSIS OF MASTURBATION IMAGINING ONE’S BELOVED
HUMILITY IN DOING GOOD
WHO ARE WE?
NIP IT IN THE BUD

PART IV
A LIFE WITH A BELOVED

THE POWER OF CHASTE HETEROSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP

COMPULSIVE ROMANTIC LOVING OF UNMARRIED PARTNERS
EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY AND ROMANTIC LOVING OR IMAGINING OF ONE’S GIRLFRIEND
ROMANTICISM
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS
NO ROMANTIC LOVING RULE
ONE SOLITARY LIFE
IF NOT ROMANCE, THEN WHAT MOTIVATES AND SUSTAINS MARRIAGE?
THE WORLD GONE CRAZY
HEADSHIP OF THE FAMILY
FINAL RECOMMENDED LITERATURE
GOD BLESS US THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD
WHAT MOTIVE CAN SUSTAIN AN UNMARRIED PERSON IN CHASTITY
KEEPING IN VIEW THE GOOD THAT WILL BE LOST
ROMANTIC LOVING HAS NO PART IN A CHRISTIAN’S SINGLE LIFE
A DEVELOPMENT
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
IN DANGER OF PRAGMATISM, I RAN TO THE HEART OF CHRIST
MY FEARS
BE NOT AFRAID
AM I STILL TREATABLE MY LORD?

FINAL WORDS

Appendix A: Pornography’s Effects on Adults and Children

Appendix B: Treatment and Healing of Sexual and

Pornographic Addictions

Appendix C: The Harmful Effects of Pornography

Appendix D: Priestly Celibacy in the Light of Medicine and

Psychology
 PRAYERS

O God, for all the love you have lavished upon me,
So does in spite of all the chaos surrounding me,
I am reaffirming my commitment to you.
Protect me from my final defeat,
Lead me not to despair against my weaknesses,
But let me hold on once again to my Mother & Model
Whose word always ring in my heart:
“…in the end my Immaculate Heart will
triumph.”
Let me continue the work I have started to undertake
Under the patronage of my Immaculate Mother,
So that as she had pointed me out
“…the Blessed Kingdom of the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus be extended as far as
possible.” Amen.

“Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us!”

MI ACT OF CONSECRATION
Composed by St. Maximilian Kolbe

O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners

and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire
order of mercy to you. I, N . . ., a repentant sinner, cast myself at
your feet humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and
have, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please
make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life,
death and eternity, whatever most pleases you.
If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve,
wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your
head,” and, “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole
world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful
hands for introducing and increasing your glory to the maximum in
all the many strayed and indifferent souls and thus help extend as far
as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
For wherever you enter you obtain the grace of conversion and
growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces
come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

V. Allow me to praise you, O Sacred Virgin.

R. Give me strength against your enemies.
 For the benefit of families, may this book bring a greater awareness of a clean
environment. May the world understand the danger pornographic addiction proliferates
invisibly. May the world have that total change of heart to revere human sexuality, which
“enrich the whole person—body, emotions and soul—and manifests its inmost meaning in
leading the person to the gift of self in love.” (Pope John Paul II Familiaris Consortio)

The Author
 FOREWORD

I searched everywhere for the healing of my compulsive masturbation. From books,

articles, advices, and personal learning, I have deduced, realized, memorized and started
practicing chains of moral sexual principles. As a neophyte in the living of chastity, I thought
nothing but marriage can cure me. St. Paul tells us, “it is better to marry than burn with
passion.” (1 Cor. 7:9) The passage for me was a divinely inspired cure, a truth that is applicable
in whatever sexual problem man sees himself submerged.
Later, I realized that there are different kinds and causes of sexual addiction, that I am not
the only one suffering from this curse. I realized further that all human beings, sexual addicts
included, have individual choices or personal preferences. Sexual addiction then admits of other
solution than just marriage. Addicts who have homosexual tendency, for example, may choose to
remain chaste singles and not marry having no inclination to be one with someone of an opposite
sex. On the other hand, mastering chastity will be the concern of those who want to embrace the
religious vow of celibacy or those who do not want to marry for one reason or another. Yet in
another sense, marriage is still a divinely inspired cure for an uncontrollable sexual need, and
thus should mean that homosexuals must heal themselves and learn to become heterosexual and
pursue marriage to control such a compulsion. Also if celibacy isn’t giving one chastity, it is still
marriage which is the divine answer.
Here I have only attempted on St. Paul’s “it is better to marry…” and not on his other
Gospel call “It is better not to marry…he who is able to accept it…” (Mt. 19:10-12) The latter
verse speaks of single blessedness and celibacy for the Kingdom. I have limited my scope to
speak about temporary singlehood only for a compulsive’s better preparation for marriage and
for the pursuit of other worthy tasks.
There is the truth that the apparent pleasure inherent in various immoral sexual activities
can be enjoyed genuinely as a moral activity inside matrimony. It therefore points every sexual
addict, who really searches for sexual pleasure, to seek it inside marriage in accord with the
doctrine of the Catholic Church.
On the other hand, sexual addicts already vowed to celibacy need not abandon their post
and enter marriage if they really want to become chaste and celibate. In the first place, they
should have not accepted the vow. Preventively, the authorities must warn candidates not to
accept the vow of celibacy if they are still sexual addicts. Evagrius advised that they must heal
themselves first before embracing the contemplative life. On the other hand, the question of
healing the compulsion inside the formation period of future celibates is for the ecclesial
authorities to decide about.
Leaving the seminary for good, I have not chosen the sacramental path of priesthood. I
am presently preparing myself for marriage. I have chosen that sacramental path which is more
suited for my salvation. I cannot fathom why I am incapable of choosing celibacy. St.
Augustine, a converted sexual addict, is an incomprehensible proof to me. Maybe a longer time
of working myself through chastity can enable me to choose like St. Augustine did. It is as if
God converses with me, “You can enter celibacy and be chaste if you want to.” But for now, my
body seeking sexual intimacy, the invitation of God to celibacy is an unwelcome intrusion.
St. John Chrysostom articulated well and appeased my rebellion and unintelligence:
“Christ gave laws for everyone…I do not prohibit you from marrying, nor am I against your
enjoying yourself. I only want you to do this with temperance, without indecency, guilt and sin.
I do not make a law that you should flee to the mountains and deserts, rather that you should be
good, modest, and chaste, as you live in the midst of the cities.” (Homiliae in Mattheum 7,7: PG
57, 80-81) While it points us to the willing abandonment of a priest’s or anybody’s natural right
for marriage through the help of God, it is a very assuring fact that everyone is free to choose
whatever holy state of life one wants, be it married or celibate loving. In my case before the
compulsion set in, I was already a contemplative child immersed in the life of my beloved friend,
playmate, and Lord Jesus. I was struggling to choose contemplation, even wanting to become a
Trappist monk or an hermit; and I cannot separate the fact that in contrast my choice of marriage
is partly motivated by my sexual compulsion.
Next, I made it clear that St. Paul’s “it is better to marry than burn with passion” does not
mean that a compulsive masturbator should have an unchaste marriage. On the contrary, as
analyzed by Dietrich Von Hildebrand, love ennobles sex within the sacrament of marriage.
Married persons who still masturbate are not great proofs against Hildebrand’s idea, but that
these persons have degraded themselves into an immorality and incapacity to love. Praying,
powerpointing, value clarifications, nipping temptations in the bud, mortifying the eyes, doing
the good, fleeing from the near occasion of sin, cleaning the environment of sexual lewdness,
and many more will be the supporting practices that I will talk about for the healing of
compulsive masturbation and impure thinking.
The purpose of this book though is not to teach directly but only indirectly other virtues.
Chastity is the pearl of great price for a sexual addict because the lack of chastity is the greatest
obstacle in practicing the other virtues. Overcoming compulsive masturbation necessitates all of
one’s strength, and living chastely became the first and greatest obstacle to start the battle for
virtuous living. According to CCC, “To transgress one commandment is to infringe the whole
Law.” (CCC art. 2069, James 2:10-11)
I also had in mind the goal of helping my fellow compulsive masturbators. And my
anonymity will be a great help in divulging important details of my life that may benefit them.
May God have mercy on my soul!

The Author
 INTRODUCTION

I started masturbating if I can recall approximately, as early as age two to four. Who
taught me how to masturbate at an early age? An xxx-rated1 videotape I accidentally viewed
gave me the idea of orgasm, and later the experience of it. The growth of my compulsion is not
possible to give in detail for it may endanger the good name of others. It will be sufficient to say
that it was an abominable devisings of hell. I can now differentiate though as not normal that my
kinsfolk handed on from one generation to the next the playboy porn and xxx-rated video
indirectly and that seemingly there is a widespread belief that an early stimulation of orgasm
makes those boy or girl heterosexual. Here and there is present much and different forms of
stimulation of the sexual organ if not deliberately showing them porn mags or videos. Yet later
we will see that these early stimulation is the culprit of much unchastity in the modern world
including on the homosexual side the victimization of innocent children by perpetrator-victims.
Such variable is the strongest elemental cause of a persons seeming lack of capacity for chastity
later in life.
But let’s just say the power of audio-visuals that children can easily imitate created the
compulsion. The imitation produced pleasurable feelings satiated only by orgasm. I do
remember that my first several masturbations released no semen and my penis did not harden, a
sign that it happened quite before my sexual organ is physically developed for orgasm. Xxx-
rated movie took away my innocence that early, which I should have enjoyed and should have
given me a peaceful bearing. Innocence is so important in the development of the many aspects
of a human being, especially the social, emotional aspect and personal goal development aspect
as I experience which I only now recognize as stunted in my personality.
I hate pornographers.
In my grade year, I almost raped a person.2 The reason: my masturbation did not satisfy
me anymore.
It no longer baffles me why Echegaray3 accused the Filipinos of killing him because they
permitted lewd movies, centerfold or frontal babes of tabloids that made him sexually aroused
artificially. I felt a deep sympathy because I was a user of “Tik-tik” too and of other bold comics
in my childhood days during the 80's. No wonder, I became what I read. Most of all, xxx-rated
videotapes and playboy magazines were my favorites.4 Thanks be to God, I was already firm
and sober when the cyber-sex, the worst of all, became a craze. There is no masturbation any

1
Pornographic materials can be classified as hard porn or soft porn. Triple x rating is hard porn.
Compared to soft porn, hard porn is an outright animalism, not just indecent but an orgasmic outburst.
2
I have to make some misrepresentations and miscalculations throughout the book to protect the good
name of others from being inferred, but in a way that retains the important helpful variables.
3
The first Filipino sentenced to die by lethal injection, guilty of raping his daughter.
4
See Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines/Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic
Education (CBCP/ECCCE), Katesismo para sa Pilipinong Katoliko (KPK). (Philippines: Word & Life Publications,
2000), art. 1100. The great effects most especially of audio-visuals are well known. Visit Morality in Media
website: www.moralityinmedia.com or read Appendix A and C.
better without these stimulants increasing in its perversion, accessibility, and lifelikeness or
actualization not just imagined.
The description of other stimulants that make masturbation a peak experience would
make this confession suggestive. Let me content you only of mentionable and still respectable
things because I have already cast into hell all these things way back when the Santo Niño
already gave me, in my grade year, the sign of my conversion.
As I recall, it was in the same manner that I am doing my masturbatory practice when an
extraordinary look of the Santo Niño caught my attention coming from the altar in front of me.
His shocked, worried, teary look struck me as I continued masturbating while looking on Him,
until I cried a lot... “A grace, a grace of conversion! An initiative from God!”5 As a child, I was
ignorant of the vices gravity, and the experience taught me for the first time the displeasure God
sees from my masturbation, higher, as they say, from the superego shame when being caught
masturbating.
Nevertheless, my life from that grade year as a masturbator continued on to my high
school days. My morning starts by fantasizing my loved one, a classmate, by kissing and
hugging and fucking my pillow on a movie to envy James Bond’s “007”—a self-made movie to
stir my sexual orgasm and start my day. That was only the first set of how grievous a kind of
vice my masturbation was.
I tried to imagine in reality the story line of “Taboo” xxx-rated videotape where mother
and son, father and daughter, neighbor saleslady and the son fuck up each other. I viewed it in
my ninth or tenth year. I imagined for the rest of my adolescence having sex with my sisters and
with whomever I like or feel horny. Thanks be to God it only happened imaginatively yet almost
because I touched one of my sister’s sexual organ. My God have mercy! I fantasized with all
girls including my Mom. Some will say, especially Freudian psychology, that these are just part
of growing up. I say that such Oedipal complex is not a natural part of growing up. If any
human being can develop completely as a man of character, as befits his nature, any parent-child
relationship should be grounded on a solid trust. And if Erik Erikson’s first stage of life is trust,
where can it be based solidly if not in innocence.
The gravest element of my kind of masturbation is its love of company. I taught my kind
of masturbation to others; maybe because of my ignorance and enthusiasm about a thing I am not
even aware is eating me alive. The deepest fatality of this vice is its privacy. It all happens in a
locked door, bathroom, living room etc. No one will know, mostly the adults who should know,
that this vice is happening to their children. The children’s impure thoughts and imagination is
theirs alone concealed from the binding norms of righteous people. Correcting it is unworkable
if the child will not reveal the content of his imagination which doesn’t normally happen. Add to
it the timidity of the Filipinos to reprimand by saying, “Masama, kasalanan ang magluglog at
magtikod at magkatha ng malalaswa sapagkat...” (Masturbating or exciting one’s sexual organ is
bad because…) The facts are not ascertained as to how many ignorant children are there living
in such manner without anyone telling them it is wrong, it will harm their being, it will hamper
their proper human development, it is a sin which is displeasing to God and punishable by hell.
We have to explain to them, as early as possible, its grievousness so that they can make an
intelligent choice to fight such temptations to fantasize or to recall pornographic materials which
are the cause that leads to behaviorally acting it out with oneself or role-playing it with others.

5
By the way, as a child I was ignorant in some degree of the vice’s gravity or I was already calloused even
as a child, whatever.
 An animalistic life is so different from how Christ wants us to live. “But I say this to
you: if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his
heart…. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”6 Parents should start instilling such a
holy life during childhood days.
However, such holiness of life is alien to habitual masturbators. Without being
indoctrinated about the real meaning of life and how it should be lived, no masturbator will want
to change the course of his existence without knowing how. Rather he will be stuck in the mud
of sex addiction, which is meaningless, and would rather die than live it further.
Already graduating then from high school, I was hopeless to live longer my life that I
attempted suicide, which God did not permit to happen. Thanks be to God, feeling my whole life
as deeply meaningless and experiencing the crises of the world and of my country in particular—
coup d'état, Middle East war, strong earthquakes and storms—God led me to read the Bible, to
listen to Bro. Mike Velarde’s teaching, and to pray the 3 O’clock Prayer to the Divine Mercy.
Being also affected by the end-of-the-world mania, I proclaimed to my classmates, “God’s
second coming is near because the signs said by the Bible were already happening.” I am myself
the most terrified and questioning of everything, of what is the true religion, of why God wants
me to live in this world with the danger of being punished eternally, of how I will survive in the
chaotic world I see and experience, of how I can be a good Samaritan to my neighbor. Until I
read one of the book of St. Alphonsus de Liguori that suggested to me a life of community where
they would help me live the virtuous life which was also elaborated there. Also, heeding
somehow the Bible’s call to proclaim the good news and the need thus for someone to be sent to
proclaim it, I announced I want to become a priest and entered the seminary.
In the seminary, I experienced the real joy of life, the real thing, most especially during
meditation time, with the exposed Host dimly lighted side by side the sea’s gentle wind breezing
up the mountaintop. Learning a disciplined existence, my life became meaningful. Peace of
mind set in, and depressions faded in my picture of the world.
However, one day it dawned on me. I compulsively did my kind of masturbation again.
Oh, a regrettable relapse that pushed me to know and call Mary, from that day onward, the hope
of my salvation. I had recourse to her and my relationship with her grew strong with the daily
Rosary, novenas to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and visits to Jesus in the Most Blessed
Sacrament and Blessed Virgin Mary. My life continued thus.
During one of my summer vacation as a seminarian, I fell in love with a woman I met,
but was unable to relate with her naturally. As a masturbator, it was dominant in me to relate to
her within my imagination, not by talking with her in reality. I can actually count on my fingers
the words I have said to her up until we parted ways. Later on, I got some chance to talk to her
but did not with the motive that I have to offer myself up to God in priesthood. I thought
detaching myself to her would be that simple, but the catastrophe was yet to come….
Back in the seminary, there was nothing in my mind but her, and “God,” I said, “is
depriving me of a woman’s love!” God is pressuring me to become a priest, but I want to marry
her. During all those days, repeated masturbation dragged me unto a day where I was so
struck—I was already doing again intensely my kind of masturbation. A fact that lit the sorrow
of my former existence that brought me again to enjoy fantasizing all of my former wicked
fantasies which compelled me to say, “I can’t live without a partner,” with my spiritual director’s

6
Mt. 5:28,48.
final word, “It is better to marry than be burned in hell.”7 I lost my way not knowing what to do
with my life. I went out of the seminary confirming to the proper authority that I am a
compulsive masturbator.
Being out of the seminary is saying I am free to marry her already. Nevertheless, the
difference of life outside the seminary made me sink to the bottom. I was masturbating because I
already want to marry her. Then came the thought of job, financial capacity, respectable name,
and all the virtues of a man capable of marriage. I have to control this masturbation if I will still
be sane while preparing for such an indefinite future of married life; but I cannot control it. So I
sought help first from up above. I prayed a lot begging God to cast away this vice from me. I
prayed all my devotions. It gave me some hope, but I am still masturbating. I tried behavioral
modification, charismatic healing, anonymous help groups online, inner child healing, and read
moral guides from almost everywhere I can find it. Then I prayed hard again, read all the books
I have accessed on chaste living, and consulted others.8
One thing is clear now—that I am living in grace, by a higher power as we call it in AA.
I must depend upon this higher power.9 I believe that living by a higher power, I am given by
this higher power the power to cooperate. Such power made me consider my compulsion as
quasi10 and I tried continuously to live the truth that I can (control it) do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. Relapse became costly, deadly, which made me realize that it is better to
ask God to enable me to do good—which has its highest expression in commitment—than to
masturbate.

Prayer to the Child Jesus: A Prayer for Innocence

Oh my Playmate
From the very first day my mother taught me about You
The only Boy who understood and been a witness of my innocent days
I lost You…
I call to You now

7
“External confirmation of the subjective belief by the spiritual director… It is precisely by this
confirmation that the objective reality of a vocation, as opposed to a merely subjective enthusiasm, is expressed and
guaranteed.”—Dietrich Von Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity: An Analysis of the Catholic Ideals of Purity and
Virginity. (Longmans, Green and Co.,1931), footnote on p. 174.
8
I have learned many things from these things that I tried. However, I chose those principles that helped
me, better than others, to cope up with my compulsion. The principles will be tackled up all throughout the book in
a fashion incorporated in my narrations.
9
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 2nd Step of “The 12 Steps of A.A.”
10
Consult Welcome to the Catholic Church Version 2.0 (WCC), “Christian Moral Principles” (CMP) no.
17, CD ROM, Harmony Media, Inc. The Way of the Lord Jesus Volume One, Christian Moral Principles,
(Franciscan Herald Press, 1983). for a complete explanation or read a part of it here in Part I: Literatures for
Beginners.
 You’ve not grown as within me
You’re still the Playmate I loved to Be
I recall You
You’re the most innocent, most joyful of life
Everything is new and heavenly when I am with You
So come now! come now...
“Hesus, Hesus, pumarito ka sa amin.”11

11
The Filipino words are front cover prayer from a popular small prayer book and guide to Mass that my
mother gave me to catechize me by its beautiful pictures before I became a masturbator because of pornography.
 PART I

THE BATTLE AGAINST COMPULSION

 SOME UNDERSTANDING ABOUT MASTURBATION

Masturbation is an addiction. When I had been living the life of a seminarian, I

thought everything of my former wickedness was over. Yet I was wrong. It had taken me first
to read voraciously the book of John Burns and three other recovered addicts entitled The
Answer to Addiction: The Path to Recovery from Alcohol, Drug, Food, & Sexual Dependencies
before I was opened to a grim reality that I am an addict too. My difference from other addicts is
but the same: we cannot control it. Our Common Denominator of the Answer to my problem is
the same: (1) surrender to God and to the truth, (2) cleansing and amendment of life, and (3)
helping others.12
The Answer led me aright in my fight for chastity in my years of researching for ways to
stop masturbation, for it was providential that I got hold of the book on the day I went out of the
seminary. I bought the book on the seminary town’s bookstore before I went back home and left
the seminary for good.
For sure, the seminary is not a reformatory school. It accepts only worthy candidates.
But the seminary admitted me, and I entered the seminary unaware that my kind of masturbation
is not only an isolated act but is itself an addiction that needs rehabilitation.
It can be hard to verify if all kinds of masturbation are addiction although even one act
can lead to addiction. For why would a person masturbate if one does not see an apparent
goodness in its pleasure and so subscribes to it as a good act and does it without any remorse
with a tendency to repeat the act. Nevertheless, let us not be led astray that whether or not it is
an addiction, “it should always be a grave matter.”13
And the day I read The Answer, was the day of recognition: my kind of masturbation has
been for long an addiction, which was not different from my brother’s drug addiction and my
father’s smoking and drinking addiction. We are bunch of male addicts in our family, and I am
not different from them. My father died of his addiction. My brother, aware of his fatal end,
also got sober by the rehabilitation center.
Yet masturbation in its hiddenness is incalculable in its fatal effects that some, unaware
of its grievousness, even named it as tension reliever. Its fatal effects are incalculable for it is not
seen clearly as the training ground by rehearsal method of the rapists and maniacs of every kind,
the adulterers, the irresponsible would-be fathers etc. They do disrupt catastrophically the
family, the basic unit of society. Masturbation as pornographic addiction respects no concept of
a holy family because any porno out there necessitates animalistic scene and script that defies
control to arose the forbidden.14 I am short of saying that compulsive masturbation is extinct
without pornography or an immoral picture, short of saying that compulsive masturbation is
grievous than someone masturbating with the thought of a loved one (more on this later).
I can assert thus that masturbation is more addictive with respect to the means: your own
sexual organ and a recorded pornographic fantasy in one’s memory. It is invisible, and can thus
be more regular by sexual fantasies. It could have been not that deadlier than drugs, cigarette

12
John Burns and Three Other Recovered Addicts, The Answer To Addiction: The Path to Recovery
from Alcohol, Drug, Food & Sexual Dependencies. (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1990), 8.
13
See WCC, CMP 9E7.
14
Consult Appendix A, C. Though masturbation is not pornographic addiction, masturbation is one
activity that achieves the orgasmic purpose of seeing sexually arousing pictures. Thus, masturbation and
pornographic addiction exist side by side.
and alcohol if not for the fact that it is accepted as normal. The general atmosphere, the different
scientific disciplines that take for granted moral authority say so.
If drug, alcohol and cigarette addiction is not being accepted by society in a certain
degree by prohibitions and medical findings, then society should also fill the medical literature of
masturbation’s harmful effect on the human body, on man’s psychological health, if not its
negative effect on man’s spiritual life. I think the reversal of the idea that masturbation is not a
serious matter will be the key to a more chaste society. A law backed up by those likely findings
will better enforce the picketing and abolition of prostitution houses, playboy magazines,
indecent movies, xxx-rated films and videos etc. because they are the stimulants which corrupt
innocence and make sexual pleasure included in the commodities that can be bought and
consumed.

Masturbation is a mortal sin. “If it is a mortal sin then it is punishable by hell,” I said
to myself. Well, I had the opportunity to read TAN Book’s Hell & How to Avoid It. It dawned
on me that I am a rationalizer of my vice—that hell is not true because if hell is true, then I will
be thrown there. God could have not “made” hell if not for the fact that it can become one of the
great motivators of the hardened sinners to change their life side-by-side God’s will for them to
be saved if they would pray for it. As St. Alphonsus’ famous quotation says, “He who prays will
be saved. He who does not pray [Lord, save me!] will not be saved [because it is His will that
we be saved].”15
“I want to be a compulsive,” this is my unconscious thought which I vocalized
consciously as “I am my stimulant not the recorded pornographic fantasy in my mind” because
in the last analysis, I am still the one who plays it back. The medical field must prove that
human beings will not become sexually active if not stimulated.16 Thus, the fact of my
accountability is given emphasis; that if I will not win over this masturbatory practice, I will end
up in hell. This new awareness stirred all my resources to seek for ways and means to stop this
damnable habit. (Though later did I realize that my masturbation and impure thinking have
become a real compulsion, an incapacity to control my sexual appetite, a wound inflicted by my
years of ignorantly practicing masturbation and impure thinking.)
Such fear gave me the inner stirring to believe that this problem is solvable after I read
that “failure and frustration need not signify impossibility; perhaps they signify inadequately
directed effort.”17 From fear, which pushed me to seek for ways and means against addiction, I

15
Fr. F.X. Schouppe and Thomas A. Nelson, Hell Plus How To Avoid Hell. “The Necessity of Prayer”
Chap.XI, (TAN books and Publishers, Inc., 1989), 416ff.
16
Wanda Poltawska, Priestly Celibacy in the light of Medicine and Psychology. “Asceticism in the
Christian Life” first par. August 2002. www.ewtn.com
Consider too the following:
“…not from any material deficiency, but is a wound inflicted by the disordered exercise of human
freedom”—John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio, 127.
“…consciousness’ impassability by matter” which give emphasis on the agency of soul (myself) as the first
cause of masturbation not porno, strong emotion, habit, environment etc. which must only be secondary—
“Materialism” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
www.newadvent.com
17
WCC, CMP 17, appendix 2.
was led to a capacity within me. I first thought that this capacity is by techniques only.18
Therefore, I proceeded thus; but later I realized through relapses that I am still inadequate, that I
need the help of a greater than natural strength by virtue of my fallen nature as weak in itself.
When I had been given some success against my vice for some time, I was able to believe
more than ever that masturbation is really a mortal sin punishable of hell. This I understood
when I read that you have to be good in order to know, appreciate or accept what is good.19 I
understood then that I could not seem to accept hell because I am bound to it. I could not seem
to accept that masturbation is a mortal sin because I am practicing it, practicing my way to hell.
The punishment, which became the reward also, has one objective: to make me live a
chaste life. The Holy Spirit, unworthy as we are, interiorizes the Law20 and makes chastity itself
the reward and masturbation the punishment. Why did it turn 360 degree? Yesterday my only
happiness was masturbating, now it became the number one cause of misery in me. Thanks be to
God for that. Once, masturbation is life itself; but now, God has lifted me up to a loftier state.
God gave me the ability to affirm that a relapse can mean death itself.
At those periods the norm that I can actually overcome it became clear: It is his grace that
I live chastely, but it is my free choice ultimately to sin or not. Thus in my struggle against
masturbation, believing and not believing, trying to live and not trying to live chastity is the issue
rather than human nature’s doubtful capacity to live chaste lives.
If I can do it, how? Lord, show me the way!

I am a compulsive or addict by caution not by capacity. Compulsion or addiction is

quasi, meaning I can simply stop sinning.21 It means, “I have no compulsion or addiction which
I cannot control,” and therefore, “I am not an addict or a compulsive.” However, as some
Anonymous members have affirmed, “I will remain an addict forever, for the reason that I am
the most prone of them all to fall into temptation, but not for any other reason.” Nelson too is of
the same opinion that as human beings, we need to have a complete distrust of our strength in
resisting temptations against purity, knowing that sexual activity is “natural” to mankind, and he
is not yet speaking of those who are addicted to sex. He explains,

Because sins of impurity are all mortal sins, and because the near occasion of sins
of impurity will almost inevitably lead us to commit them, it is imperative to
avoid the near occasion of sins of impurity. Almost always, placing ourselves in
the near occasions of sins of impurity (i.e., those persons, places, or things which
have led us into sins of impurity before and/or which are a strong temptation to
us) is itself going to be a mortal sin.22 [sleeping in bed at night alone becomes the
most difficult situation, while technique not to drink coffee and other stimulants 2
to 3 hours before bedtime helps a lot]

18
“It is not a question of a sort of spiritual athletics in which man succeeds by his own effort; nor of the
implementation of a suitable technique (Yoga and so on). It is the grace of Christ asked for in prayer…”—Carlo
Caffara, Living in Christ: Fundamental Principles of Catholic Moral Teaching. eds. Giacomo Biffi, Inos Biffi and
Carlo Caffara. trans. by Christopher Ruff. (Ignatius Press, San Francisco), 151.
19
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell. “The Role of Conscience” Chap. 10
20
See Caffara, Living In Christ, 1.11.
21
WCC, CMP 17.
22
Nelson, How To Avoid Hell, 240-41.
 Therefore, I am not an addict or compulsive by virtue of my capacity in Christ, but I am
an addict or compulsive forever by caution. As Hildebrand says,

The pure man feels himself a sinner capable, but for the help of God’s grace, of
being submerged at any moment by the flesh…. He does not imagine himself
made of other material than flesh and blood and inaccessible to the weakness of
the flesh…. And his attitude continues the same even if he has never experienced
sexual temptations.23

Ignorance excuses no one. The argument that ignorance will excuse my decades of
masturbation will not be of help because the experience of grace moving me away from it and
making me live a life of chastity is by means of deep repentance and groaning—a fact of my
long lost freedom that I could have done otherwise.
A masturbator must always affirm that he is always viciously responsible. With such
accountability as his general attitude, masturbators would see himself as the facilitator of the
secondary causes of his vice (like bold movies, playboy magazines, behaviors which tend to
masturbation etc.).
Knowing how I have lost my innocence without my parents’ knowledge and others who
took care of me, I could have been the only person most authoritative objectively and
subjectively to say that I must be given the benefit of doubt (that I was truly ignorant in some
degree). But knowing by experience that this laying the blame on anyone or anything else but to
myself only makes me more incapable, more excusing of my relapses and selfish acts, I am thus
saying that I am not ignorant in some degree specially in the preceding years up to adolescence
if not during my youngest years. In addition, being given the aspirations of Christ there is no
way out but repentance and change of heart. A gift “to which the Lord never stops [sic] ceases
to call us.”24 I experienced repentance by sorrow or angst too deep and sometimes calculating
after the act of masturbation. It is too deep for it calls on God as the Savior of a fallen race in
me. Sometimes calculating for it seeks for ways and means to stop the act e.g. “I have not done
something again to occupy my time and cut this train of sexual thoughts and emotions. I have
done this again in this bathroom. What must I do next time? I have given up the fight again.”
Be it clear then for anyone not to assert that he was addicted to it, so that he seem not yet
winning over it. Be reminded that today is always the day of conversion and “A man, helped by
God, can, if he will, be without sin.”25 Such doctrine is unacceptable to me until I was able to
have some success against my vicious inclination by powerpointing26 in the natural sphere and
by the sacraments and prayers in the supernatural sphere. Like what I am wont to say after a
relapse, “God is not really helping me because I’m already willing enough.” What light does
such sentiment cast on God’s will? God seems to say that I must do what I can do i.e. I must not
say God’s grace is not sufficient, but rather I am not willing enough to become chaste by doing
what I can. I can devise tactics, pray unceasingly—which I experienced in the powerful

23
Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity, 64.
24
E.C.C.C.E., Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). (Philippines: Word and Life Publication, 1994),
art. 1426, 1430.
25
WCC, FEF 1720.
26
Please read my warning note about powerpointing.
traditional and historical 3 Hail Mary's before retiring and at rising or while still half-asleep—
and convince myself that a relapse to masturbation, like what drug addiction does, will put me
back to my former somewhat inability to control myself.27
Now that we know what to do let us not be so fool as not to do it, for I am certain that by
God’s grace we, masturbators, will be able to carry it out in time.

LITERATURES FOR BEGINNERS

Exhaustive I would say would be the full content of this book. There is a need because a
masturbator is one of the greatest rationalizer. Even attaining a 2 months masturbation-free life
and establishing a somewhat greater self-control and belief that I can do it through Christ, I still
have to get back to all of my chastity literature to better instill it in my rebellious flesh. Because
when I am back again from where I fell so many times, I am inclined to state the fact against my
faith: that a free masturbation life is utterly impossible.
The topic of masturbation as being a quasi-compulsive sin is a truth that should not be
taken for granted to drill the fact of my capacity in Christ. I only have to reiterate in full detail
the topical readings here, afraid that the rationalizer in me might blur the clear argumental logic
already written.
This is not to say that these are the best literatures on masturbation. What happened was
that I got hold of no other sources of information. Yet, I do not want to say that truth changes
because what is true in these literatures are true for all times even more information and help will
be accessible in the future. Therefore, the rationalizer in every addict makes reading this
literature necessary because it will help in the straightening up of the mind, a kind of rational
moral therapy and discipline as we may call it. And if anybody will insist on a sexual education
of the youth it must start with the 6th and 9th Commandment of God.
I would just present the literature in the order of time that I got hold of it. Some are not
directly discussing things about masturbation or sexual addiction, but the sexual addict should
know these other topics because it has implication in the healing of sexual compulsion. Here are
they:

Chosen articles from “Hell and How to Avoid Hell”

The Sixth and Ninth Commandments

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Adultery is illicit but “natural” sexual relations between a man and a woman
who are not married to each other and when at least one of the persons is married to someone else. If neither is
married to each other and when at least one of the persons is married to someone else. If neither is married, the
illicit act is called fornication. In the Bible, adultery and fornication are both spoken of as grave sins, which will
cause one to lose his soul. Though the Sixth Commandment does not specifically mention fornication, it is included
by implication, as are all sins of impurity, which are all always mortally sinful when fully consented to. St. Paul
uses the word porneia, which s sometimes translated as “fornication,” but which really means “sexual looseness.”

27
“Relapses take place because the patients persuade themselves that for this once they need a dose of their
favourite remedy. One dose leads to another, and so the habit is resumed.”—“Psychotherapy” Catholic
Encyclopaedia, on subtitle “Alcoholism and Drug Habits”. www.newadvent.com
Fornication, as a term, is often used by Sacred Scripture to symbolized sin in general. Thus we have proof that this
sin is particularly displeasing to Almighty God and that presumably it is quite common.
Male or female, we are all born with sexuality, and it is a faculty we have to control during a time roughly
from puberty until death. It is usually easily awakened in a man, being triggered very quickly by sight or by
thought, and oftentimes simply by the “humors” of the body itself; and in a woman, once she becomes “sexually
active,” can be very hard to contain. The Catholic Church teaches that sins against the Sixth Commandment, when
purposely willful, are always mortal sins, because the matter (the act in itself) is always grievous (i.e.,, serious or
mortally sinful). Now the sexual act never begins full-blown, but rather is preceded by “foreplay,” or at least by
looks, words or desires. But inasmuch as all such preceding thoughts, looks, words, kisses, touches, etc. lead up to
the final sexual act, they too are all likewise mortally sinful—because of what they can lead to, and as soon as a
person willfully agrees to them. (Intimate kisses and touches, in particular, are always mortally sinful for the
unmarried. Cf. Ch. IX.) If one could separate the foreplay from the final act, the case might be different, but
because the preceding activity is linked, as in a chain, with the culminating act, all such activity is not only a sin, but
a mortal sin. (Nor can anyone excuse himself by saying he will not go all the way, for inevitably such will happen,
even to the strongest-willed person. God has created us that way.)
Sins against the Sixth Commandment are called impurity or unchastity, and no other sin blinds the correct
moral understanding of a human being so completely as this sin. Even the immoral Homer comments to this effect
in his writings. There is a twofold blindness to impurity: The first is that the person about to commit the sin is
overwhelmed by the desire to commit it and is blinded thereby to its seriously wrongful nature, but also it is a sin
that very easily becomes habitual, and thereby, secondly, the person quickly loses the deep sense of guilt that usually
appalled at what she has done when she first engages in illicit sexual activity and loses her virginity, but often it is
not long afterwards that she returns to the same sin and, in a matter of only a few times, is given over completely to
it.
Rationalization soon sets in for those who engage in adultery or fornication. They say that since it is
“natural.” (That is, it springs from a natural drive and often from love.) True…God understands our weakness and
forgives us if we are truly sorry, and it is “natural” (though avoidable with God’s grace and the practice of virtue).
But the Commandment still says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Why?
The reason why this sin is so serious is that sex is the faculty which God, in His infinite wisdom, has
endowed us with in order to provide for the birth of new people. Now human beings are immortal creatures with an
eternal destiny of either Heaven or Hell, depending on how they behave—which in turn depends in large part on
how they are taught and how they are formed in youth. But people enter the world as helpless babes and need
nurturing, protection and help until approximately 18 to 21 years of age, plus advice, counsel, good example and
various types of help all the rest of their lives. IT is for this reason that Almighty God has wrapped up the sexual
faculty in human love and the psychological fulfillment of the parents and has placed it within marriage. Before this
faculty is permitted to be used lawfully, it is necessary for the two parties to make a lifetime commitment to each
other in the form of public marriage vows, so that the children born of their union—the immortal souls whom they
help bring into this world—will have the necessary assistance throughout all their lives, that they may be reared and
educated when young, and guided and counseled when adults. The Bible says, “Bastard slips shall not take deep
root, nor any fast foundation.” (Wis. 4:3). And “The children of adulterers shall not come to perfection, and the seed
of the unlawful bed shall be rooted out.” (Wis. 3:16). Yes, sex is natural. Man is weak. And God understands. But
still, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is what the Commandment says, and for plenteous good reasons.
Those who would overcome or avoid sins of impurity must not fight them head on, as with other sins, say
the great Catholic spiritual writers, but rather, they should flee from them. For being “natural” to mankind, sexual
sins, if a person simply tries to resist them where he knows that there is danger, will easily overcome his resistance
and plunge him into sin. If one has great difficulty in being pure, there is the advice of St. Paul, “But if they do not
contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt.” (1 Cor. 7:9). Natural use of the
sexual faculty within marriage is, of course, in accord with God’s law; it is part of a sacred experience, and can be a
meritorious act if engaged in with the proper dispositions. But adultery, fornication and the other sexual sins are not
licit, and they profane the sacredness of the sexual faculty. “No fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person (which is
a serving of idols) hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Eph. 5:5).
Many young boys and young men, especially, fall into the sin of masturbation (called “self-abuse”) and
often cannot seem to shake it. Masturbation too is a mortal sin, according to the moral teaching of the Catholic
Church. Because it is so common and often so hard to correct, many want to excuse this sin and say that it is not
seriously wrong (a mortal sin), or even that it is no sin at all. But that is not at all the Church’s teaching on this
subject! Although our intellects may not be able to discern completely why this sin is mortal, let us, in the interest
of examining the matter, consider the following points: Masturbation is a gross misuse of the sexual faculty, making
sexual pleasure an end in itself and frustrating the purpose for which God created this faculty. The person who
commits masturbation robs himself for the time being of his vital sexual drive and thereby toward the procreation of
children, for he is satisfied sexually to an extent and for a time. Masturbation is much easier for a young man, for
example, than courtship, and possibly courtship might not occur if the young man in question never overcomes this
sin. Moreover, there exists a universal instinct in mankind which judges that this act is shameful and impure.
However, despite whatever reasons we might adduce to demonstrate the wrongfulness of masturbation (or
any sin for that matter), we should always remember that God, through the teaching authority of the Church which
He founded to teach all mankind, has condemned this act as a mortal sin. Though we cannot with our limited
understanding entirely plumb the depths of God’s mysteries, as built into our nature, we may therefore not
understand all the reasons why masturbation is a mortal sin, but it is. Although other reasons why masturbation is
seriously wrong could be brought forward, let it at least be said in regard to this sin that St. Thomas Aquinas
(considered to be the greatest Catholic theologian ever) ranked it a worse sin than fornication, for it is an unnatural
act; whereas, fornication is not.

Then there is the sin of homosexuality (sex between persons of the same sex—homo is Greek for “same”),
which also generically, includes lesbianism (sex between women—which derives its name from the Island of Lesbos
off Greece, from which the famous ancient Greek poetess Sappho came, who was a sexual deviate). Homosexuality
is one of the four sins which the Bible says “cry to heaven for vengeance” (Gen. 18:20-21; Rom. 1:26-32) and is
classed thereby with murder (Gen. 4:10), defrauding the laborer of his hire (James 5:4), and oppression of the poor
(Exod. 2:23). Homosexual acts, needless to say, are always mortally sinful, and terribly so, because they are
completely against nature. When first committed, they have to be entered into, as it were, almost by force against
one’s better judgment and understanding. One has to pervert his very intelligence and every right sentiment within
himself in order to commit these sins, for which reason such people are called “perverts.” Under the Old Testament
law homosexuals were to be put to death, and in the history of the Kingdoms of Juda and Israel in the Old Testament
the Kingdoms always suffered decline and every sort of malady when this sin (called “effeminacy” by the Bible)
gained ascendancy. This sin violates the individual’s nature, as created by Almighty God, and is a sin against
society, for it deprives society of new members; plus, like a cancer, it tends to grow, because such a sinful person is
not checked by the bounds of reason and morality and goes from partner to partner, ever widening the circle of those
corrupted by his vice. Homosexuals give the excuse that this is just the way they are, that they were “born this
way”; they see this sinful proclivity as their basic sexual orientation; and to some degree, with some individuals, this
may be true, due to their physio-psychological make-up; but for many homosexuals, the truth is that they are
oriented that way because they have done what they have done. And even were their claim true, that they are
oriented that way by nature, still the only lawful sexual activity open to man kind is that between a man and woman
who are properly married to each other in the eyes of God and who perform the natural sexual act in a manner
wherein the man climaxes within the woman in a way that will allow a child to be conceived. The non-married all
must be sexually continent (inactive); that is God’s law, and this extends to homosexual activity as well. The
homosexual tendency of such people is just one more of the illicit human impulses that man must avoid—and, with
the help of God’s grace, can avoid.
A married couple, the Church teaches, can do whatever they want sexually, so long as the man climaxes in
the woman in the natural way, and with the possible conception of a child left entirely open. Nonetheless, even
properly married people may have a preference for some sort of sexual activity which is not natural and licit; such
preferences do not thereby mean these actions are all right; rather, even married people must avoid such acts. So too
with homosexuals, who may indeed prefer their activity to the natural sexual at; this does not mean, however, that
their activity is all right, that it is natural or that they have a right, that it is natural or that they have a right to it; it
only means that they like it, they prefer it! (Simply having homosexual inclinations, of course, is not sinful in itself;
but engaging in these shameful sexual acts is a very serious sin.)
Granted that sex is a powerful force and one that can easily be misused, and granted that the misuse can
become habitual and can often “take over” in one’s life, nonetheless, sexual activities can be curbed, channeled, and
even curtailed altogether. As Our Lord said to St. Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for power is made perfect
in infirmity.” (2 Cor. 12:9). If the married person must behave properly in marriage, in order to observe God’s law,
and if the single person must remain continent, why then cannot and must not the homosexually-oriented person
refrain from his or her particular sexual preference, knowing it violates the law of God in a manner that will surely
send him to Hell. “I can’t help it” or “That’s just the way I am” will not pass at the Judgment when Christ will
separate the wicked from the good.
Finally, we come to considering the sexual sins of imagination. These too are mortally sinful when
purposefully and knowingly given in to. Here we must distinguish among three elements connected to impurity of
thought: 1) the temptation, which takes the form of an image (or phantasm, to use the technical word), which pops
into the mind and which is no sin at all because it arises involuntarily; 2) toying with the temptation, rather than
getting rid of it, which can be a mortal sin if the person recognizes the danger and fully consents to it, because it is
leaving oneself in the near occasion of a mortal sin; and 3) willfully taking pleasure in the impure thought which
suggests itself to the mind, which is always a mortal sin. One must immediately drive away temptations to impure
thoughts because giving in to them is always a mortal sin ad even toying with them can be.
Filthy T.V. talk shows these days often feature people who call this simply “fantasizing,” but Our Lord
said, “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
(Matt. 5:28) With the constant presentation of immodestly dressed women on T.V., in the movies and in
advertising, men especially have to be on their guard against this sin. As with all sins against purity, sexual sins of
the imagination are to be overcome by calling immediately on the Blessed Mother of God, Mary most holy, to help
us, and also by driving such thoughts from our minds immediately when they first present themselves, rather than
waiting till they have grown and are powerful. (It is easier to root out a seedling than a tree.) Prayer, frequent
Confession and the frequent reception of Holy Communion are also essential, as is daily recitation of the Holy
Rosary. One must really attack temptations against impure thoughts with these holy tools and precautions and not
temporize with such temptations even to the slightest degree, or he runs the very likely risk of falling into mortal
sins of impurity. Where these expedients to overcoming impure thoughts are swiftly, resolutely and sincerely
employed, this vice, as well as all sexual sins, cannot long remain.
Scoffers will likely think that all this discussion of the evils of sexual sins is sheer prudery, but they should
consider that their consciences, though blunted perhaps by years of sins against purity, still function well enough to
remind them that sexual sins are wrong, grievously wrong; they need to ponder within themselves the thought of
spending their eternity in Hell, regretting forever their illicit sinful pleasures and wishing for someone from Heaven
to come and relieve them, just a little, from their eternal torment, as Dives wished Lazarus to do. Then it will be too
late. But now it is not.
And those who think that impurity is just one more of the many sins to be avoided, like cursing and stealing
and all the rest, should pause to consider this sobering fact, that the Saints say impurity is the sin that leads to Hell
most of the people who go there. St. Alphonsus Liguori—himself on of the greatest Doctors of the Catholic
Church—tells us that the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church are unanimous in their opinion that most by far of
the people who go to Hell go there because of this type of sin. No, impurity is not just “one more” of the sins we
must overcome. For most people, it is the sin, especially today in our libertine society.
And sex is all the more dangerous because it is “natural,” it is a drive within us, it is powerful, it can be
triggered quite easily, it wells up within us spontaneously n the form of concupiscence, it involves our need for
psychological fulfillment with and in the person of another individual (love), we can step off into it gradually, it is
being promoted by the agents of the devil through their domination of the mass media, it impinges upon us in
immodesty of dress, it is accepted by our corrupted society as “really not too bad, not bad at all” or “not anything to
get upset about,” and it is prevalent everywhere and in all sorts of forms. Under the best of circumstances a person
has always to be vigilant and on his guard against falling into some form or other of sins f impurity. Today,
however, a person oftentimes has to be positively heroic in order to remain virtuous. But as Our Lord has told us
through the writing of St. Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Impurity is a sin for which we cannot make any accommodation in our lives. If we are not properly
married, no form of sexual activity is allowed to us. And if we are properly married, the only such activity allowed
is the natural sexual activity between a man and wife that is allowed to culminate, if God is willing, in the
conception of a child. (The Church teaches through her moral theologians that any foreplay is allowable to a
properly married couple, so long as the man culminates in the woman in the natural way.)
Extra consideration has been given to this Commandment due to the fact that it claims so many souls for
Hell. For impurity is common, is always mortally sinful (if fully consented to) and is easily habit-forming.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. In general, we are forbidden under the Ninth Commandment to think
or desire what we are forbidden to do under the Sixth Commandment. Coveting one’s neighbor’s wife includes
also, by implication, of course, coveting one’s neighbor’s husband. In today’s society this is a particularly difficult
commandment to keep, for most people have a vocation to be married, and all people gain a definite psychological
fulfillment from members of the opposite sex. In the world today, with divorce so very common, it is not at all
unusual for a man or woman to be young and “divorced” and ready and willing to “marry” again. Where the
“former’ spouse usually does not care, and where society condones “remarriage” after “divorce,” it takes heroic
virtue on the part of those who wish to be good to resist the temptation to desire someone who is really still married,
especially when the spouse of that other person has already gone and does not care in the least, having possibly even
taken up with or “married” someone else. Yet to desire such a “divorced” person is still to “covet” one’s neighbor’s
wife.
An additional word, and one of encouragement, must be said in regard to people being eligible to marry
after “divorce”: In today’s society, many of the marriages that have been entered into are likely to be invalid, that is,
not really marriages at all, due to a defective intention on the part of one or both of the “marriage” partners (but not
because of problems that came later). In particular, and as a common example of defective intention, many people
today “marry” with the idea they can always get a divorce if it does not work out; however, if either or both parties
do not intend the union to be permanent, they are not really married to begin with because they did not truly enter
into a marriage, which requires a commitment for life. Thus, the “divorced” party from such a “marriage” will
actually never have been married at all. Also, many people “marry” those who are “divorced” (i.e.,, still truly
married in the eyes of God, though having a piece of paper from the court saying they are single); therefore, the
single partner to such an arrangement has never rally been married because marriage can only be contracted between
unmarried persons. If, therefore, one should become interested in a “divorced” person, it is imperative to discover
right from the start whether that person was ever actually married or not, and the only truly competent judges in
these matters are Catholic priests, who are the only people properly trained in the theology of marriage; they also
have a special grace received from the Sacrament of Holy Orders (whereby they become priests), which helps them
discern the truth in such pastoral matters. Moreover, only the Catholic Church has the authority to pronounce on the
validity or invalidity of a marriage, individual priests, however, have no power to render an official judgement in a
marriage case on behalf of the Catholic Church. This right belongs only to the Church herself, which employs an
official “Marriage Tribunal” or Court to render this type of decision.
Because marriage is a complex contract between the consenting man and woman, only a person who is
competently trained in the theology of marriage can really give sound advice in regard to the possible eligibility for
marriage of those who were “married” before. But for the person who wants to be good and to act according to
God’s law, it is essential to determine the truth about the marriageability of a prospective spouse right from the start,
before emotional involvement sets in and the single person finds himself or herself in a dead-end relationship with a
person who is still actually married. (Just practical wisdom would warn that the other party may indeed not be the
best person, even under ideal and legitimate circumstances, for us to marry, but rather may represent a test from
Almighty God to prove whether or not we love Him. If we can resist the temptation, there is a great likelihood that,
as a blessing from Almighty God for having followed His law, a different and much better choice of mate will be
presented to us, a spouse with whom we will be able to live in peace of conscience and with whom we will be much
happier.)
Under the Ninth Commandment, Catholic moralists generally also include, as stated above, all desires to
commit unchaste acts, that is, desires to commit all acts forbidden under the Sixth Commandment. Any conscious
and willful pleasure taken in thoughts of unchaste acts (i.e.,, immoral sexual acts) is itself a mortal sin. This was
Our Lord’s meaning when He said, “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath
already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28). Some may ask what harm just thinking about these
things will do. But it is obvious that entertaining unchaste desires corrupts the heart of a person and leads him to
violate the law of God interiorly, which is where all sin stems from anyway.

The Third of the Seven Capital Sins

3. Lust is the desire to express our sexual promptings in an illicit way. The only morally correct expression of our
sexual faculty is within marriage, between husband and wife, and that only in a manner that does not preclude
conception of children, that is, when sexual relations are performed in the natural manner, without use of artificial
birth control, and which under normal circumstances could lead to the conception of a child. Any other type of
sexual activity is sinful, and in the study of morality it is called impurity, whether it be in thought, word or action.
As mentioned in the discussion of the Sixth Commandment of God, impurity tends to blind the sinner to the
implications of what he or se is doing. Those who engage in fornication, for example, defile themselves, stimulate
their sexual appetite (which will not long be satisfied), and run the risk of procreating a child whom they usually are
not ready or willing or able to support and who will be hurt by their action the rest of his life. But such a sinner is
blind to all this ad is impelled by his or her lust to achieve satisfaction at any price. St. Paul says of sins of impurity,
“Let it not so much as be named among you.” (Eph. 5:3). We can commit sins of lust in the mind, with the eyes, by
touch, with pictures, by ourselves, with others, even in marriage (if the desire or action is not properly oriented).
Because our sexual nature is part of ourselves and with us at all times, it is something that we must continually battle
in order to keep in check. As mentioned earlier, sins of impurity (lust) are considered by the great theologians and
Doctors of the Church to cause the loss of more souls than any other form of sin.
 The way to achieve purity is through modesty in dress, modesty of the eyes, modesty in our speech,
modesty in not listening to lewd stories, modesty in our thoughts, great care in our entertainment (television, movies,
plays, books, magazines, pictures, night clubs, the beach, etc.), precaution in not being alone too long with a
member of the opposite sex, absolutely avoiding impure people, having recourse continually to prayer to possess the
virtue of purity, especially invoking the aid of the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, being constant in our prayers,
frequenting the Sacraments, being constant and unrelenting in our determination to avoid or overcome all impurity
at whatever price, resorting to prayer immediately upon being tempted, and always having a complete distrust of our
strength in resisting temptations against purity, knowing that sexual activity is “ natural” to mankind and that it is
gratifying to our nature to give in to this vice.
Because sins of impurity are all mortal sins, and because the near occasion of sins of impurity will almost
inevitably lead us to commit them, it is imperative t avoid the near occasion of sins of impurity. Almost always,
placing ourselves in the near occasion of sins of impurity (i.e.,, those persons, places, or things which have led us
into sin of impurity before and/or which are a strong temptation to us) is itself going to be a mortal sin. Therefore,
whether it means turning off the T.V. or leaving a movie early, whether it means avoiding the company of certain
people or not picking up a particular magazine, whether it means discontinuing an otherwise fascinating book or
getting up and doing something different to interrupt an impure train of thought, we should realized that, when
confronted by temptations to sins of lust or impurity, we should always act swiftly to get ourselves out of the near
occasion of these sins. If we do so, we will avoid these sins; if we do not, we shall commit them. As Scriptures say,
“He that loveth danger shall perish in it.” (Ecclesiasticus 3:27).

Common Mortal Sins

Birth Control: One of the most common mortal sins committed today is artificial birth control. It is committed by
both the married and the single. This sin frustrates God’s plan for new people to be brought into the world so that
they can eventually go to Heaven. It is primarily a grievous offense against God, His law, and His Providence; but it
also hurts society because it deprives society of new members, who are necessary to replace those who die; plus, it
harms the people who practice it.

Birth control harms the unmarried because it allows them to continue in the mortal sin of fornication without the
normal result of children. If artificial birth control were not available to sexually promiscuous single people,
children would soon be born to their unholy alliance, which fact would very likely lead them to marriage or to
discontinue their relationship. In either event, with a baby or babies on their hands, they would soon become “other-
oriented,” and new life would have come into the world, fulfilling at least the first part of God’s plan for the birth ad
rearing of children. But with artificial means of birth control being available, such sinners continue in their sin,
oftentimes during the complete child-bearing years of the woman (and beyond), such that they never have the
children God intended them to have, and they end up in middle and old age without a family to succor and support
them and with only a well-entrenched vice as the byproduct of their sin, a vice that will surely take them to Hell if
they do not renounce it with true repentance before they die.

Artificial birth control harms the married who practice it because the whole orientation of their marriage is shifted
from accepting God’s plan of love, self-sacrifice, babies, new people for society, new saints for Heaven, joy and
peace for the couple, a contented old age, and prosperity for society…to their own miserable plan of “wealth” and
“happiness” in this world, a piling up of luxuries and selfish pleasures and the very great risk of divorce. (After all,
those who use the privilege of marriage but avoid children are basically living for their own pleasures, and when
trouble arises in their marriage, as it does in almost all marriages, what is more logical to the self-indulgent than to
continue to seek their own pleasure by getting divorced? Are not the facts of the present divorce rate—one out of
two marriages here in the U.S.A.—proof of this claim?)
So bad is the sin of artificial birth control that God, in Old Testament times, slew Onan, the grandson of Jacob
and the son of Juda, for practicing this sin. Let us read this episode as recorded in Genesis:
“At that time Juda went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Odollamite, named Hiras. And he
saw there the daughter of a man of Chanaan, called Sue: and taking her to wife, he went in unto her. And she
conceived, and bore a son, and called his name Her. And conceiving again, she bore a son, and called him Onan.
She bore also a third: whom she called Sela. After whose birth, she ceased to bear any more. And Juda took a wife
for Her his firstborn, whose name was Thamar. And Her, the firstborn of Juda, was wicked in the sight of the Lord:
and was slain by him. Juda therefore said to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother’s wife and marry her, that thou
mayst raise seed to thy brother. He, knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother’s
wife, spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother’s name. And therefore the Lord
slew him, because he did a detestable thing.” –Genesis 38:1-10.
It is a common misconception among non-Catholics (and even among some Catholics) that the prohibition
against artificial birth control is a man-made Church REGULATION. The fact, however, is that artificial birth
control violates what is called in philosophy the “Natural Law,” that is, the law which God built into nature when He
created it, and which man’s mind can understand with his reason unaided by divine revelation. The Popes—Paul VI
in Human Life (Humanae Vitae), 1969 and Pius XI in Christian Marriage (Casti Canubii), 1930—have pointed out
this fact. The Catholic Church, in condemning artificial birth control, is simply upholding God’s law, the Natural
Law, as he incorporated it into the very nature of the things He created. It is extremely easy for the mind of man to
understand that God created sexual relations in such a manner that when naturally performed and culminated this
activity will produce babies (if one of the parties is not sterile) and that the purpose of this activity, as God created
it, is in fact to produce babies! It is very easy for our minds to comprehend that when we perform the procreative
act just to please ourselves and use some means to prevent the conception of a child (or its normal growth to term),
we are by this artificial birth control committing an unnatural act and thereby frustrating the plan which God created
for children to be born. We are going against God’s will, opposing our wills to His! (Artificial birth control is
analogous to the perverted practice of eating and then purposely disgorging the meal—thus seeking the pleasure, but
rejecting the purpose of the act.)
With birth control so common a practice today, it may not occur to the minds of those who practice this sin
that it is grievously (mortally) sinful in the eyes of God, but it is, as witnessed by God’s slaying Onan in the episode
from Genesis cited above.
The pharisaical, in regard to this episode from Genesis, argue that the Lord slew Onan because he would not
follow what is called the “Levirate law,” a strictly Hebrew custom (requiring a man to raise up children in his
brother’s name if his brother died childless) and not because he “spilled his seed upon the ground” (a primitive form
of birth control called coitus interruptus, or “withdrawal”) and because he thereby violated God’s law. The
foolishness of this opinion is obvious: Would God slay a human being for failure to follow a strictly Hebrew law of
custom? What kind of God would He be to behave in such a capricious manner? It is obvious that Onan was slain
for violating God’s law with regard to procreation; he was going through the motions of the procreative act, and yet
he was not cooperating in God’s plan for new people to be born, and therefore God slew him as an example to us.
It might well be asked, “Why is there only this one powerful condemnation of birth control in the Bible? Why
are there not other passages in Scripture as well?” The answer to this objection is threefold: First, how many people
does the Lord have to slay in order to get our attention and make us acknowledge the wrongfulness of this sin?
Second, how would there be a “test” for us in this life if God made the obvious ridiculous in regard to this sin by
killing many people who engage in this act. And third, the Bible does record other references to birth control, but
more in the form of abortion and infanticide, for the refined techniques of birth control available to modern man
were totally unknown in biblical times. Witness: “And it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of
God…for…they sacrifice their own children [infanticide]…so that now they neither keep life [abortion], nor
marriage undefiled.” (Wis. 14:22-24).

Abortion: Under the Fifth Commandment abortion-murder today is obviously a very common mortal sin. In the
United States it is estimated that just over one million 500 thousand children are killed by abortion-murder every
year. Worldwide, the figure is estimated at 25 million per year! Abortion-murder as it is practiced today flows
directly out of the birth control mentality and is really a heinous form of birth control. That abortion is a common
sin does not make it any the less serious for the persons committing it. That we call this sin “abortion” does not
make it any the less a case of murder, which is specifically forbidden by the Fifth Commandment: “Thou shalt not
kill!” (Exodus 20:13).

Tubal ligation and vasectomy: In the genre of birth control sins, tubal ligation and vasectomy for birth control
purposes are also mortal sins. These are not only mortal sins of artificial birth control (and therefore in violation of
the Sixth Commandment), but they are sins against the Fifth Commandment of God as well, which prohibits self-
mutilation.
(With regard to the Sixth Commandment in general and the whole issue of sexuality and chastity, it is God
who has provided us with the sexual faculty, and we are to utilize it only in the marital state. And only that use is
legitimate which is done in a natural manner that will allow the conception of children to result. Any other use of
the sexual faculty is a mortal sin, “materially speaking”; it is a mortal sin “formally speaking” if the person knows
in his heart or has been informed that it is a mortal sin.)
Adultery: Sexual relations between a man and a woman who are not man and wife, and at least one of whom is
married to someone else, is called adultery. This is the sin expressly forbidden by the Sixth Commandment. (By
implication, of course, the Commandment also covers all sins against purity as well.) The evil of adultery is that it
is a fundamental violation of the integrity of the marital relationship, is a grave act of injustice against one’s spouse,
jeopardizes the continuance of the family, leads to divorce, risks the birth of an illegitimate child, not infrequently
leads to murder, and generally perpetuates itself until some additional dire consequence finally occurs. To the
would-be adulterer the warning of Scripture surely fits: “He that troubleth his own house, shall inherit the winds.”
(Prov. 11:29). Further, adulterers have all the same problems as fornicators with regard to committing additional
sins to keep their relationship secret and to try to avoid the birth of children. (See below, under “Fornication.”)
Adultery is always a mortal sin because it is always a grievous offense against the Law of God. Nor can the
adulterer really plead ignorance of the Law as an excuse—if for no other reason than because he realizes all the
severe repercussions that will occur if the offended mate discovers the adultery.

Fornication: Sexual relations between a man and woman who are not married is called fornication. This sin too is
always mortal because it is a grievous offense against the law of God. Fornication without the additional sin of
artificial birth control will usually lead fairly soon to the birth of a child out of wedlock, a child whom the sinning
parents are usually not ready to receive. Children come into the world as helpless creatures, who for many years
need the constant care of the mother and the financial support of the father, not to mention the early religious
instruction and training in good character which are so necessary in a person’s childhood. The fornicator has not
thought this through, or if he has, he (or she) chooses to disregard these facts. But in our time, most people who
commit fornication resort either to artificial birth control to avoid children—which is a worse sin than the
fornication, because it is an unnatural act—or to abortion, which is a particularly heinous murder, as discussed
earlier. Thus, fornicators (like adulterers) compound their sins. They often become liars besides, to conceal what
they have done. And further, once this sin is committed, they generally continue to commit it, oftentimes with more
than one partner. The end of it all is some combination of sorrow over losing their virginity, a feeling of being
trapped, premature responsibilities, wounding their parents, the (at least partial) wasting of their lives, success and
fortunes, and terrible regrets—a high price to pay in this world for a certain ticket to Hell in the next—if one lets this
sin go unrepented.

Incest: Sexual relations between members of the same family is called incest. It is a particularly terrible type of
adultery or fornication because it involves the breach of a most sacred trust by a father, brother, uncle, etc. This sin
brings the child into intimate contact with moral corruption and takes away his or her most precious possessions,
innocence and virginity. Plus, it generally corrupts the child, causes tremendous psychological damage, and gravely
disorients him so that it is very difficult for him to come to proper maturity and an appreciation of chastity.
Furthermore, the entire family where incest is carried on becomes disrupted. Those who practice this sin or who are
tempted to it should recall Our Lord’s words: “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in
me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the
depth of the sea.” (Matt. 18:6). Of course God is infinitely merciful and can and will forgive any sin, including
incest, but one should avoid it if tempted and cease immediately if involved in it. For the spiritual debt (temporal
punishment) attendant to this sin will be very great.

Rape: Rape is sexual relations forced upon one person by another. Usually, this involves the natural form of sexual
activity, and it is always mortally sinful because it involves several grave matters. Rape is also a serious crime in
civil law, and a fairly common occurrence in our modern (now almost Godless) society. Usually, it involves a man
forcing his evil desires upon a woman. Younger men in particular must be on guard against this sin, which is the
byproduct of an unbridled nature in which impurity, self-will, violence and pride have overpowered right reason.
This sin is very often fueled by pornographic books, magazines, movies and videos, which everyone has an
obligation to avoid. But further, there even exists some rather well-known literature in which rape is mentioned and
almost extolled, because it demonstrates (misguidedly, of course) what would parade as the virtues of masculinity,
strength and decisiveness in our present social context where men have consistently been portrayed as weak and
simpering.
But the reality is that rape is particularly wicked because it does great moral violence to the offended person
and usually inflicts psychological damage that often lasts a lifetime. Plus, it often leads to physical injury and death
for the victim. Rape might well be called the ultimate impurity, for the rapist lets nothing stand in the way of his
determination to have satisfaction. Those tempted to this sin should realize that in the Old Testament, rape was
punishable by death, so serous is this sin and crime.
Anyone tempted tot his sin should realize that he has allowed himself to come to the brink of being totally out
of control of himself, and he should seek the counsel of a holy priest on how to channel and bring into submission
his sexual desires, for this dreadful sin—terribly grievous in itself—almost always leads very quickly to other
tragedy.

Concubinage or “living together”: People today often “live together” in a marital-type relationship with a friend of
the opposite sex. The slang expressions for this sin are “shacking up,” “living in,” “living together.” St. Paul calls it
“chambering.” “Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
impurities, not in contention and envy: But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh
and its concupiscences.” (Rom. 13:13-14, emphasis added).
Were it not for the common practice of artificial birth control, such “living in” or living together would be
called common-law marriage, for children would soon be the result of such relationships. But people today most
often do not think of these “live-in” relationships as permanent, and therefore they are merely the mortal sin of
fornication, usually with the added moral sins of birth control and/or abortion and scandal to compound the guilt.
Illicit sexual liaisons have been with man since the beginning of time, but they always have been mortally sinful,
and they still are.
Those tempted to engage in the sinful sexual relationship of “living together” should realize they will be
entering a moral quagmire, for soon many of the normal marital bonds develop in their relationship—physical,
emotional and financial ties form; habits and interdependences take root; the relationship solidifies, binding the two
people in some respects as though they were married and drastically weakening their ability to terminate their sinful
union. But still, the relationship is NOT marriage, and it is a scandal to others.
“Live-in” fornication and adultery, even when they ape marriage by carrying many of the trappings of
marriage, remain just that and will never be anything different in the eyes of God, whose law is being broken.
People who enter such a relationship are just kidding themselves if they think it is not sinful. “No fornicator, or
unclean, or covetous person (which is a serving of idols) hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”
(Eph. 5:5). Again, the passage on scandal: “And whoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in
me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” (Mark 9:41;
also, cf. Matt. 18:6 and Luke 17:2). (To scandalize is to do something wrong that is likely to induce someone else to
do something morally wrong. It is obvious that couples living together have caused widespread scandal to others,
for this sin is now pretty much accepted in society; whereas, it used to be recognized as the serious sin it is.)

Masturbation: Covered also under the Sixth Commandment, masturbation (the sin of impurity committed with
one’s own body) is one of the most common of mortal sins. Yet because this sin is very common, especially in
developing boys, many want to dismiss it as a venial sin at worst, and some would even say it is no sin at all.
Psychologists, for example, will claim that it is simply a normal part of growing up. However, the Church has
always taught that masturbation is gravely (mortally) sinful, and St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian in the
history of the Catholic Church, tells us that masturbation is an even worse mortal sin than fornication, because
masturbation is unnatural.

Homosexual acts: And if masturbation is worse than fornication because it is contrary to nature, then homosexual
acts are even worse yet, because they are a far worse perversion and involve a second party; they are in one sense
more difficult to overcome because there is a second party to tempt a person to sin again and again; and they steadily
contaminate more and more victims, as homosexuals spread their perversion to those not previously infected.

Impure thoughts and desires: Among sexual sins, a very common mortal sin is willfully taking pleasure in impure
thoughts and desires, that is, thoughts and desires of sexual actions other than those legitimate acts between one’s
self and one’s marriage partner. (Even these latter thoughts and desires are dangerous, because they could lead to
some kind of impure sexual act, alone or with another who is not one’s marriage partner.) With regard to impure
thoughts, we should always remember the warning of Our Lord: “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after
her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28). And with regard to married people’s
mentally dwelling upon the delights of their sexual activities, they should remember the advice of St. Paul: “That
they also who have wives, be as if they had none.” (I Cor. 7:29).
Immodesty in Dress: Anyone tempted to or engaging in immodesty of dress should ponder the following passages
of Scripture and consider how they relate to the sin of immodesty: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a
woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28). “Do not err: neither
fornicators . . . nor adulterers . . . shall possess the Kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
(Gen. 4:9). Modesty, especially in dress, is a virtue cultivated among Catholics knowledgeable in their faith because
of the teaching of the Church that to take pleasure in impure thoughts is a mortal sin. Despite the fact that the
current “Women’s Liberation Movement” (promoted so universally by the mass media) would seem to want to blur
the distinction between men and women, the Bible says, “And God created man to his own image: to the image of
God he created him: male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27, emphasis added). Now the male is by nature
the “aggressor,” so to speak, the initiator, the forward one, in the male-female relationship. And a man is amorously
attracted to a woman largely by sight in the initial stages; also, his initial sexual interest is triggered largely by
looking at a woman. If, therefore, a woman is immodestly dressed, a man’s amorous inclinations can quickly
develop into thoughts of lust, and therefore, women have an especially grave obligation to dress modestly. By
nature, a woman likes to adorn herself so that she is attractive, and it is this very fact that does attract men. But it is
sinful for a woman to dress immodestly and merely say to herself that men do not have to look at her if they are
going to be thinking evil thoughts. Of a given occasion a woman’s immodesty may not bother some men (for a
number of possible reasons), but in most cases, human nature being fallen as it is, the man will look at the woman’s
immodesty, and the woman’s immodesty WILL be a danger to his purity of thought. Therefore, women who dress
immodestly, or who are tempted to do so, should remember the murderer Cain’s taunting question to God, “Am I
my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9).
If a man’s willful impure thoughts toward a woman (“lusting after her”) is a mortal sin because he “hath
already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28), then what sort of sin does the immodest woman
commit who has been the occasion of these impure thoughts in a man by her immodesty, especially where it is
purposeful and willful? Is she not also a murderer of sorts—one who at least helps to kill the life of grace in the soul
of the man who lusts after her? The Church teaches that impure thoughts willfully taken pleasure in are mortal sins.
Therefore, for a woman purposefully to dress immodestly where she will be seen by men is, materially speaking, a
mortal sin, i.e.,, the deed itself is the matter of mortal sin. Of course, whether she actually commits a mortal sin
(formally), i.e.,, in her heart, will surely depend upon her level of realization about the serious problems to purity her
immodesty causes men. But surely too, God will to some degree at least hold her culpable for the impurity of
thought, desire and even action that she helps to cause, and very possibly she will be committing a mortal sin,
depending on the degree of her immodesty and the level of her awareness about the effects of her immodesty upon
men.
As there are some realities about the feminine nature that men will never fully understand—because they
never experience those things—so with impurity of thought in men induced by immodesty in women; it is
something women will never fully appreciate because it is not within the realm of their experience. Therefore,
women should take serious heed in this matter strictly on what they are told about it, because immodesty is
something God will hold women accountable for.
The crucial question in any discussion of modesty, of course, is what exactly constitutes modesty for women.
One can only speak in terms of general principles, and these will depend upon the occasion: whether it be normal
daily activity, sports, swimming, etc. In general, the principles are these: 1) That clothing should tend to conceal
rather than reveal; 2) that clothing should not be transparent; 3) that women’s legs should be covered at least to just
below the knees (this would apply in particular to normal daily activity); 4) that women should avoid sleeveless
dresses and blouses; 5) that sheer, tight clothing should be avoided altogether; 6) that under most circumstances a
woman should avoid wearing slacks and that when necessity may dictate their use that they should be loose-fitting
rather than tight-fitting; and 7) that the neckline should not be less than two fingers’ width below the pit of the
throat.
By contemporary standards, such norms will be ludicrous to most women because our secular society makes
immodesty in women a commonplace by the manufacture and promotion of immodest fashions. We must
remember, however, that we are speaking here about true morality—about God’s law and not man’s customs or
preferences. Yet if those parts of the female anatomy are to be covered and generally concealed which are most
suggestive to men, then these principles need to be followed. (These guidelines follow those laid down by the
Cardinal Vicar of Pope Pius XI in 1928.)
What about the beach, or sports or extremely hot weather. The general principles of modesty—especially
with regard to concealing rather than revealing—still apply. A woman will have to use common sense in these cases
and take some extra precautions, realizing she has a heavy responsibility in this regard. In hot weather a woman can
wear a dress that is loose, light and cool and yet is still modest. At sport she can be innovative in order to be
modest, depending on the activity. For the beach she can wear some type of pullover or cover-up garment save for
the time she is actually swimming. Choice of a swimming suit for women today is extremely important. Most
women’s bathing suits are grossly immodest—due to being too skimpy, too tight or too sheer. A woman may have
to make or provide her own combination that will be modest, but if that is what it takes to be modest she should do
so.
When women are at sport or at the beach, men need to prepare themselves in advance by not going there to
gawk, but they should realize they will be seeing women dressed for those occasions. If they cannot avoid
consenting to impure thoughts, they are duty-bound not to go to these places!
Lest this entire discussion of immodesty would appear to take no cognizance of immodesty in men and the
problems it can cause to women, a word needs to be said about the man’s obligations in this regard. Men should
avoid even partial nudity where women will be present. They too should avoid tight clothing, especially tight pants.
Men’s shirts should be buttoned at least to within one button of the neck, and men should avoid wearing “muscle
shirts” (undershirt style) and shirts that are tight and/or without sleeves.
People who wish to be moral in regard to modesty should realize that worldly fashions tend to take no
cognizance of modesty or morality in dress. Therefore, any reference to “fashion” when it comes to the morality of
modesty is simply futile. The norms for modesty must be Christian (Christlike) and based upon the reality of human
frailty, not upon what is a la mode with the fashion world. (Modern fashions are often so immodest that one could
well believe there is a conspiracy afoot to foster immodesty and therefore immorality.) The person who wants to
obey God’s law relative to modesty needs to realize that we all have a moral obligation with respect to our
neighbor’s purity of thought and therefore an obligation not to dress in any manner which would tend to lead him
into sin.

Prolonged kissing, etc.: Any actions which give venereal pleasure and/or arouse the sexual passions are mortal sins
for those who are not married and also for those who are who might engage in such activities with someone other
than their spouses. There are some actions which by their very nature tend to cause sexual arousal in the normal
person. These are always to be avoided. Some people are unusually sensitive; such people also need to avoid what
for them is the near occasion of sins of impurity, though the same thing might be no problem for most others.
Prolonged kisses and/or prolonged kissing is a mortal sin because it can easily arouse venereal pleasure and
the sexual passions, which in turn can lead a person to commit fornication or adultery. This is particularly true of
open-mouth kissing (sometimes called French kissing) wherein the participants touch tongues. This type of kissing
is definitely a forerunner to sexual relations and is a mortal sin for those not married to each other, even if it does not
of a given instance lead to intercourse. The same is true of fondling or petting, that is, caressing the sensitive parts
of the other person’s body. This too, is a preliminary to intercourse and is strictly forbidden to those not married to
each other. The same is true of prolonged embraces and embracing, even though this might appear to cause only a
very mild sexual-type pleasure and to be not very stimulating. Nonetheless, when done for more than a few seconds
(as occurs in a hug from one’s mother or father or a relative) it can lead to venereal pleasure and arousing of the
passions and/or to other sexual foreplay and is therefore a mortal sin.
Also, dancing while holding the other person in contact with one’s body is a mortal sin because it is nothing
other than prolonged, intimate embracing, but it also has the added stimulus of rhythm, music and motion. Some
may contend that it just gives them a “romantic feeling,” but such a “romantic feeling” can easily develop into
venereal pleasure; plus, what might be “romantic” to one of the dance partners may be a serious sin to the other.
Dancing per se is not sinful, but this type of dancing is. Here again, we should recall the warning of Scripture, “He
that loveth danger shall perish in it.” (Ecclesiasticuc 3:27).

Prolonged holding of hands could even be mortally sinful, depending on whether or not it arouses those who do it.
For a reasonably short period of time it is generally no sin at all, for most people, on most occasions. For some,
however, depending on their sensitivity and other factors, it may have to be avoided altogether. Here each person
will have to have the honesty to judge the matter for himself. Let us repeat, for the sake of absolute clarity, for most
people, on most occasions, there is no problem with holding hands for short periods of time, and the practice is
merely a common and morally acceptable sign of love or affection. But for some it can be an occasion of sin and
must be avoided; for others, it can sometimes be an occasion of sin and should therefore at that time be discontinued
or avoided.
The principle involved in all the actions mentioned above is that one must strictly avoid seeking or accepting
what is called “venereal pleasure,” i.e.,, sexual pleasure (usually connected with the touching ob bodies), which is
strictly reserved to those who are married to each other. For sexual foreplay carries these pleasures with it, and as
mentioned earlier, is essentially ordered to and in fact often leads to intercourse, which in its turn is essentially
ordered to and soon (under normal circumstances) results in the conception of a child. And only the married are
actually in a position to take on the responsibilities attendant to being parents. Sex, the Church maintains, and as
can be seen from common-sense reasoning, is really all one activity; the preliminary actions are not isolated from
the final act. Sexual activity is like a steep, slippery decline that leads swiftly to a sheer cliff, where the decline
represents sexual foreplay and the cliff sexual intercourse. If one intends to avoid the latter, he must avoid the
former. They are inexorably united.
Even if a person does not intend to engage in sexual intercourse, and even if he does not in fact engage in
sexual intercourse, he still commits a mortal sin when he willfully takes any step toward sexual intercourse by
engaging in any of the above-mentioned actions. Because sex is all one connected activity, to engage in any part of
it with someone other than one’s spouse is a mortal sin.
The immature, uninformed and naïve may think that the Catholic position regarding sexual foreplay is
Puritanical or prudish, but it is not. It is simply realistic. It is based upon an accurate understanding of God’s law
and of fallen human nature; the Catholic position comprehends what will almost certainly occur (if not right away,
then in time) to people who flirt with danger by engaging in any of the sexual foreplay mentioned above.
No one will deny that such things are pleasant. God so constituted us to enjoy them in order to insure the
propagation of the race, but He placed sex in the framework of love and marriage so that the immortal souls born to
a man and woman will have the mother and father they need to rear and educate them. The sinful participants in
such preliminary activities may think that they are not committing mortal sins and/or that they are not going to end
up having intercourse, but invariably it will happen.
Avoiding the near occasion of this type of sin is essential to avoiding the sins themselves. (Again, the “near
occasion of sin” is any person, place, thing or idea that is likely to lead one into sin.) Young couples in love have to
be particularly careful not to fall into such sins. Double dating, not being alone together for very long (especially in
a house or apartment), and avoiding in general all situations that can lead to these sins will help people avoid them.
Prayer, the Sacraments and mutual cooperation to avoid these sins are essential to those who are dating with the
serious intention of getting married, in order to help them be pure. To avoid sins of impurity, it is good not to have
too long an engagement time before marriage. And it is definitely best to terminate a relationship with a member of
the opposite sex when one is sure it will not lead to marriage.
The world does not see matters in this clear light but judges, rather, that all people have an inherent right to
sexual pleasure and to do whatever is necessary to avoid the conception and/or birth of children. Such attitudes are
exhibited openly in the movies and the mass media, but they are opposed to God’s law, and they lead those who
engage in promiscuous sexual activity to all manner of problems and profound unhappiness in this life and to the
eternal misery of Hell, if they should die with these sins unrepented on their souls. Sinners live under the grand
delusion that they can somehow fool God and avoid being penalized even in this life by the very sins they commit.
But hear what Scripture has to say on this score: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall
sow, those also shall he reap.” (Gal. 6:7-8). “But the wicked shall be punished according to their own devices: who
have neglected the just, and have revolted from the Lord.” (Wisdom 3:10).

Pornography: The reading or viewing of pornographic materials would constitute the near occasion to sins of
impurity and would therefore be in itself a mortal sin, since all sins of impurity are mortal sins if committed with
knowledge and full consent. Nor can we claim in favor of our actions that the book, magazine or movie has other
redeeming qualities that offset the pornographic part which is objectionable. For what possible redeeming quality
can there be to offset the eternal loss of one’s soul? And who can say that he will get past the indecent part of the
book, magazine or motion picture without being moved to sin, and/or as a result, without becoming habitually
corrupted? Again, even if one were able to avoid sins of impurity despite the near occasions of those sins that
pornography carries with it, what about others who might read or view the pornographic materials we own? If they
were to sin through viewing these materials, we would have contributed to their sin simply by our owning and
making available such things to them. Further, if we buy pornography, we are to that extent supporting the
pornographic publisher and thereby enabling him to that extent to subvert others as well.

The near occasion of mortal sin: any person, place, thing or thought that we know will easily lead us into mortal sin
must be avoided, lest in fact it does lead us to commit a mortal sin. The Catholic Church calls such extrinsic and
intrinsic situations which are likely to lead us to commit a sin the “near (or proximate) occasions of sin.” Because
mortal sin is absolutely the worst evil and because just one mortal sin is sufficient to condemn a person to Hell (if he
dies with it unrepented upon his soul), then for a person purposely to expose himself to the near occasion of any
mortal sin is itself a mortal sin! The only exception to these would be in case of a sufficiently grave necessity, e.g. a
male doctor examining or operating on a beautiful woman.
 Particularly common and extremely powerful and seductive are the ear occasions to sins of impurity. This
might be another person, a certain place, an immoral movie, a suggestive television program, an involuntary thought
that just “popped” into the mind, etc.—anything that might lead us to commit sins of impurity (which are always
mortal). But there are near occasions to other mortal sins as well. For example, for a person who often gambles to
excess, it could be going to the game or the track, or maybe even associating with someone who wants him to go
there. For the person prone to drunkenness, it might be the tavern or the night club where he likes to go with his
friends, or even just being with the friends themselves who like to go there with him and will tempt him to do so.
We must avoid the near occasion of mortal sin if we are to be honest with God and with ourselves—especially
if we have already fallen into certain mortal sins previously because a particular near occasion to those sins has led
us into them. (Of course, we are actually obligated to avoid the near occasions of venial sin as well as mortal sin,
but in this chapter we are concentrating on common mortal sins, that type of sin which will send us to Hell if we die
with it unrepented on our soul.)
We must acknowledge that we are weak and that prudent precautions are essential to avoiding sin. With
regard to the near occasion of mortal sin, we should keep ever before our minds the Scripture passages: “He that
loveth danger shall perish in it.” (Ecclesiaticus 3:27). And, “Pride goeth before destruction: and the spirit is lifted
up before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18). If we will remain humble and sufficiently distrustful of ourselves, such that we
sedulously avoid the near occasion of mortal sin, we shall have gone a great part of the way toward overcoming the
mortal sins we are prone to commit. And by taking these precautions, we show God that we are serious when we
ask for His forgiveness and promise to give up our sins.

Chosen articles from “Welcome to the Catholic Church” CD-ROM

Living a Christian Life Chapter 9: Marriage, Sexual Acts, And Family Life
Question E: What Sexual Acts Are Appropriate for Christians?
4. Sexual Thoughts Take Their Moral Character from Sexual Acts

4. Sexual Thoughts Take Their Moral Character from Sexual Acts

Sexual thoughts can refer to two diverse kinds of thing: (i) to memories, images, or perceptions
that lead to sexual arousal; (ii) to thoughts of specific sexual acts that provide objects for acts of the
will.
i) Intentional sexual arousal is an incomplete sexual act, which has the same moral significance as
the act that would complete it. Thus, intentionally to entertain any thought in order to cause or
28
maintain sexual arousal has the same moral significance as the act in which it would culminate.
Since the only good complete sexual act is marital intercourse, a choice to entertain thoughts tending
toward any other complete sexual act is wrong in the same way that act would be.

ii) Whether sexually arousing or not, thoughts of specific sexual acts can themselves become
objects of the will. It is good in itself, though it can be bad as an occasion of sin, to will any good
sexual act of which one thinks, for example, for anyone to approve the marital intercourse of a
honeymooning couple, for those who are engaged to wish they already were married and could engage
in marital intercourse, and so on. Similarly, to will any bad sexual act is a sin of thought of one or
another kind (see CMP, 15.G). Since one hardly is likely to choose any incomplete sexual act without
at least conditionally willing the complete act to which it would lead, a sin of thought of this kind
almost always is involved in any sinful incomplete sexual act. However, a sin of thought of this kind
can be committed without engaging in an incomplete sexual act. For example, without experiencing
any personal arousal or satisfaction, or even wishing for it, one can intentionally approve of someone
else's sexual sins.

28
This sentence gave me that strictness that all intentional sexual stimulation must not be excused for it is
the cause of tending to its completion. Completion can be achieved via sexual intercourse, but for me is
masturbation because I have no partner. Thus impure thinking is an incomplete masturbation already or incomplete
orgasm.
 (C)

Living a Christian Life Chapter 9: Marriage, Sexual Acts, And Family Life
Question E: What Sexual Acts Are Appropriate for Christians?
7. While Subjective Factors Can Mitigate Guilt, Sex Sins Remain Serious

7. While Subjective Factors Can Mitigate Guilt, Sex Sins Remain Serious
Since grave matter is not the only condition for mortal sin, not all sins intentionally violating the
marital good are mortal. Sufficient reflection and full consent also are necessary (see CMP, 15.C).
Therefore, even if one does something which of itself violates the marital good, it is possible that one
commits only a venial sin due to lack of full consent or sufficient reflection. But their frequent absence
should not be presumed, on the basis that it is hard to control sexual appetite. On the contrary, even
those enmeshed in quasi-compulsive sins of weakness should be presumed to be acting with sufficient
29
knowledge and freedom (see CMP, 17.E). And in examining one's own conscience, one must be
aware that, having judged a certain matter to be grave and simultaneously having chosen to do it, one
has committed a mortal sin, despite choosing reluctantly, being motivated by intense passion, and
hoping, even while sinning, for the grace of repentance.

Moreover, such a sin remains serious even when it is venial due to lack of sufficient reflection
and/or full consent. Though compatible with charity, like any venial sin, it still carries with it the evil
that makes sins of its kind grave: it still abuses the body and violates the marital good, still undermines
30
the Christian attitude toward the body and so weakens faith.
Eventually, too, this abuse and violation are very likely to lead to mortal sins. For example, those
who commit sexual sins of thought or incomplete acts, not realizing them to be grave matter, will
surely be tempted to commit complete acts of masturbation, fornication, sodomy, or adultery, and
almost surely will do so. Again, adolescents misled into thinking that isolated acts of masturbation are
not grave matter will surely be tempted, and almost certainly will sin again and again, until a habit of
yielding to unchaste desire is formed. This habit probably will lead at least to later heterosexual or
homosexual sex play, if not to fornication or sodomy. In very many cases, it also will manifest itself in
marriage: spouses not only will find it difficult to abstain when there is a reason to do so, but will
engage in marital intercourse with seriously mixed motives, so that its power to express and nurture
conjugal love will be greatly weakened. When marital difficulties arise, old habits of unchastity will
reassert themselves, leading to the practice of contraception, recurrent masturbation, the use of
pornography and fantasies of adultery, acts of adultery, and the marital instability and conflict which
all too often end with divorce.

(C)

Christian Moral Principles Chapter 17: Sufficient Reflection; Sins of Weakness

Question D: What three conditions define
quasi-compulsive sin of weakness?

1. First, although one who sins in this way confronts the same sort of temptation repeatedly, most
of the time he or she desires to avoid committing the sin. The reality of this will-not-to-sin is evidenced
by some real effort. For example, the sinner goes to confession, prays, tries to avoid the occasions of
sin, and in general takes steps to try to keep the temptation from arising.
2. This first condition is very important. By contrast, the sin will no longer be one of weakness if
the sinner decides, when in a normal state of mind, to abandon further efforts to resist the temptation.
So, for instance, a Catholic who deliberately adopts, reluctantly but more or less permanently, an

29
Thus as I’ve said I am responsible and should not be excused as incapable.
30
Even I qualify as a compulsive, my sin of masturbation is still a serious sin that I have to overcome.
alternative sexual lifestyle, knowing it to be excluded by the Church's constant and very firm teaching,
is no longer a sinner through weakness. Rather, the will to do what is recognized as morally wrong is
now constant.

3. Second, when the quasi-compulsive sinner through weakness experiences temptation, he or she
resists at first, knowing the matter is grave and consent ought not to be given. A choice is made not to
sin; there are efforts to distract attention by thinking about something else, by engaging in a suitable
activity, by praying, and so on. Yet emotion is powerful enough to frustrate these efforts; attention is
drawn back to the sinful possibility. In this way, the sinful possibility becomes fascinating.

4. This second condition not only makes it clear that the sin will be one of weakness but also
clearly separates it from sin of the third type (described in C), where the sinner is not so experienced in
struggling with and giving in to passion. The quasi-compulsive sinner has reached a kind of wavering
equilibrium between a good will and a sinful will. Good will rejects the sin most of the time, but bad
will gives in to it when passion is strong. Even when this sort of sinner falls into a cycle of great
regularity, which discourages resistance, the transition from good will to sin is more or less prolonged,
not sudden.

5. Third, this sort of sinner does not lose sight of the grave immorality of the possible act, as does
the second type of sinner (described in C) who is distracted by emotion from its serious wrongness.
Still, the possibilities proposed for choice do tend to become impoverished, until they might be
formulated as follows: Either I can continue to struggle (seemingly indefinitely, with no victory over
temptation in sight), or I can surrender to the temptation, do what is sinful now, but soon regain my
normal state of mind and repent. At this point, quasi-compulsive sinners often give in to temptation,
choosing to do the evil act which will satiate desire and still it. But they make their choice with the
provision that afterwards they will repent, not persist in sin.

6. This third condition is especially characteristic of quasi-compulsive sin. The sinner regretfully
takes a short break, as it were, from virtue, from the will to resist, and from God: "I'll be back soon,
Lord." The alternative to sinning seems very bleak: endless temptation. In many cases, furthermore,
and especially when the sin is in the sexual domain, the sinner is discouraged by the suspicion that a
sin of thought has already been committed. Thus, although the quasi-compulsive sinner freely
determines his or her self by a choice which is understood to be seriously wrong, such a person also
and at the same time truly chooses to make a contrary choice--namely, to repent soon after the sin is
committed. Moreover, the sinner perhaps chooses to sin now as much to escape the torment of
temptation as to enjoy the satisfaction of the sinful act.

7. It is important to notice that quasi-compulsive sins of weakness, as defined by the preceding

three conditions, still admit of considerable variety. Although they are motivated mainly by desire, one
might also think of examples of such sins motivated by other emotions, such as hostility. As for the
desires which lead to quasi-compulsive sins of weakness, often they are sexual, but desires for food,
alcohol, and other drugs can also motivate sins according to this pattern.

8. Sometimes people commit sins of passion at regular intervals without any real effort to resist
desire when it arises. Though they may make some gesture of repentance each time, they are not quasi-
compulsive sinners through weakness, for they have no real purpose of amendment. Some persons who
behave in this way probably do not commit mortal sins, even though what they do involves grave
matter. Either they lack the maturity of conscience to grasp in a minimally adequate way the gravity of
what they choose; or they really do act compulsively, without free choice; or, while aware that what
they choose is evil in some sense, they no longer realize at the time of choice that it is contrary to
moral truth. If their guilt is not genuine but is only a sense of violation of superego and social
convention, their gestures of repentance might be adequate even though they have no genuine purpose
of amendment.

Appendix 1 considers mitigating factors in moral consciousness. Many such factors can be at work
in the case of the quasi-compulsive sinner through weakness.
 For example, the adolescent boy may only slightly grasp the moral foundation of his own act of
faith, and may perceive the mortal sin of masturbation almost entirely in terms of a risk of punishment
and an obligation to go to confession; his conscience with respect to the guilt involved might largely
consist in superego guilt and self-disgust for failure to keep the rules of the Church. Moreover, his
surrender to temptation might be followed almost instantly by the execution of the choice and remorse.

By contrast, a mature person striving to overcome alcoholism might understand very well the
intrinsic evil of self-destructive drinking and have a good insight into its sinfulness. His or her
surrender to temptation might require intermediate thought and action--for example, a trip to a liquor
store--and might lead to a more or less extended period of insobriety.
Quasi-compulsive sins of weakness often are said to be "habits of sin." To the extent that this
expression suggests regularity in pattern, it is correct. However, it can be misleading in two ways.
First, classical theology would have considered a sin habitual only if one were resigned to it and
committed it regularly without resisting the temptation. One who is an habitual sinner in this sense is in
much worse moral and spiritual condition than the quasi-compulsive sinner, other things being equal.
Second, the modern psychological notion of habit primarily applies to acts done without a definite
choice in each instance. The quasi-compulsive sinner does make a choice. Therefore, much of the
psychology of habit is irrelevant to his or her situation.*4

(C)

Christian Moral Principles Chapter 17: Sufficient Reflection; Sins of Weakness

Question F: Can the quasi-compulsive sinner through
weakness simply stop sinning?31

1. The answer with respect to all sins involving grave matter must be "Yes." Otherwise, we would
be faced with the absurdity of a mortal sin (which implies freedom and responsibility) which is simply
inevitable (which excludes freedom and responsibility). Two things must be kept in mind to
understand this point.
2. First, although quasi-compulsive sinners really do choose to do what they recognize to be grave
matter, still, as was explained, someone might seem to commit such a sin yet not actually do so. In the
concrete it is often difficult and sometimes impossible, even for the sinner, to know whether the
conditions for mortal sin have been met. One cannot tell whether apparent quasi-compulsive sinners
who continue sinning are doing all they can. Especially if effort is intensified and some progress made,
there is some reason to suspect that the apparent quasi-compulsive sinner is guilty only of venial sin.

3. Second, no sinner can simply stop sinning through his or her unaided power. In our fallen
condition, without grace we could not help making free choices which would be mortally sinful;
alienated from God, we cannot enjoy even that fulfillment which is naturally suited to us. However,
God's grace is sufficient that those united to Jesus and enjoying the gift of his Spirit can certainly
choose to resist every temptation to mortal sin (see S.t., 1-2, q. 109, aa. 8-9).

Catholic teaching concerning the sufficiency of grace becomes clearer if one recalls that the
Christian lives by the Spirit. To be adopted as a child of God truly transforms one inwardly; one has
the power of the Spirit by which to live a life worthy of a member of God's family. "No one born of
God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God" (1 Jn
3.9).*8
4. Scripture teaches: "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Cor 12.9). God does not demand the
impossible (see Mt 11.30; 1 Jn 5.3). Those who are children of God love his Son; those who love him
can keep his commandments (see Jn 14.23). God provides both the desire to do his will and the very
free act by which one does it (see Phil 2.13).

31
The answer that I can simply stop could have been untrue but in time became true. Thus the answer that
I can is an objective motivator that it can really be achieved, if not today then in time.
 5. The Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine, insist very clearly and firmly that God
gives sufficient grace. "A man, helped by God, can, if he will, be without sin" (FEF 1720). "God,
therefore, does not command what is impossible, but in commanding he also admonishes you to do
what you are able, and to ask his help for what you are unable to do" (FEF 1795). Even the most
hardened sinner is offered help enough to repent, if only the grace is accepted (see FEF 2097, 2232). A
fortiori, grace must be sufficient for one who only sins through weakness.

6. The Council of Trent teaches definitively that sufficient grace is given so that mortal sin can be
avoided altogether and God's commandments can truly be fulfilled (see DS 1536/804, 1568/828). To
assert that someone who repeatedly commits mortal sins cannot respond to God's grace and simply
stop committing them, given willingness to stop, is to deny a defined truth of faith.
7. Behavior which would be gravely sinful if freely chosen but is not gravely sinful because not
freely chosen with adequate understanding of its gravity may be inevitable in Christian life. Even the
upright person commits at least some venial sins which are not fully deliberate. From the very
beginning of a person's life in Jesus, however, and no matter what remnants of the fallen condition of
humankind or one's own past sin might remain, mortal sin is altogether avoidable.

It is useful to reflect upon the question: What is the place of sin, especially sin of weakness, in
Christian life?
Every sort of mystique of sin must be avoided. Sin has no place in Christian life, as if mortal sin
were in any way a necessary or appropriate experience or phase of development. There is never a time
when it is at all suitable or in any way good for one who has been adopted as a child of God to be
alienated from him. Moreover, the psychospiritual value of common experiences of sinners should not
be overestimated. The intense experiences of guilt and forgiveness of those who commit quasi-
compulsive sins of weakness are not in themselves conducive to the development of a genuine spiritual
life. The intensity of these experiences is connected far more with the guilt of superego and social
conformity than with an awareness--which is much more conceptual than emotional--of the real guilt
which consists in the state of sin itself.

Given these cautions, a sound principle for this reflection can be stated: God permits evil only
because he can bring good out of it. Hence, even serious sin in Christian life is an occasion of some
great good, often including a good to be realized in the sinner's own life (see S.t., 1-2, q. 79, a. 4).
A true understanding of the guilt of sin serves as a point of departure for a more grateful and
deeper love of God, just as the love of lovers reconciled after a quarrel often is deeper than before. A
correct understanding of the reality of quasi-compulsive sin of weakness leads directly to genuine
humility. One knows that one cannot stop sinning by oneself but certainly can with God's grace, and
one therefore seeks and accepts this grace. The first principle of Alcoholics Anonymous is precisely
this: I realize my life is out of control and that I need the help of a higher power.

If there were no temptation to sins of weakness, many people would lack the occasion to develop
beyond the levels of superego and social convention, to think seriously about what it means to live a
Christian life, and to undertake to organize life in the form of personal vocational commitment. The
occurrence of the temptation, even though it sometimes is consented to, thus provides an important
opportunity for growth in the Christian life. Certainly, no quasi-compulsive sinner through weakness is
likely to achieve a real and lasting victory over such sin, without also being helped to develop a more
mature conscience and to undertake the responsibilities of Christian life at a deeper level.

Those who try to make the living of the Christian life less burdensome by denying the grave
sinfulness of many sexual sins are making a serious mistake. The person committing sexual sins freely,
even without subjective guilt, is left at a rather infantile level of Christian existence. Such a person
never will grow up spiritually, as must one who faces these sins for what they are and wins victory
over them. Moreover, the sinfulness of these acts is not eliminated by its denial. Even people following
such opinions in good faith experience in their spiritual lives many ill effects.

These effects probably account in part for the fact that these acts are recognized as grave sins. For
instance, sexual sins committed mainly for pleasure and relief of tension involve introducing and
constantly reinforcing a split between one's conscious self (which feels tension and pleasure) and one's
body (which is an object used for self-gratification). This dualism of self and body is false and it leads
to false beliefs and attitudes with respect to spiritual reality. For the dualist, spiritual reality either is
reduced to unreality, as objects and experience divide the real, or spiritual reality is separated from the
bodily and regarded as a higher and purer realm. This latter view is incompatible with the Incarnation
and so is radically anti-Christian.

God could have redeemed us without human cooperation. He also could have done so by the life,
death, and glorification of Jesus without our cooperation. He chose, however, not to redeem us without
us, evidently in order to allow us to share in the nobility of his redemptive work. This work is no less
noble when we begin where we must, with ourselves. As Vatican II teaches: "Christ obeyed even at the
cost of death, and was therefore raised up by the Father (cf. Phil 2.8-9). Thus he entered into the glory
of his kingdom. To him all things are made subject until he subjects himself and all created things to
the Father, that God may be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15.27-28). Now, Christ has communicated this power
of subjection to his disciples that they might be established in royal freedom and that by self-denial and
a holy life they might conquer the reign of sin in themelves (cf. Rom 6.12). Further, he shared this
power so that by serving him in their fellow men they might through humility and patience lead their
brother men to that king whom to serve is to reign" (LG 36).

Healed by contrition and reparation, the wounds of sin can be important powers of love and
service, powers one would not wish to be without, however strongly one hates the sins whose
commission occasioned their acquisition. United with our sinless Lord Jesus and with the sinners he
calls us to help him save, we hope one day to stand in the Father's presence and say: Thank you,
Father, for allowing us to share in your work of redemption. And to Jesus each of us should hope to
say: Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to share in your work of my redemption.

(C)

Christian Moral Principles Chapter 17: Sufficient Reflection; Sins of Weakness

Appendix 2: The gravity of quasi-compulsive sins of weakness

There appear to be only three important lines of argument against the conclusion reached in
question E, that sins of weakness in grave matter of the third and fourth kinds always are mortal.
First, it can be argued that when sins of weakness and the need to struggle against them are
considered in Scripture, in traditional pastoral practice, and in the recent teaching of the magisterium,
the main point is to insist upon the necessity of the struggle and the inescapably grave guilt involved if
one surrenders entirely--for example, refuses even during sober periods to seek help to overcome
alcoholism. The question of the guilt of the sinner fighting the good fight but not yet winning is not
directly confronted. Therefore, the argument concludes, nothing in these sources really shows that sins
of weakness of the fourth type always are mortal sins. Sinners have been allowed to think of them as
such, since this belief has helped them in their struggle, but the theoretical question remains open.

But this line of argument implies that past pastoral practice was based either on a mistake or on
deception. Neither is acceptable. The faithful were told that the choice to do certain things, even
under the pressure of strong emotion, is a mortal sin. (emphasis mine) The inability of the Church
as a whole to mistake God's mind and will, the certitude that what is bound on earth also is bound in
heaven--this excludes mistake in a matter of this sort. A fortiori, deception is excluded; pastoral
practice in the whole Church cannot have involved a noble lie told for the spiritual welfare of the
faithful.

If surrender to such temptations in some circumstances were not mortal sin, Christian teaching
could easily have made this fact clear, and Christians could have been reassured that consistent
faithfulness during normal states of mind is sufficient for salvation. Such reassurance would remove
much of the fear and trembling, much of the subjective concern, from Christian life. But the contrary
of such reassurance seems to be given (see Lk 9.23; 13.24; 1 Cor 9.27; Phil 2.12; 3.12-16). Anxiety
concerning salvation is opposed not by any such reassurance but rather by the assurance of hope: Since
God is faithful, the seemingly impossible demands of Christian life can be met by human persons,
weak in themselves but strong by the all-powerful Spirit (see Jn 14.10-18; 15.1-8; Rom 8.14-17).

A second line of argument arises from reflection upon pastoral experience in the light of modern
thinking about the limits of human freedom and responsibility. Many quasi-compulsive sinners go
through the cycle of sin and repentance time and again, sometimes in a very regular pattern through
many years. Sound and pastorally experienced moral theologians have doubted for a long time that
such sinners really are alternating repeatedly between mortal sin and grace. Even fairly soon after
considering the statement of Pius XII, quoted in question E, they tended to exclude the likelihood of
grave guilt in at least some cases of quasi-compulsive sin of weakness.*9

The answer to this line of argument is threefold.

In the first place, modern thinking about the limits of freedom and responsibility does help us see
that many acts involving grave matter do not involve sufficient reflection and a definite choice. But no
psychological insight shows in the least that when one really does know--at the level of moral truth,
not merely superego and social convention--that a matter is grave and when one really does choose to
do it, one is not really determining oneself inconsistently with charity. Many theologians apparently
confused two very different questions: (1) whether the usual conditions for mortal sin are met; (2)
whether these conditions are sufficient for mortal sin. Psychology and experience can throw light on
the first question but not the second.

Furthermore, some apparent quasi-compulsive sinners through weakness might not be committing
repeated mortal sins, for the conditions might well not in fact be met, even if the sinners themselves
think they are committing mortal sins. Others might not really be sinners through weakness; perhaps
they have abandoned a serious struggle against sin, and carry out a pretense of struggle, putting up
token resistance to temptation only to satisfy superego and social convention. Pastoral intuitions could
reflect these facts without accurately interpreting them. Pastoral intuitions also could be mistaken.
How can anyone know that a person cannot sin mortally and repent sincerely on a regular basis for
years? Analogies with other interpersonal relationships do not necessarily hold for one's relationship
with God, since in other relationships one can be endlessly ambivalent without being insincere,
whereas the relationship with God is susceptible to only limited ambivalence.*10

Finally, perhaps some whose pastoral intuitions suggest to them that quasi-compulsive sinners
through weakness cannot be guilty of grave sin are misled by a false assumption concerning the
frustration experienced both by such sinners and by confessors committed to helping them. The false
assumption is that the frustration is a sign of impossibility, and the impossibility a sign that the sin
cannot be mortal. However, failure and frustration need not signify impossibility; perhaps they
signify inadequately directed effort. (emphasis mine)

A third line of argument against the conclusion reached above is as follows. As has been explained
(16-G), the gravity of an act depends upon its inconsistency with specific implications of one's act of
faith. However, it is not easy to see how certain quasi-compulsive sins of weakness, committed as
such, interfere with the life of the Church or with the carrying out of one's Christian duties. A plausible
argument can be made that any sexual sin, accepted as an integral part of one's lifestyle, will have an
impact incompatible with implications of faith. But, it might be suggested, at least certain quasi-
compulsive sins of weakness, when specified to be the kinds of acts described in question D, should be
considered light matter.

In considering this suggestion, one wonders what would happen if the Church were to teach that
the specific kind of act chosen in a quasi-compulsive sin of weakness is light matter--for example, that
when the act of fornication was chosen as fornication now to end temptation with repentance
immediately afterwards it is not the matter of grave sin. One suspects this act would become very
attractive, but many who tried to commit it would not in fact meet the conditions of quasi-compulsive
sin of weakness.
 Beyond this, there is an intrinsic reason why such acts should not be considered light matter. As
has often been pointed out, classical modern moral theology was too interested in isolated acts and
insufficiently aware of the profound dynamisms of moral life. If acts are considered in their context,
one can more easily see why acts gravely wrong in kind must remain so even if they are chosen as
quasi-compulsive sins of weakness.
The person who freely commits sexual sins in adolescence also phantasizes other sins, later
continues to indulge such phantasy and begins to carry it out, approaches adulthood with adolescent
attitudes toward sexuality, and never learns how to integrate sexual activity in sincere self-giving. The
sexual sins of adults cannot be isolated from the sexual struggle of the adolescent, for the more
obviously evil sexual sins of adulthood are an outgrowth of an inadequate or abandoned moral effort at
an earlier stage. Thus, one must either maintain the entire traditional norm or accept its entire
reversal; the dynamic unity of sexual life permits no middle position. (emphasis mine)

(C)

Christian Moral Principles Chapter 17: Sufficient Reflection; Sins of Weakness

Question E: Are all sins of weakness which meet the usual
conditions for mortal sin in fact mortal sins?

15. Similarly, purpose of amendment is not a matter of speculation. One must simply decide to stop
sinning. To decide this, one must believe it possible. Future sin must not be accepted as likely, for this
would be to suppose that grace is insufficient or sin not a matter of free choice. Still a discouraged
individual may not be able to help feeling that future sin is likely, while nevertheless having a genuine
purpose of amendment. This, once more, is shown by readiness to do what is possible to deal with the
occasions of sin.

Even if there is some grasp upon moral truth, the mentality of apparent quasi-compulsive sinners
through weakness at least involves inadequately integrated elements of superego and social
convention. These are essential underlying assumptions in the proposition: I can sin now and repent
shortly. This state of mind is not one of presumption contrary to the virtue of hope; as St. Thomas
already pointed out, it is characteristic of sin of weakness and mitigates it (see S.t., 2-2, q. 21, a. 2, ad
3).

However, to sin with an intention to repent is to gamble, and to gamble with right and wrong is to
suppose that evil is a naughty deed one can repair by accepting one's spanking, or a breaking of rules
one can make good by following relevant rules. Quasi-compulsive sinners through weakness must
learn what mortal sin really is. Then they will see how inappropriate are their attitudes toward it. This
growth in insight will open the way to instruction about the larger realities of Christian life: To
overcome sin one must pursue holiness; to pursue holiness one must discern one's personal vocation
and commit oneself to it.

This growth in insight also is necessary if the sinner through weakness is to clarify his or her own
mind concerning the sinful acts. It is important to understand the intrinsic point of the Christian norm,
and the inherent meaning of its sinful violation. Moreover, most people have only a vague notion of
what the conditions for mortal sin mean, and instruction on this score probably will not be grasped
until it becomes personally relevant. However, when a person of sufficient age and intelligence realizes
the need for it, he or she can come to understand what it means to reflect sufficiently and consent fully.
In learning this, one learns more clearly what freedom and moral responsibility are.

(C)
 Chosen Article: PERSONA HUMANA

DECLARATION ON CERTAIN QUESTIONS

CONCERNING SEXUAL ETHICS

According to contemporary scientific research, the human person is so profoundly affected by

sexuality that it must be considered as one of the factors which give to each individual's life the
principal traits that distinguish it. In fact it is from sex that the human person receives the
characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a
man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her progress towards maturity and
insertion into society. Hence sexual matters, as is obvious to everyone, today constitute a theme
frequently and openly dealt with in books, reviews, magazines and other means of social
communication.

In the present period, the corruption of morals has increased, and one of the most serious
indications of this corruption is the unbridled exaltation of sex. Moreover, through the means of
social communication and through public entertainment this corruption has reached the point of
invading the field of education and of infecting the general mentality.

In this context certain educators, teachers and moralists have been able to contribute to a better
understanding and integration into life of the values proper to each of the sexes; on the other
hand there are those who have put forward concepts and modes of behavior which are contrary to
the true moral exigencies of the human person. Some members of the latter group have even
gone so far as to favor a licentious hedonism.

As a result, in the course of a few years, teachings, moral criteria and modes of living hitherto
faithfully preserved have been very much unsettled, even among Christians. There are many
people today who, being confronted with widespread opinions opposed to the teaching which
they received from the Church, have come to wonder what must still hold as true.

II

The Church cannot remain indifferent to this confusion of minds and relaxation of morals. It is a
question, in fact, of a matter which is of the utmost importance both for the personal lives of
Christians and for the social life of our time.[1]

The Bishops are daily led to note the growing difficulties experienced by the faithful in obtaining
knowledge of wholesome moral teaching, especially in sexual matters, and of the growing
difficulties experienced by pastors in expounding this teaching effectively. The Bishops know
that by their pastoral charge they are called upon to meet the needs of their faithful in this very
serious matter, and important documents dealing with it have already been published by some of
them or by episcopal conferences. Nevertheless, since the erroneous opinions and resulting
deviations are continuing to spread everywhere, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, by virtue of its function in the universal Church[2] and by a mandate of the Supreme
Pontiff, has judged it necessary to publish the present Declaration.

III

The people of our time are more and more convinced that the human person's dignity and
vocation demand that they should discover, by the light of their own intelligence, the values
innate in their nature, that they should ceaselessly develop these values and realize them in their
lives, in order to achieve an ever greater development.

In moral matters man cannot make value judgments according to his personal whim: "In the
depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose on himself, but which
holds him to obedience. . . . For man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very
dignity of man; according to it he will be judged."[3]

Moreover, through His revelation God has made known to us Christians His plan of salvation,
and He has held up to us Christ, the Savior and Sanctifier, in His teaching and example, as the
supreme and immutable Law of life: "I am the light of the world; anyone who follows Me will
not be walking in the dark, he will have the light of life."[4]

Therefore there can be no true promotion of man's dignity unless the essential order of his nature
is respected. Of course, in the history of civilization many of the concrete conditions and needs
of human life have changed and will continue to change. But all evolution of morals and every
type of life must be kept within the limits imposed by the immutable principles based upon every
human person's constitutive elements and essential relations - elements and relations which
transcend historical contingency.

These fundamental principles, which can be grasped by reason, are contained in "the Divine Law
- eternal, objective and universal - whereby God orders, directs and governs the entire universe
and all the ways of the human community, by a plan conceived in wisdom and love. Man has
been made by God to participate in this law, with the result that, under the gentle disposition of
Divine Providence, he can come to perceive ever increasingly the unchanging truth."[5] This
Divine Law is accessible to our minds.

IV

Hence, those many people are in error who today assert that one can find neither in human nature
nor in the revealed law any absolute and immutable norm to serve for particular actions other
than the one which expresses itself in the general law of charity and respect for human dignity.
As a proof of their assertion they put forward the view that so-called norms of the natural law or
precepts of Sacred Scripture are to be regarded only as given expressions of a form of particular
culture at a certain moment of history.

But in fact, Divine Revelation and, in its own proper order, philosophical wisdom, emphasize the
authentic exigencies of human nature. They thereby necessarily manifest the existence of
immutable laws inscribed in the constitutive elements of human nature and which are revealed to
be identical in all beings endowed with reason.

Furthermore, Christ instituted His Church as "the pillar and bulwark of truth."[6] With the Holy
Spirit's assistance, she ceaselessly preserves and transmits without error the truths of the moral
order, and she authentically interprets not only the revealed positive law but "also . . . those
principles of the moral order which have their origin in human nature itself"[7] and which
concern man's full development and sanctification. Now in fact the Church throughout her
history has always considered a certain number of precepts of the natural law as having an
absolute and immutable value, and in their transgression she has seen a contradiction of the
teaching and spirit of the Gospel.

Since sexual ethics concern fundamental values of human and Christian life, this general
teaching equally applies to sexual ethics. In this domain there exist principles and norms which
the Church has always unhesitatingly transmitted as part of her teaching, however much the
opinions and morals of the world may have been opposed to them. These principles and norms in
no way owe their origin to a certain type of culture, but rather to knowledge of the Divine Law
and of human nature. They therefore cannot be considered as having become out of date or
doubtful under the pretext that a new cultural situation has arisen.

It is these principles which inspired the exhortations and directives given by the Second Vatican
Council for an education and an organization of social life taking account of the equal dignity of
man and woman while respecting their difference.[8]

Speaking of "the sexual nature of man and the human faculty of procreation," the Council noted
that they "wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life."[9] It then took particular
care to expound the principles and criteria which concern human sexuality in marriage, and
which are based upon the finality of the specific function of sexuality.

In this regard the Council declares that the moral goodness of the acts proper to conjugal life,
acts which are ordered according to true human dignity, "does not depend solely on sincere
intentions or on an evaluation of motives. It must be determined by objective standards. These,
based on the nature of the human person and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-
giving and human procreation in the context of true love."[10]

These final words briefly sum up the Council's teaching - more fully expounded in an earlier part
of the same Constitution[11] - on the finality of the sexual act and on the principal criterion of its
morality: it is respect for its finality that ensures the moral goodness of this act.

This same principle, which the Church holds from Divine Revelation and from her authentic
interpretation of the natural law, is also the basis of her traditional doctrine, which states that the
use of the sexual function has its true meaning and moral rectitude only in true marriage.[12]

VI
It is not the purpose of the present Declaration to deal with all the abuses of the sexual faculty,
nor with all the elements involved in the practice of chastity. Its object is rather to repeat the
Church's doctrine on certain particular points, in view of the urgent need to oppose serious errors
and widespread aberrant modes of behavior.

VII

Today there are many who vindicate the right to sexual union before marriage, at least in those
cases where a firm intention to marry and an affection which is already in some way conjugal in
the psychology of the subjects require this completion, which they judge to be connatural. This is
especially the case when the celebration of the marriage is impeded by circumstances or when
this intimate relationship seems necessary in order for love to be preserved.

This opinion is contrary to Christian doctrine, which states that every genital act must be within
the framework of marriage. However firm the intention of those who practice such premature
sexual relations may be, the fact remains that these relations cannot ensure, in sincerity and
fidelity, the interpersonal relationship between a man and a woman, nor especially can they
protect this relationship from whims and caprices. Now it is a stable union that Jesus willed, and
He restored its original requirement, beginning with the sexual difference. "Have you not read
that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female and that He said: This is why a
man must leave father and mother, and cling to his wife, and the two become one body? They are
no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide."[13]
St. Paul will be even more explicit when he shows that if unmarried people or widows cannot
live chastely they have no other alternative than the stable union of marriage: ". . .it is better to
marry than to be aflame with passion."[14] Through marriage, in fact, the love of married people
is taken up into that love which Christ irrevocably has for the Church,[15] while dissolute sexual
union[16] defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit which the Christian has become. Sexual union
therefore is only legitimate if a definitive community of life has been established between the
man and the woman.

This is what the Church has always understood and taught,[17] and she finds a profound
agreement with her doctrine in men's reflection and in the lessons of history.

Experience teaches us that love must find its safeguard in the stability of marriage, if sexual
intercourse is truly to respond to the requirements of its own finality and to those of human
dignity. These requirements call for a conjugal contract sanctioned and guaranteed by society - a
contract which establishes a state of life of capital importance both for the exclusive union of the
man and the woman and for the good of their family and of the human community. Most often,
in fact, premarital relations exclude the possibility of children. What is represented to be
conjugal love is not able, as it absolutely should be, to develop into paternal and maternal love.
Or, if it does happen to do so, this will be to the detriment of the children, who will be deprived
of the stable environment in which they ought to develop in order to find in it the way and the
means of their insertion into society as a whole.

The consent given by people who wish to be united in marriage must therefore be manifested
externally and in a manner which makes it valid in the eyes of society. As far as the faithful are
concerned, their consent to the setting up of a community of conjugal life must be expressed
according to the laws of the Church. It is a consent which makes their marriage a Sacrament of
Christ.

VIII

At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological
order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations
between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium
and to the moral sense of the Christian people.

A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency
comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad
example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and
homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological
constitution judged to be incurable.

In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so
natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and
love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary
life.

In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and
sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into
society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed
which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant
with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual
relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are
condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting
God.[18] This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who
suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that
homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.

IX

The traditional Catholic doctrine that masturbation constitutes a grave moral disorder is often
called into doubt or expressly denied today. It is said that psychology and sociology show that it
is a normal phenomenon of sexual development, especially among the young. It is stated that
there is real and serious fault only in the measure that the subject deliberately indulges in solitary
pleasure closed in on self ("ipsation"), because in this case the act would indeed be radically
opposed to the loving communion between persons of different sex which some hold is what is
principally sought in the use of the sexual faculty.

This opinion is contradictory to the teaching and pastoral practice of the Catholic Church.
Whatever the force of certain arguments of a biological and philosophical nature, which have
sometimes been used by theologians, in fact both the Magisterium of the Church - in the course
of a constant tradition - and the moral sense of the faithful have declared without hesitation that
masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act.[19] The main reason is that,
whatever the motive for acting this way, the deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal
conjugal relations essentially contradicts the finality of the faculty. For it lacks the sexual
relationship called for by the moral order, namely the relationship which realizes "the full sense
of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love."[20] All deliberate
exercise of sexuality must be reserved to this regular relationship. Even if it cannot be proved
that Scripture condemns this sin by name, the tradition of the Church has rightly understood it to
be condemned in the New Testament when the latter speaks of "impurity," "unchasteness" and
other vices contrary to chastity and continence.

Sociological surveys are able to show the frequency of this disorder according to the places,
populations or circumstances studied. In this way facts are discovered, but facts do not constitute
a criterion for judging the moral value of human acts.[21] The frequency of the phenomenon in
question is certainly to be linked with man's innate weakness following original sin; but it is also
to be linked with the loss of a sense of God, with the corruption of morals engendered by the
commercialization of vice, with the unrestrained licentiousness of so many public entertainments
and publications, as well as with the neglect of modesty, which is the guardian of chastity.

On the subject of masturbation modern psychology provides much valid and useful information
for formulating a more equitable judgment on moral responsibility and for orienting pastoral
action. Psychology helps one to see how the immaturity of adolescence (which can sometimes
persist after that age), psychological imbalance or habit can influence behavior, diminishing the
deliberate character of the act and bringing about a situation whereby subjectively there may not
always be serious fault. But in general, the absence of serious responsibility must not be
presumed; this would be to misunderstand people's moral capacity.

In the pastoral ministry, in order to form an adequate judgment in concrete cases, the habitual
behavior of people will be considered in its totality, not only with regard to the individual's
practice of charity and of justice but also with regard to the individual's care in observing the
particular precepts of chastity. In particular, one will have to examine whether the individual is
using the necessary means, both natural and supernatural, which Christian asceticism from its
long experience recommends for overcoming the passions and progressing in virtue.

The observance of the moral law in the field of sexuality and the practice of chastity have been
considerably endangered, especially among less fervent Christians, by the current tendency to
minimize as far as possible, when not denying outright, the reality of grave sin, at least in
people's actual lives.

There are those who go as far as to affirm that mortal sin, which causes separation from God,
only exists in the formal refusal directly opposed to God's call, or in that selfishness which
completely and deliberately closes itself to the love of neighbor. They say that it is only then that
there comes into play the fundamental option, that is to say the decision which totally commits
the person and which is necessary if mortal sin is to exist; by this option the person, from the
depths of the personality, takes up or ratifies a fundamental attitude towards God or people. On
the contrary, so-called "peripheral" actions (which, it is said, usually do not involve decisive
choice), do not go so far as to change the fundamental option, the less so since they often come,
as is observed, from habit. Thus such actions can weaken the fundamental option, but not to such
a degree as to change it completely. Now according to these authors, a change of the
fundamental option towards God less easily comes about in the field of sexual activity, where a
person generally does not transgress the moral order in a fully deliberate and responsible manner
but rather under the influence of passion, weakness, immaturity, sometimes even through the
illusion of thus showing love for someone else. To these causes there is often added the pressure
of the social environment.

In reality, it is precisely the fundamental option which in the last resort defines a person's moral
disposition. But it can be completely changed by particular acts, especially when, as often
happens, these have been prepared for by previous more superficial acts. Whatever the case, it is
wrong to say that particular acts are not enough to constitute mortal sin.

According to the Church's teaching, mortal sin, which is opposed to God, does not consist only
in formal and direct resistance to the commandment of charity. It is equally to be found in this
opposition to authentic love which is included in every deliberate transgression, in serious
matter, of each of the moral laws.

Christ Himself has indicated the double commandment of love as the basis of the moral life. But
on this commandment depends "the whole Law, and the Prophets also."[22] It therefore includes
the other particular precepts. In fact, to the young man who asked, ". . . what good deed must I
do to possess eternal life?" Jesus replied: ". . . if you wish to enter into life, keep the
commandments . . . . You must not kill. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You
must not bring false witness. Honor your father and mother, and: you must love your neighbor as
yourself."[23]

A person therefore sins mortally not only when his action comes from direct contempt for love of
God and neighbor, but also when he consciously and freely, for whatever reason, chooses
something which is seriously disordered. For in this choice, as has been said above, there is
already included contempt for the Divine commandment: the person turns himself away from
God and loses charity. Now according to Christian tradition and the Church's teaching, and as
right reason also recognizes, the moral order of sexuality involves such high values of human life
that every direct violation of this order is objectively serious.[24]

It is true that in sins of the sexual order, in view of their kind and their causes, it more easily
happens that free consent is not fully given; this is a fact which calls for caution in all judgment
as to the subject's responsibility. In this matter it is particularly opportune to recall the following
words of Scripture: "Man looks at appearances but God looks at the heart."[25] However,
although prudence is recommended in judging the subjective seriousness of a particular sinful
act, it in no way follows that one can hold the view that in the sexual field mortal sins are not
committed.
Pastors of souls must therefore exercise patience and goodness; but they are not allowed to
render God's commandments null, nor to reduce unreasonably people's responsibility. "To
diminish in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent form of charity for souls.
But this must ever be accompanied by patience and goodness, such as the Lord Himself gave
example of in dealing with people. Having come not to condemn but to save, He was indeed
intransigent with evil, but merciful towards individuals."[26]

XI

As has been said above, the purpose of this Declaration is to draw the attention of the faithful in
present-day circumstances to certain errors and modes of behavior which they must guard
against. The virtue of chastity, however, is in no way confined solely to avoiding the faults
already listed. It is aimed at attaining higher and more positive goals. It is a virtue which
concerns the whole personality, as regards both interior and outward behavior.

Individuals should be endowed with this virtue according to their state in life: for some it will
mean virginity or celibacy consecrated to God, which is an eminent way of giving oneself more
easily to God alone with an undivided heart.[27] For others it will take the form determined by
the moral law, according to whether they are married or single. But whatever the state of life,
chastity is not simply an external state; it must make a person's heart pure in accordance with
Christ's words: "You have learned how it was said: You must not commit adultery. But I say this
to you: if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his
heart."[28]

Chastity is included in that continence which St. Paul numbers among the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, while he condemns sensuality as a vice particularly unworthy of the Christian and one
which precludes entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.[29] "What God wants is for all to be holy.
He wants you to keep away from fornication, and each one of you know how to use the body that
belongs to him in a way that is holy and honorable, not giving way to selfish lust like the pagans
who do not know God. He wants nobody at all ever to sin by taking advantage of a brother in
these matters. . . . We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral. In other words,
anyone who objects is not objecting to a human authority, but to God, Who gives you His Holy
Spirit."[30] "Among you there must not be even a mention of fornication or impurity in any of its
forms, or promiscuity: this would hardly become the saints! For you can be quite certain that
nobody who actually indulges in fornication or impurity or promiscuity - which is worshipping a
false god - can inherit anything of the Kingdom of God. Do not let anyone deceive you with
empty arguments: it is for this loose living that God's anger comes down on those who rebel
against Him. Make sure that you are not included with them. You were darkness once, but now
you are light in the Lord; be like children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete
goodness and right living and truth."[31]

In addition, the Apostle points out the specifically Christian motive for practising chastity when
he condemns the sin of fornication not only in the measure that this action is injurious to one's
neighbor or to the social order but because the fornicator offends against Christ Who has
redeemed him with His blood and of Whom he is a member, and against the Holy Spirit of
Whom he is the temple. "You know, surely, that your bodies are members making up the body of
Christ. . . . All the other sins are committed outside the body; but to fornicate is to sin against
your own body. Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you since you
received Him from God. You are not your own property; you have been bought and paid for.
That is why you should use your body for the glory of God."[32]

The more the faithful appreciate the value of chastity and its necessary role in their lives as men
and women, the better they will understand, by a kind of spiritual instinct, its moral requirements
and counsels. In the same way they will know better how to accept and carry out, in a spirit of
docility to the Church's teaching, what an upright conscience dictates in concrete cases.

XII

The Apostle St. Paul describes in vivid terms the painful interior conflict of the person enslaved
to sin: the conflict between "the law of his mind" and the "law of sin which dwells in his
members" and which holds him captive.[33] But man can achieve liberation from his "body
doomed to death" through the grace of Jesus Christ.[34] This grace is enjoyed by those who have
been justified by it and whom "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set free from the
law of sin and death."[35] It is for this reason that the Apostle adjures them: "That is why you
must not let sin reign in your mortal bodies or command your obedience to bodily passions."[36]

This liberation, which fits one to serve God in newness of life, does not however suppress the
concupiscence deriving from original sin, nor the promptings to evil in this world, which is "in
the power of the evil one."[37] This is why the Apostle exhorts the faithful to overcome
temptations by the power of God[38] and to "stand against the wiles of the Devil"[39] by faith,
watchful prayer[40] and an austerity of life that brings the body into subjection to the Spirit.[41]

Living the Christian life by following in the footsteps of Christ requires that everyone should
"deny himself and take up his cross daily,"[42] sustained by the hope of reward, for "if we have
died with Him, we shall also reign with Him."[43] In accordance with these pressing
exhortations, the faithful of the present time, and indeed today more than ever, must use the
means which have always been recommended by the Church for living a chaste life. These
means are: discipline of the senses and the mind, watchfulness and prudence in avoiding
occasions of sin, the observance of modesty, moderation in recreation, wholesome pursuits,
assiduous prayer and frequent reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Young
people especially should earnestly foster devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God, and take as
examples the lives of saints and other faithful people, especially young ones, who excelled in the
practice of chastity.

It is important in particular that everyone should have a high esteem for the virtue of chastity, its
beauty and its power of attraction. This virtue increases the human person's dignity and enables
him to love truly, disinterestedly, unselfishly and with respect for others.

XIII

It is up to the Bishops to instruct the faithful in the moral teaching concerning sexual morality,
however great may be the difficulties in carrying out this work in the face of ideas and practices
generally prevailing today. This traditional doctrine must be studied more deeply. It must be
handed on in a way capable of properly enlightening the consciences of those confronted with
new situations and it must be enriched with a discernment of all the elements that can truthfully
and usefully be brought forward about the meaning and value of human sexuality. But the
principles and norms of moral living reaffirmed in this Declaration must be faithfully held and
taught. It will especially be necessary to bring the faithful to understand that the Church holds
these principles not as old and inviolable superstitions, nor out of some Manichaean prejudice, as
is often alleged, but rather because she knows with certainty that they are in complete harmony
with the Divine order of creation and with the spirit of Christ, and therefore also with human
dignity.

It is likewise the Bishops' mission to see that a sound doctrine enlightened by faith and directed
by the Magisterium of the Church is taught in faculties of theology and in seminaries. Bishops
must also ensure that confessors enlighten people's consciences and that catechetical instruction
is given in perfect fidelity to Catholic doctrine.

It rests with the Bishops, the priests and their collaborators to alert the faithful against the
erroneous opinions often expressed in books, reviews and public meetings.

Parents, in the first place, and also teachers of the young must endeavor to lead their children and
their pupils, by way of a complete education, to the psychological, emotional and moral maturity
befitting their age. They will therefore prudently give them information suited to their age; and
they will assiduously form their wills in accordance with Christian morals, not only by advice
but above all by the example of their own lives, relying on God's help, which they will obtain in
prayer. They will likewise protect the young from the many dangers of which they are quite
unaware.

Artists, writers and all those who use the means of social communication should exercise their
profession in accordance with their Christian faith and with a clear awareness of the enormous
influence which they can have. They should remember that "the primacy of the objective moral
order must be regarded as absolute by all,"[44] and that it is wrong for them to give priority
above it to any so-called aesthetic purpose, or to material advantage or to success. Whether it be
a question of artistic or literary works, public entertainment or providing information, each
individual in his or her own domain must show tact, discretion, moderation and a true sense of
values. In this way, far from adding to the growing permissiveness of behavior, each individual
will contribute towards controlling it and even towards making the moral climate of society more
wholesome.

All lay people, for their part, by virtue of their rights and duties in the work of the apostolate,
should endeavor to act in the same way.

Finally, it is necessary to remind everyone of the words of the Second Vatican Council: "This
Holy Synod likewise affirms that children and young people have a right to be encouraged to
weigh moral values with an upright conscience, and to embrace them by personal choice, to
know and love more adequately. Hence, it earnestly entreats all who exercise government over
people or preside over the work of education to see that youth is never deprived of this sacred
right."[45]

At the audience granted on November 7, 1975, to the undersigned Prefect of the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Sovereign Pontiff by Divine Providence Pope
Paul VI approved this Declaration "On certain questions concerning sexual ethics," confirmed it
and ordered its publication.

Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on December 29th,
1975.

Franjo Cardinal Seper

Prefect

Most Rev. Jerome Hamer, O.P.

Titular Archbishop of Lorium
Secretary

ENDNOTES OF PERSONA HUMANA

1. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World "Gaudium et Spes," 47 AAS 58 (1966), p. 1067.

2. Cf. Apostolic Constitution "Regimini Ecclesiae Universae," 29 (Aug 15th, 1967) AAS 89 (1967), p. 1067.

3. "Gaudium et Spes," 16 AAS 58 (1966), p. 1037.

4. Jn 8:12.

5. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration "Dignitatis Humanae," 3 AAS 58 (1966), p. 931.

6. I Tim 3:15

7. "Dignitatis Humanae," 14 AAS 58 (1966), p. 940; cf Pius XI, encyclical letter "Casti Connubii," Dec 31st, 1930 AAS 22 (1930), pp 579-580;
Pius XII, allocution of Nov. 2nd, 1954 AAS 46 (1954), pp 671-672; John XXIII, encyclical letter "Mater et Magistra," May 15th, 1961 AAS 53
(1961), p. 457; Paul VI, encyclical letter "Humanae Vitae," 4, July 25th, 1968 AAS 60 (1968) p. 483.

8. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration "Gravissimum Educationis," 1, 8: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 729-730; 734-736 "Gaudium et
Spes," 29, 60, 67 AAS 58 (1966), pp. 1048 1049, 1080-1081, 1088-1089.

9. "Gaudium et Spes," 51 AAS 58 (1966), pp. 1072.

10. Ibid; cf also 49 loc cit, pp. 1069-1070.

11. Ibid, 49, 50 loc cit, pp. 1069-1072.

12. The present Declaration does not go into further detail regarding the norms of sexual life within marriage; these norms have been clearly
taught in the encyclical letter "Casti Connubii" and "Humanae Vitae."

13. Cf. Mt 19:4-6.

14. I Cor 7:9.

15. Cf. Eph 5:25-32.

16. Sexual intercourse outside marriage is formally condemned I Cor 5:1; 6:9; 7:2; 10:8 Eph. 5:5; I Tim 1:10; Heb 13:4; and with explicit reasons
I Cor 6:12-20.

17. Cf. Innocent IV, letter "Sub catholica professione," March 6th, 1254, DS 835; Pius II, "Propos damn in Ep Cum sicut accepimus." Nov 13th,
1459, DS 1367; decrees of the Holy Office, Sept 24th, 1665, DS 2045; March 2nd, 1679, DS 2148 Pius XI, encyclical letter "Casti Connubii,"
Dec 31st, 1930 AAS 22 (1930), pp. 558 559.

18. Rom 1:24-27 "That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies since they
have given up Divine truth for a lie and have worshipped and served creatures instead of the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen! That is why
God has abandoned them to degrading passions; why their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their
menfolk have given up natural intercourse to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameless things with men and getting an
appropriate reward for their perversion" See also what St. Paul says of "masculorum concubitores" in I Cor 6:10; I Tim 1:10.

19. Cf. Leo IX, letter "Ad splendidum nitentis," in the year 1054 DS 687-688, decree of the Holy Office, March 2nd, 1679: DS 2149; Pius XII,
"Allocutio," Oct 8th, 1953 AAS 45 (1953), pp. 677-678; May 19th, 1956 AAS 48 (1956), pp. 472-473.

20. "Gaudium et Spes," 51 AAS 58 (1966), p. 1072.

21. ". . . it sociological surveys are useful for better discovering the thought patterns of the people of a particular place, the anxieties and needs of
those to whom we proclaim the word of God, and also the opposition made to it by modern reasoning through the widespread notion that outside
science there exists no legitimate form of knowledge, still the conclusions drawn from such surveys could not of themselves constitute a
determining criterion of truth," Paul VI, apostolic exhortation "Quinque iam anni." Dec 8th 1970, AAS 63 (1971), p. 102.

22. Mt 22:38, 40.

23. Mt 19:16-19.

24. Cf. note 17 and 19 above Decree of the Holy Office, March 18th, 1666, DS 2060; Paul VI, encyclical letter "Humanae Vitae," 13, 14 AAS 60
(1968), pp. 489-496.

25. Sam 16:7.

26. Paul VI, encyclical letter "Humanae Vitae," 29 AAS 60 (1968), p. 501.

27. Cf. I Cor 7:7, 34; Council of Trent, Session XXIV, can 10 DS 1810; Second Vatican Council, Constitution "Lumen Gentium," 42 43, 44 AAS
57 (1965), pp. 47-51 Synod of Bishops, "De Sacerdotio Ministeriali," part II, 4, b: AAS 63 (1971), pp. 915-916.

28. Mt 5:28.

29. Cf. Gal 5:19-23; I Cor 6:9-11.

30. I Thess 4:3-8; cf. Col 3:5-7; I Tim 1:10.

31. Eph 5:3-8; cf. 4:18-19.

32. I Cor 6:15, 18-20.

33. Cf. Rom 7:23.

34. Cf. Rom 7:24-25.

35. Cf. Rom 8:2.

36. Rom 6:12.

37. I Jn 5:19.
38. Cf. I Cor 10:13.

39. Eph 6:11.

40. Ct Eph 6:16, 18.

41. Ct I Cor 9:27.

42. Lk 9:23.

43. II Tim 2:11-12.

44. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council decree "Inter Mirifica," 6 AAS 56 (1964), p. 147.

45. "Gravissimum Educationis," 1: AAS 58 (1966), p. 730.

-end of Persona Humana-

Chosen Article: A Reply Letter from…

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital
organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition,
and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an
intrinsically and gravely disordered action.” “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside
of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of “the sexual
relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human
procreation in the context of true love is achieved.” To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral
responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, forced of acquired
habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability.
As usual the Church’s language is measured and charitable. On the one hand, she recognizes that any use of the
sexual faculty outside of marriage is gravely evil, and on the other that anyone who is trying to overcome a habit in
this area may not be morally culpable for their sin. Catholic teaching recognizes that grave moral culpability
depends on the action being objectively grave, the person knowing that without any dissembling or feigned
ignorance and sufficient freedom to choose the act, rather than to have it thrust upon them. The Church does indeed
recognize the psychological and social factors which may attenuate culpability, but unlike the world does not
thereby say that no one is capable of chastity to day. On the contrary, every case is independent and must be judged
by the circumstances. The world, on the other hand, says simply that self-abuse is part of growing up, as if that
makes it normal or even desirable. How does the Church measure culpability? Since in your case you know it is
wrong it comes down to the issue of freedom. Generally speaking, antecedent (prior) passion excuses, passion we
foster and which comes after we start the act does not. So, the person who sets about seeking pleasure cannot blame
their habit. The person who is caught unawares, not having sought an occasion of sin or sought the passion, may
very well be excused. The passion may be fomented by the world, by the flesh or even by devil (and he is active in
this area). The test would be, did one fight it, even if ultimately the battle was lost. Good will in someone trying to
overcome a deeply engrained habit is shown by that fact, as well as by the swiftness, even instantaneousness, of the
remorse after the act. As the stories of so many in these matters show, the battle can be a long one, even life-long.
God can work a miracle but usually allows people to struggle with this. Naturally, you need to use the means of
grace at your disposal, and common sense about what situations lead you to this sin. You also need to realize that
there are biological rhythms that may it difficult to avoid all together. At the same time, it is good that you are not
buying the lie that the battle is lost from the beginning. Finally, don’t become discouraged. The fact that you are
trying to overcome the habit, as evidenced by your writing us, shows that your will is essentially good, but weak in
this area. You can try to built it up in other areas, such as temperance in food and other forms of asceticism. There
is a book that was written to address the general problem of single chastity called The Courage to be Chaste
(Ignatius Press) by Fr. John Harvey. Fr. Harvey ministry is to help homosexuals be chaste, but the issues he
addresses also applies to heterosexual celibates. Well, I don’t know if I have helped you, except to assure you that
you are not wrong in thinking that you need to be chaste and not throw in the towel. God bless.

Colin B. Donovan, STL Vice President for Theology Eternal Word Television Network

A MASTURBATOR MARRYING?

With the thought of marriage, I would say I have been wrong. I thought of the, “It is
better to marry than to be aflamed with passion,” as to desire already for marriage because as
I’ve read, marriage can maintain my chastity through the control of the passions even though it is
an inferior but acceptable spiritual motive for marrying.32 But Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, P.S.S.
said, “If a person has not been taught the virtue of chastity beforehand, marriage will not be a
remedy for wayward inclinations or the lack of control. Conjugal life would become an occasion
for more failings in accepting and following God’s will.”33 So, when I sensed that God is not
giving me a girlfriend, I thought that maybe God is doing that because marriage might not
somehow help me. The solution is to study how to master myself by way of ascesis, natural or
supernatural means.
As an ex-seminarian, deciding whether I really want marriage or priesthood or to follow
God’s will wherever he is calling me became difficult. Wilkie Au, S.J. said that discernment is
distorted by “inordinate attachments” that the spontaneous attractions of the heart is not
monitored.34 My “need” for sex is like food without which I do not know how to live. Times of
indecision set in whether to continue my contemplative desire or to go for marriage which is
safer in my case. But I just found it peaceful to just leave it open until through God’s mercy the
innocence that I lost in my childhood will go back again and so be able to be more charitable in
my answer to God’s call. When it will be will depend on my cooperation in chastity with God.
Thus, “for those who really want to become a priest or religious but who has a strong sexual
urge, let him ask God to give him the grace of chastity and celibacy.”35 But Evagrius advised:
“On the contrary, solitude and seclusion are sweet; but it must be sought only when the passions
are overcome. If we go into solitude when our passions are still moved by the demons, we can
lose our minds.”36 Even today, that I have already chosen to pursue the advancement of my
career connected with my financial preparation for marriage, such inordinate attachment to the
pleasure of orgasm makes me impatient to already marry and set aside a good preparation for it.

32
Dr. Raul G. Fores, “The Quest for Holiness, The Role of Christian Marriage in Attaining Holiness, A
View On Family Planning and Abstention” The Guadalupe Series on Ascetical Topic. #3, (Philippines: Lay
Monastic Community of Caryana, S. of G. Foundation, Inc., 1995), 5.
33
Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, P.S.S., Sexual Morality: A Personal Imperative The Foundation of
Marriage and Family. Address given at The Church Teaches Forum. Pontifical Council for the Family.
34
Consult Wilkie Au, By Way of the Heart: Toward a Holistic Christian Spirituality. (New York: Paulist
Press, 1989), 61-63.
35
John F. Dedek, Contemporary Sexual Morality. (Sheed and Ward, Inc., 1971), 85.
36
Evagrius, On the Active Life, “The Ways of the Devil” Winnowing Fan. Vol. VI, No. 7, July 1989 (S.
of G. Foundation, Inc., MCPO, 1257 Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines).
 On the other hand, such pressure here outside makes me go back again in the seminary
where I at least have the ease of disciplining myself by way of its different formation programs.37
But I am bound by the chains of the memory of my body.38
Thinking back about marriage, every one of us also should consider these words of St.
Francis: “The state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other; it
is a perpetual exercise of mortification.” A horrible truth slapped me on the face: “Do I want to
marry because I can’t control my sexual appetite?” Marriage rather, is sacrificing for the sake of
the beloved. If sacrificing is not clearly included in my picture of marriage, then who am I
cheating but myself. The reality of marriage that St. Francis clarified is not an exaggeration. It
is the reality of every married life we are all familiar with.
If that is the reality of marriage then what shall I choose? In fairness I still long for a
monk’s freedom from material possessions and concerns, while my vice holds me to prepare for
marriage than be aflamed with passion (be burned in hell).
The good thing is that either in marriage or in religious or priestly life chastity is a must.39
The modern thought has set the trend that chastity is just for celibates not for married people, that
there is nothing to be chaste about in marriage. What I realized as good is that God is calling me
not primarily to the priesthood or to the married life, but to live a chaste life either married or
single. Chastity is life itself, a vocation itself to holiness. We are all called to be holy. If for
someone chastity sounds too negative a life, let him analyze that not killing a person is one of the
bulwark of respecting life, and this negative precept always goes with the positive as just one.40
Thus, I am at ease that I first have to be chaste before anything else. And though the
question of priesthood or marriage will not directly help one, the living out of the precepts of
chastity will! I no longer have to choose between the two states of life in such a hurry, but I am
bound by the Spirit of Love to choose only chastity in either case.
Thus, if I would court a girl, it should be a chaste courting (no sexual intercourse yet,
even torrid kissing and the like); and I must not fantasize about my future marriage as all love
romances and all sexual intercourses. Sinking St. Francis’s thought deeply, I must live my
marriage as if I have no partner41—a practice of age-old Catholic tradition that makes possible
the notion of natural family planning by abstention. In fact, true love does not call it abstention
(it sounds negative nowadays), but respect for each other (personal spacing in modern parlance).
While choosing priesthood would be difficult for me, God would accept such weakness
as attested by the following verses: The Lord said, “Let him who can take it, let him take it.”42
And St. Paul said, “Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from

37
“…rather than being especially difficult, life according to the counsels actually is a simpler and easier
way to live a good christian life…unburdened with the responsibilities and distractions of spouse and family,
responsibilities and temptations of ownership, and of setting and striving for one’s own goals in life.”—WCC, CMP
Ch. 27 Ques.H #12 par.6.
38
Poltawska, “Difficulties in Observing Celibacy” Priestly Celibacy, letter "c" The Weight of the Past.
39
“The vocation to the priesthood and the vocation to marriage both require the same total devotion [to
celibacy] and hence are mutually exclusive, even though the type of personality required is basically the same in
both cases.” (emphasis mine)—Poltawska, Priestly Celibacy, 2nd par.
40
See John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Evangelium Vitae, art. 54.
41
“I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having
them…”—1 Cor. 7:29.
42
Mt. 19:12.
God, one of one kind and one of another…. But if they do not contain themselves, let them
marry, for it is better to marry than to be burnt.”43
However, let it be clear that I have experienced the sweetness of the Lord that is why I
am not yet getting into marriage. Another thing is that setting aside marriage longer for the goal
of attaining an ideal (like the scientist’s) is a noble vocation.44 Moreover, the fact that I can’t
stop my masturbation, that I have no stable job yet for my future children, that I still have that
longing for contemplative freedom is a fact not worthy of the noble state of marriage yet.
Marriage is a set of responsibility sweet for those who are already prepared, but bitter for those
who have just been forced by one’s sexual urges even though this is a natural solution for those
who cannot control themselves. Prepared or not, the point is to be faithful in one’s marriage vow
whatever sacrifice one has to undergo. Such vow, thus, must not be taken lightly giving in to the
temptation to abandon it when hard times hit.
Yet I have undergone so much uncertainty and instability in discerning what I should
do—because I have not acted the precepts of chastity but continued masturbating—not because
God is not making it more clear if He really is calling me to priesthood or to married life. I have
suffered God so much in praying for a sign if priesthood or marriage is the better life for me.
Instead, one thing is floating clearer than ever before: I have to live a life free of whatever sexual
acts in thought and in deed (outside marriage bond).

The life of chastity first before anything. I thought God is not giving me a girlfriend
because He does not want me to have one yet, because I still have to learn temperance in one
form or another. But another element floated—I was not courting any girl (of noble a character)
because I’m used to and satisfied already by masturbation.45 But I think both of them mean the
same: I have to overcome my masturbatory practice.46 It will include the precept of Job: I will
not think much of a virgin.47 The practice of any sexual activity, which can lead to sexual
intercourse, is not even a good preparation for marriage but the worst destruction of its
sacramental character. A man is given by God to a woman and vice versa because they both

43
1 Cor. 7:7,9.
44
“Some forgo marriage in order to care for their parents or brothers and sisters, to give themselves more
completely to a profession, or to serve other honorable ends. They can contribute greatly to the good of the human
family.”—CCC, art. 2231.
“Thus, not only those called to be priests or religious but those with other callings--for example, to certain
professional or civic roles--which they foresee would regularly lead to conflicts with the responsibilities of marriage
and family life also are called to permanent or temporary celibacy for the sake of the kingdom.”—WCC, LCL Chap
5 Ques K #2.a.
45
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell, 183.
46
I will introduce masturbatory courting as a kind of masturbation. It does not practice friendship as the
basis of courting, but sexual engagement in fantasy is its primary motivation. This kind of masturbation includes
too much preoccupation with the beloved that one’s personal growth is hampered. The relationship becomes
negative and does not advance each other’s development in all aspects, in contrast with those who make their
beloved an inspiration in becoming more persevering, industrious etc.
47
“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I look upon a virgin?”—Job 31:1.
“Think of Job, that great servant of God, of such tried virtue, who kept so vigilant a guard over his senses
that, in the expressive language of Scripture, he made a covenant with his eyes not so much as to think upon a
virgin.”—Venerable Louis of Granada, O.P. “Remedies against Lust” The Sinner’s Guide. (Rockford, Illinois: TAN
Books and Publishers, Inc., 1883, 1985), 279.
already have that “noble character”48 who can beget citizens for heaven; who can rear children of
light.
And so, one who is still a bachelor must remain a bachelor who is chaste, before God
might enter or call him to another state of life.49 Thus, bachelors, in principles, should not long
for marriage. If he can even be celibate for the Kingdom of God let him be while those who can’t
control their sexual urge must remain in monogamy rather than in polygamy or adultery or
fornication or incest or rape or masturbation. Let him ask God for a partner in due time. It is so
because marriage is better than the latters as the answer to an uncontrollable sexual appetite. But
the principle of chastity is the reason why an intemperate person should learn to live chastely
gradually in marriage. And thus we can summarize: if one can relearn50 chastity outside
marriage, i.e., if one still believes he can control his urge by God’s grace and by learning the
precepts of chastity and by living an ideal or personal vocation outside marriage—it is better
than marriage only seen as the controller of sexual urge. In short, marriage is better than
sinning; but learning to be chaste outside marriage is better than marrying for the
maintenance of chastity.
I have advanced these concepts from Guadalupe Series no. 3 p. 5 that quote: “For such to
choose marriage is better than indulging in fornication.” And there is a passage there which
says: “If they cannot control their sexual urges, they should get married, since it is better to be
married than to burn.”51
It is said on I Cor. 7:6 that sex in marriage for the control of passion is a concession
rather than a commandment. Thus, we can infer that because of—
1. hardness of the heart (“because of sexual immorality” 1 Cor. 7:2),
2. ignorance of the principles and means of attaining chastity, and
3. unbelief both in our natural capacity for chastity (Poltawska)
—they have conceded that marriage is better than sinning. But a note of gravity should be added
here about our supernatural capacity in Christ Jesus: “From the very beginning of a person’s life
in Jesus, however, and no matter what remnants of the fallen condition of humankind or one’s
own past sin might remain, mortal sin is altogether avoidable.”52 This means that sinning is
avoidable—sin should not be chosen, but rather must choose chaste marriage and, if one can,
single blessedness and priesthood.
“Nevertheless he who stands steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but has power
over his own will, and has so determined in his heart that he will keep his virgin (keep his single
blessedness), does well”53
But St. Paul adds: “Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But even if you do
marry, you have not sinned… such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you.”54

48
Montserrat D. Fernandez, “the making of a True Christian Family: The Problem of living the Christian
Life in a pagan and materialistic society” The Guadalupe Series on Ascetical Topic. #7, (Philippines: Lay
Monastic Community of Caryana, S. of G. Foundation, Inc., 1995), 17.
49
“Brothers, everyone should continue before God in the state in which he was called.”—1Cor. 7:24.
50
To relearn chastity means it is natural in man to be chaste, he just neglect its observance and thus loose
or unlearn it. Poltawska observes that in the human organism there exist no mechanisms forcing us to act as if
sexual activity is necessary per se.—Consult Poltawska, Priestly Celibacy, in subtopic “The false conception of
sexuality”.
51
I Cor. 7:1.
52
WCC, CMP Chap.17 Ques. F #7.
53
I Cor. 7:37
 Let each marriages then call to Mary because as at wedding in Cana “she convinced her
Son to save the newlywed from shame.”55 Furthermore, it is high time now to correct our
misconceptions about marriage.56

Am I afraid of marriage? I am not. I’m not courting a girl yet—not because I’m a gay
or a masturbator or just afraid of marriage responsibilities or stupid etc. The reason must be
clear that I am not yet courting or choosing my wife to be because learning to be chaste outside
marriage is better.57 It has to sound more melodious than those pretty girls roaming around, than
the accepted atmosphere of being normal when you are married. It has to sound more assertive
than your friend’s insistence to win the girl as a form of completeness and victory and
manhood.58
I remembered my first longing for a woman I loved that really made me insane to be with
her already. It passed and I was able to live without her. What could have been our life if we had
had children? Perhaps it became a mess—I without a stable job, without emotional stability etc.,
and she not yet finished with her studies. “True love can wait. It’s ok to say no,” as the saying
goes of the 1995 Philippine World Youth Day theme.
On the other hand, a puritanical chastity is cold.59 Friendship, down from ancient times,
is the factor as McGinnis in his book “The Friendship Factor” more recently and others had well
articulated. Friendship is open not just for marriage but for being related in general. As I have
said, my relationships with girls are not that real. It is time that I learn to relate normally with a
girl or many by friendship.
The playboy picture is not the idea. That is a hard core to destroy because more often
than not, media depicts lopsided love affairs. “Agapeic” and “Philial” loving is less represented
than "Eros" or corrupted "Eros" called eroticism.
Job did not think much of a virgin and so must all medias, and we must reflect on that. As
Job might have experienced, it can make him wild and uncontrollable in his still unmarriageable
age (not yet physically, mentally, financially stable). As my mother is wont to say, “Madali lang
ang pag-aasawa. ‘Pag naro’n ka na, ‘yun ang mahirap at ‘yun ang dapat paghandaan.” (It is easy
to marry. But being married already is the hard part and which all must prepare for.)

54
I Cor. 7:27-28.
55
Clement Murugasu, The Mystery of Light. 2nd printing, (Philippines: Paulines Press, 2002)
56
See Fr. Delfin S. Felipe, “Marriage and the Christian Family: A Reflection Based on Familiaris
Consortio” Docete: A Catechetical Review. vol. XXV no. 111. (Philippines: Official Publication of the
NCOP/ECCCE).
57
Similar with a woman’s observing of her menstrual cycle (done for months with complete abstention
from sexual intercourse) which is taught to learn natural birth control, a man on the other hand should observe what
leads him to sexual arousal without love and thus avoid it. Both kinds of observing must be done outside the life of
normal sexual intercourse of marriage partner for proper and correct observation to come by. Both techniques help
in the avoidance of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Such assurance makes the act of sexual intercourse worry-
free leaving only the real expression and enjoyment of true love.
58
Because I’m a man, I am just trying to become honest with what I have experienced. Further, I have no
capacity to include female versions which has a different side and angle.
59
See KPK, art. 1085: “…ang pang-aalipin ng nagmamalinis na asal at mga di-makatuwirang pagbabawal
tungkol sa sekswalidad.” (“…the slavery of self righteousness over purity and the irrational restraints on
sexuality.”)
 Thus, many unprepared marriages fail because of problems that even cooperating
partners cannot handle. A failed marriage means a broken family and broken children and
insecure salvation of the souls of those children. Home for street children are good, but it is
already a remedy most often for an irresponsible parenthood.
In my case, befriending marriageable women is too risky when I am not yet ready for
marriage. But the Lord is continuously teaching me to befriend girls I am attracted to without
emotional expression of sexual intimate feelings. (Sexual intimate feelings are permissible only
for married partners.) Lucky are those who have healthy friendships with the opposite sex, who
have learned the art of befriending without romancing, who have at their system a habit of
relating just as a friend naturally. I am not self-pitying but just stating the fact of my incapacity
traceable from that first xxx-rated movie I viewed and I forever will carry as the thorn in my
flesh.
Fighting masturbation will help one control oneself in not entering marriage only with
half-gear or worst, no gear at all. Masturbation is to be stopped. That is the only way, is the
only truth against too many unreasonable acts or half-hearted resolutions. Masturbation in
many of its forms is the problem not the what, where, when, why, how of priesthood or
marriage or single blessedness. Stopping masturbation is the solution a) either by marrying
with full preparation (let him ask it of God) especially for worse case solvable only by marriage
b) or if it can still be remedied outside marriage by ascesis or mortification let him ask it of God
also c) or others like having friends of the opposite sex chastely.
Perhaps there is a truth in a research on brainwave observation that claims that being in
love is a form of insanity. The researchers found a correlation between the brainwaves of lovers
against mental patients—and it pays to discern whether to continue that “love” by marriage or
just to pass such another craze. A prepared man can’t be too crazy enough for a woman who, he
knows, will be with him for long. If an unchaste person is really that crazy enough for a girl
unpreparedly, let him reflect upon the hard times. Let him read books like one of Leandro
Villanueva Sr. “Mag-asawa’y Hindi Biro” (“Marrying is not a Joke”) to evaluate himself if he is
ready enough for marriage responsibility and not just becoming emotional. It is already a
picking up of a good choice and receiving her as a gift from God. A prepared man would not
choose by criteria worn out by crazy people like beauty, wealth, and fame alone, but also by the
criteria used by Abraham’s servant in choosing a wife for Jacob. The fruit of the latter criteria is
astonishing. Rebecca was the most beautiful girl the servant ever saw even he first of all tried
the ladies in the well if they are virtuous or possessing good characters.60
In contrast, an unprepared man wouldn’t even pray knowing that “pogi points” (good
look points) are all there is, and marriage a fate-filled experience, just a plain joke. If one is
courting someone or looking for a partner let him/her pray. But let him surrender to God’s will
who knows how to heal all kinds of sickness and lack.
Should one then court a girl? Yes, he may if he is already prepared for commitment as
we have explained. Should a boy then befriend girls? He should. But such friendship should
not extend to the meaning of courting which often happens between both attracted partner
friends. No, I am not expressing the letter of the law here. What one must realize is one’s
preparedness and one’s weakness. Too often one’s weakness is not safe with those friends
whom one consider also to court in due time. There are enough non-courting socializations to
fill our social needs and not just with pretty girls.

60
Guadalupe Series #7, 17.
 Graver still, a torrid kissing without a fucking is just too dangerous a lie.61 When both
you and your girlfriend are in a secluded house with your intention of just befriending her or
worst when sex is just ok a part of befriending one—it’s too messy a thing that a masturbator
should better ask what he means about befriending a girl. For sure, courting is different if it is the
traditional courting you know—it is a clean thing, with a clean intention.
On the other hand, true love can wait. It is the chaste man’s capacity to stay in real
friendship. One is morally permitted also to befriend many girls and thus have that advantage to
be able to choose from among them or to be able to learn more on how to relate with the opposite
sex in a chaste manner.62
Here, befriending a girl does not mean already entering into an exclusive relationship
(katipanan) that your girlfriend (kaibigang babae) can no longer entertain any boyfriend
(kaibigang lalaki). But once that seriousness of friendship already has set in which, in most
cases, leads to marriage, any person in such serious partnership must not give any hope of
marriage to another to avoid hurting other’s life not just feelings. Because really, the giving of a
person’s yes includes giving her dreams, plans, etc. for the future. Thus, it would entail really
such a loss to someone abandoned by an already proposing partner. That I think is the role of
our traditionally called “tipanan” (covenanting) which is being put out of the modern system.
“Tipanan” fulfills a critical role of evaluating the seriousness and responsibleness of the
concerned parties. In addition, I just want to classify relationships by degrees: 1. “kaibigan”
(friendship) is not an exclusive relationship, 2. “kasintahan” (wooing) connotes more of
“pagsuyo” or “panliligaw” but one cannot yet call the other partner as exclusively one’s own 3.
katipanan (covenanting) is an exclusive relationship already because the girl has already given
her yes which leads to marriage. “Katipanan” is formalized by engagement or the giving and
receiving of rings and “pamanhikan.” (formal request of parents and relatives to the girls hands
from her parents, in the Philippines it entails eating and drinking celebration and socialization)
Taken seriously and reflected upon, these realities are not a teenager’s concern. This
concern, on the other hand, must be part of their values awareness formation.

What then is my choice? I am not afraid of marriage. I want to marry. Yet one must be
careful not to think that God forces anyone to this or that vocation. He always respects our
choice even in the choice of a vocation.63
I want to make a great emphasis here on the compulsive masturbator’s capacity for free
choice because I have suffered a great deal of loosing my capacity for it because of my
compulsion. The harmful effect is that I have developed such a concept that God is the one
causing my masturbation and many miseries in my life. Again, this is the fruit of my years of
excusing myself as responsible for my compulsion, years of rationalizing my enjoyed sinful acts.
There is a need for me to take at heart the following passage:

"Do not say, "Because of the Lord I left the right way";
for he will not do what he hates.
Do not say, "It was he who led me astray";

61
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell, 327-332.
62
Here I don’t suggest masturbators or anyone should only focus on opposite sex relations. Relations must
be balanced by healthy and normal heterosexual relationships also as a counselor at Emmaus Center Foundation,
Inc., Marikina City, Philippines pointed out to me. Many life experiences can add up to such needs.
63
See CCC, art. 2230: “…children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life…”
 for he has no need of a sinful man.
The Lord hates all abominations,
and they are not loved by those who fear him.
It was he who created man in the beginning,
and he left him in the power of his own inclination.
If you will, you can keep the commandments,
and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.

He has placed before you fire and water:

stretch out your hand for whichever you wish.
Before a man are life and death,
and whichever he chooses will be given to him.
For great is the wisdom of the Lord;
he is mighty in power and sees everything;
his eyes are on those who fear him,
and he knows every deed of man.
He has not commanded any one to be ungodly,
and he has not given any one permission to sin.64

Thus if one chose marriage let one be responsible for it. If another chose priesthood or
religious life let one be responsible for it. And if one lacks the capacity for the chosen state of
life let him hear St. Anselm:

But every man hath his own gift from God, one thus, that is to say, that he should
live in complete continence, but another thus, that wedded to one wife he should
have connection with no other woman. The text is sufficient proof that not only
continence is God’s gift, but also the chastity of the wedded. Since, therefore,
both have been shown to be God’s gifts, we know from whom to ask them, if we
have them not, and to whom our thanks are due, if we have them.65

The desire to be married at once. Masturbation—as a form of rebellion against God

who does not still give one the capacity to marry—is tempting. The grace of one’s state of
singlehood is a very good blessing from God who does not want to add more responsibilities of
the married life that one cannot still accept or is not still capable of in reality. The devil makes
singlehood less pleasing so that a desire for the state of marriage will be created. The desire for
sexual intercourse will be increased in the subtlest way. But sexual intercourse must be a
concern only of married persons. If a single person will desire it, it can lead to masturbation as
an outlet for such desire and a kind of rebellion against the wisdom of God (or our unknown
deeper genuine desire) who still wants one to enjoy singlehood, who still wants one to mature in
some way before He may enter one into the sacrament of marriage. The idea of enjoying one’s
singlehood is to be given emphasis here. The idea that life is worth living even without sexual
intercourse must be discussed with the compulsive masturbators who are still single. The
idea that one can concentrate his attention to other worthwhile activities other than the idea of
64
Sir. 15: 11-20.
65
St. Anselm, “On I Cor. 7,”quoted in Hildebrand, In Defence of Purity, footnote on page 173.
marrying at once—is to be inculcated. Such kind of maturity is a weapon within marriage itself.
Of course, marriage should not be received by a person directly to cure idleness, emotional
immaturity, indecision as to what career one will pursue, and many more kinds of immaturity.
However, marriage is a set of responsibilities that if taken seriously “till death do us part” can
transform any immature person into a loving person.
Further, if one no longer enjoy singlehood but one still wants to accomplish tasks that are
strenuous for a married person let him ask God for the grace of singlehood:

Prayer

Lord, you have accomplished the task of saving us with utmost

singleness of mind. If singlehood is really still your intent for me, please
grant me the grace to stay so chastely without any concern for marriage
coming here and there, putting my mind to doubt as to what you really
want for me. Lord please make singlehood so clear for me as your will if
you will still enter me in marriage much later than I expect. Let me enjoy
serving you in my brothers and sisters without counting the cost of my
sacrificial waiting for marriage that you will grant me. Let me know what
you intended for me from time eternity in this single state of mine. And
let me accomplish the task you have laid for me with love.
Mother Mary, you who waited intently that the Lord might come into
your heart, without any idea that you will bear Him in your womb, within
marriage with our Faithful St. Joseph, teach us to surrender ourselves in
the infinitely wise plan of God the Father. And let us live in peace. Amen.

SINGLE BLESSEDNESS

There can be a case where someone is not so sure if he will choose marriage or
priesthood, but he cannot also live in single blessedness. Well, what state of life will he still
choose to live? It lies in one’s discontentment. If one is not married or a priest, he is by fact of
course a bachelor, living that part of a vocation called single blessedness. It is so lonely a
vocation today that many only choose between priesthood or religious life and marriage, not
being so sure how to live the now of their lives in contentment, that they would start time and
again to entertain thoughts of marriage and priesthood or religious life.
Single blessedness is one of the three calls from God or vocation enumerated by the
Church. But like Dr. Susan Annette Muto, I think it is sounding more abnormal by modern times
than ever before.66 When one has no partner one is a gay or angry about life or anything but
chaste. For others single blessedness will entail lifetime commitment though some carry it out
only for a period of time while finishing worthy and noble cause that is best lived without a
marriage partner or priestly office or religious vows. And here we also mean to make it a chaste
single blessedness. Solitary pleasure like masturbation or fornication or frequenting prostitution
houses is a single’s worst enemy and temptation. One of the motives for choosing single
blessedness is that it gives more time for one’s worthy or noble cause. But sexual thoughts
66
See Susan A. Muto, Celebrating the Single Life. (New York: Doubleday, 1982).
destroy a project’s quality and clarity that others might become tempted to question their chosen
commitment: “Am I not marrying because I’m afraid of marriage or a gay or anything?” No!
Single Blessedness is not a sorry state of life if one is pursuing a worthy cause or completing a
project, or merely have chosen that state of life with good reason. But too often recurrent
masturbation will drag that clarity to such questions of uncertainty. The answer again is the
same—to stop masturbation and go on live one’s single blessed state.
While thoughts of entering priesthood or religious community in some way are also a
temptation to some singles just because loneliness sets in, it should not be. Rather, one is just to
choose the right lay Christian community like the Singles for Christ or Third Order Franciscans.
In such a supportive atmosphere, one can live with a community that understands and helps
prepare one in chastity either to plan and prepare to enter marriage, priesthood, religious life or
to continue being single. Either way, let one’s motives be clear in entering any state of life and
let one be responsible for what and where one will commit oneself to in the end.
In my case, I chose temporary single blessedness. I am hoping to finish a project and no
job can supply ample time for making it while at the same time having a decent income for a
family. Next to it, I am just mastering myself to chaste living and trying to relate chastely with
the opposite sex without any romance included, and so need no “katipan” yet. But if it would be
good for me to have a “katipan” now as a deeper way to experience chaste friendship please
grant it Lord, but “if You decided differently, I want whatever You want.”67
However, a bachelor longing for marriage will be overtaken by it and cause himself to
masturbate as a form of rebellion against his not being married yet. One, thus, should not use
such prayer as above (i.e., “Lord, if marriage is really good for me please grant it) as to cause
one to long already for marriage which is not at hand. If repeated too many times it might lead
to the stimulation of orgasm that seeks completion. A bachelor should remain thus a bachelor,
and even husband and wife should live just as if one is not married,68 i.e., chaste and not
according to the standard of the world.
While for those who are courting girls, let them not always think too much of them. It
would cause too much “insanity.” Rather when one is not in the presence of the girl being
courted let him busy himself with the bigger pictures of life. There are lots of things one can do
and must do. There are many people to relate with not only with one’s beloved. One can pour
out oneself in one’s interests. One must do one’s already existing duties and responsibilities as a
bachelor. Finally, one must not think too much of romances with her as if every moment will
just be used in daydreaming. Pursuing one’s other interests and responsibilities will be better for
one’s preparation for marriage responsibilities. Enough daydreaming of romances is enough
when one is already becoming more irresponsible, irrational etc.
For example, in my case, I want also to pursue my singing career, but I awoke from my
too long vocal practices as already becoming a too much thinking of her with strong emotions
released by means of love songs. What I did was to stop it, ate my lunch, exercised, and brushed
my teeth with the intention of discontinuing such an already too much romanticizing and
emotional if not irrational daydreaming. Let us add some more generalized reflections about
music and art here.

67
"Lord, if this is really good for me, please grant it; but if You decide differently, I want whatever You
want."—WCC, My Daily Bread, Chap. 30, “Submission to God’s Holy Will.”
68
See 1 Cor. 7:20, 27, 29.
 THE LIFE OF THE EMOTIONS ON MUSIC AND POPULAR ARTS

Is the artist’s work of expressing romantic scenes, especially sexual foreplays and the
like, because the script demands it, one of the reasons of the entertainment people’s high rate of
broken marriages? An artist works by internalizing the portrayed character if he or she must
produce a superb acting. Without the discipline of forgetting about the experiences after the
shooting, the rate for continuing the orgasms of the script scenes after the shooting are high.
Aside from artists, lots of examples can be given from our modern situation today I wouldn’t
further elaborate.
As an alternative to love songs, I prefer classical instrumental songs and popular songs
that do not fall short of Christianity like Love is the Answer and many more. There are lots of
them. Christians must become critical of the too many good sounding songs out there pleasing
our ears. Nevertheless, when scrutinized they often contain immoral lyrics or they have double
meanings. We should not listen to these songs even when they have aesthetic values. Moreover,
we must picket them also. By far, we can do away with its immoral lyrics, for example by
changing it or making it just instrumentals. However, if a song has hit the radio, it will
consciously or unconsciously deliver its signature. Further, in the dawn of music television and
dance songs, a song can be innocent, lyrically and melodiously, yet the visuals can tell a different
story. Thus, when the song plays even without the visuals, one who had seen its MTV before
several times concurrently recalls the immoral visuals as one with the whole song. For example,
one can argue that the lyrics of the song Spaghetti and Bulaklak popularized by the Sex Bomb
dancers are innocent in themselves and should not be interpreted maliciously. Yet, in truth any
adult mind cannot but be malicious about the televised girls dancing almost naked. And when
aired on FM these concurrent dancing girls are automatically recalled to mind. It gives the
impression that it is just ok, that it will not cause sexual licentiousness. However, it is against
our principle because human beings are sexual beings that are aroused by such things.
The fact again is that autosuggestions can be that powerful in affecting our moral life in
Christ especially when music is used because it is nearest and dearest as a universal language of
love.
On the other hand, the sound of hard rock music according to several studies emits sound
waves that are injurious to health. Evaluating hard rock music’s destructive sound inclines us to
Gandhi’s non-violent philosophy.
With music as nearly twin of our emotions, let us then always be reminded of the general
rule, and this also is applied to the emotions in general which in a sexual addict’s life is the
primary force that more often go against a rational life. And unless emotions mature in Christ, it
cannot be integrated fully with reason and with one’s whole person.

Christian Moral Principles Chapter 8: The Modes of Responsibility Which Specify

Principle
Question C: What is the third mode of responsibility?
1. The third mode is this: One should not choose to satisfy an emotional desire except as
part of one's pursuit and/or attainment of an intelligible good other than the satisfaction of
the desire itself. Violations occur when a person deliberately chooses to act upon
impulse, habit, or fixation on a particular goal. The proposal one adopts in making such a
choice appeals by promising some sense of inner harmony through tension-reduction.
Thus, one's reason for acting is the very satisfaction of the emotional desire rather than
some intelligible good whose instance has features which arouse the desire. A choice to
act on this basis sets aside whatever reason there was for restraint, and the action at least
wastes time and energy one might otherwise use for the pursuit of goods in line with
upright commitments. In deliberately settling for mere emotional satisfaction, one's
choice is not that of a will toward integral human fulfillment.

2. A person sometimes is aware that his or her desire, instead of pointing to some reason
to choose to satisfy it, offers only its own satisfaction as a reason for choosing. Yet one
can be drawn--and perhaps almost driven--to choose, for example, by a quasi-compulsive
desire, by habitual routine, or by a particular goal on which one's heart is fixed. (It
sometimes happens that goals which were reasonable at the outset lose their point with
the passage of time yet retain their emotional appeal.) This is not the same as the situation
in which one spontaneously does reasonable things without having reasoned about them.
Nor is it the same as cases in which one acts for an intelligible good and gains emotional
satisfaction in its concrete, sensibly pleasant aspects.

3. This mode is violated by the person who sees no point in having another drink, or
smoking, or eating a rich dessert, or spending the evening in idle chatter, yet does so in
response to an urge. Again: People spend much of their daily lives unreflectively
following routines; sometimes doing so is pointless, yet they choose to continue to follow
the routine merely for the sake of the feeling of security and accomplishment they gain
from doing so. Again: Some people work hard to enjoy a constantly rising standard of
living, yet they know that more wealth and material things will yield no more real
satisfaction.

4. Some deny the truth of this mode. Their argument is based on the principle that the
pleasure accompanying an act shares in the act's own moral quality, good or bad. From
this they conclude that if what one does is not otherwise wrong, choosing to do it for the
sake of pleasure alone does not make it wrong. The principle is sound, but the conclusion
does not follow. The principle applies to acts whose moral quality already is settled,
whereas the conclusion concerns possible choices whose moral quality is in question.

5. Moreover, one violates this mode only by making a choice. One has no choice to make
unless one hesitates and deliberates, and so one never has occasion to act for the mere
satisfaction of an emotional desire unless there is some reason for restraint. Thus,
whenever one violates this mode, one acts despite some reason or other. The reason
might not be weighty, but any reason inherent in what one chooses for making the choice
is better than none, for any such reason will have a basis in intelligible goods.
If a person chooses to engage in some sort of sexual behavior merely to experience
pleasure and still desire, this mode is violated. But it is not violated when a married
couple spontaneously take pleasure in marital intercourse. If they do not hesitate and
deliberate, it is because there is no reason why they should not engage in intercourse. In
their situation, it has an inherent intelligible significance, for it expresses and celebrates
the larger, intelligible good to which they are committed--namely, their marriage itself as
a special sort of friendship. Loving marital intercourse contributes to faithful communion
in this relationship, which is structured in a way that integrates sexual behavior in the
service of life and its transmission. This substantive good provides the vehicle for the
reflexive good of marital friendship, and so it helps distinguish authentic marital
friendship from its counterfeits, and love-giving marital intercourse from the use of the
marital relationship for self-gratification.

6. The virtuous disposition corresponding to this mode is most appropriately called "self-
control" (see S.t., 1-2, q. 61, aa. 2, 4; 2-2, q. 141, aa. 1-2). Violators are not in control of
their own lives but are slaves to nonrational motives. Self-control includes at least some
aspects of many traditionally recognized virtues, such as temperance, modesty, chastity,
and simplicity of life. Also, if "discipline" is used to refer to a virtuous disposition rather
than an imposed regimen, a person free from positive nonrational motivation can be
called "disciplined." The opposed vice includes at least certain aspects of lustfulness,
gluttony, greed, jealousy, envy, shortsightedness, impetuosity, and so on.

7. The foundation for this mode, too, is deepened by divine revelation before Jesus. God
makes human persons aware that, being made in his image, they should share in his
excellence. Also, in clarifying the reality of free choice and moral responsibility,
revelation sharply distinguishes what one does by reasonable choice from what one is
moved to do by nonrational drives and habits. Moreover, the life proposed by the Jewish
law requires self-discipline.
Scripture is filled with condemnations of vicious dispositions which more or less clearly
pertain to this mode of responsibility, but in many cases one cannot be sure that the
irrational lack of self-control is the precise evil in view.

However, certain chapters of the wisdom literature seem to be concerned with this mode,
for they gather the criticism of many relevant vices and treat them as forms of
foolishness. For example, one chapter in Proverbs criticizes striving to be rich, wasting
time with foolish people, neglect of discipline of the young, drinking wine, consorting
with prostitutes and adulterous women (see Prv 23). Ecclesiastes contains two passages
(see Eccl 2.1-12; 5.9-6.9) in which the vanity of pleasure and riches is underlined; their
precise point is that desire for such things leads to no true human good.

Sirach specifically commends self-control: "Whoever keeps the law controls his
thoughts" (Sir 21.11), and advises: "Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your
appetites" (Sir 18.30). He proceeds to condemn satisfaction of lustful desires, momentary
pleasure, wine bibbing, gluttony, harlotry, and useless talk (see Sir 18.31-19.11). Other
passages point out the uselessness of pursuing riches and the self-punishing character of
 miserliness (see Sir 31.1-11; 14.3-10). Again, the self-destructiveness of indulgence in
goods is stressed (see Sir 37.26-30).

St. Paul takes up an important idea from the wisdom literature that sin and idolatry are at
the bottom of a foolishly dissolute life. The pagans were able to know God yet they did
not glorify and thank him, so their pretense of wisdom ended in foolishness. They
practiced idolatry: "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to
the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves" (Rom 1.24). He instructs Christians to
be different: "The night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of
darkness . . .. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to
gratify its desires" (Rom 13.12, 14).

That Christians must put aside fleshly desires is a standard element of New Testament
instruction (see 2 Cor 7.1; 1 Thes 4.1-5; Jas 1.21; 1 Pt 2.11). What the world offers is not
from the Father: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away,
and the lust of it" (1 Jn 2.16-17).

(C)

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH GOD

Below are the best passages that gave me confidence in God. It would help those who
have lost all hope of ever having a chaste life because of repeated failures of their attempt to stop
masturbation totally.

“This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to set us free from the
hands of our enemies, — free to worship him without fear, holy and
righteous in his sight all the days of our life” (Canticle of Zechariah).

“I have promised and I will do it, says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 36:36) This is
one of His promises: “If you hunger for holiness, God will satisfy your
longing, good measure and flowing over.” (Christian Prayer: The Liturgy
of the Hours)

And when I was still doubting God’s power and promises, this passage spanked me:

“But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these
things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be
fulfilled in their own time.” (Luke 1:20).

Then the story of the Annunciation inspired my heart—

 “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel said,
“…with God nothing will be impossible.” Then Mary said: “…let it be
done unto me according to your word.” (Luke 1:28-38)

The perfection Jesus stated—“You have learned how it was said: You must not commit
adultery. But I say this to you: if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.” Mt. 5:28—entails such an impossible chastity in today’s
permissive atmosphere. How can this be since masturbation has been ingrained in me, since
pornographic memory recall is easy, its availability widespread, etc? But again, the angel is
saying to me, “Nothing is impossible with God!”
God will give us his “grace and justification.”69 One can stop masturbation by avoiding
the occasions that causes masturbation be it internal or external. Our Literature states that we
can do the good because God’s grace in Christ Jesus is sufficient. I must not be proud that I
have done good but has to recognize that “the grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God
makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to
sanctify it.” [italics mine]70 Therefore, every good habits that we form in ourselves is only true
in the light of “habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s
call…”71
Why have I become repentant, weeping for my sins and calling on the mercy of God?
Why have I pursued the knowledge of myself so that I might be able to become chaste? Who
taught me the value of chastity? “Mabuti ba ako at hinangad ko ang mabuti? Ako pa nga ang
naghahangad ng kasamaan at sa lahat ng sarap nito. Pero sino ang nagpapanatili sa akin upang
patuloy kong disiplinahin ang sarili ko sa kalinisan? Hindi baga may isang bagay na labas sa
aking pagkataong makasalanan na siyang sanhi ng mga mabubuting bagay na ginagawa ko na
ngayon?” (Am I good thereby I desire good? I even am the one who desires evil and all of its
pleasures. But who or what maintains me on the discipline of chastity? Might there be a thing
outside me as a sinner that is the cause of the goodness that resides in me now.) Of course, I can
do what is good now. Shall I be proud of it? Or shall I continuously praise the Savior who every
minute of my life sustains me by His all-sufficient grace to become holy and righteous in his
sight all the days of my life.
I might not see clearly how cooperation between God and man happens, but I need not go
further to understand that mystery. “Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our
experience and cannot be known except by faith.”72 Although we can actually sense and
experience grace mighty and small, active or restive, though not always, and with an affirmation
that can be: 1) it is not really me who acted (but other Agent), 2) it is me who acted but with help
or infusion from outside myself (cooperation), 3) it is me who acted it (sin)--suffice it to know
that by His grace I can become chaste in time, which is not impossible. I must trust His
promises. When the appointed time comes, that you find yourself clean, chaste, you will be
mute, speechless in disbelief of what you are already experiencing.
Despair should not be the last vocabulary of a soul trying to hunger for holiness. It
should be hope.
69
See CCC, art. 1987-2016.
70
CCC, art. 1999.
71
CCC, art. 2000.
72
CCC, art. 2005.
 Prayer

Lord, I pray that my addiction may come to an end. I know

you will lead me to this end, to your kingdom of peace and love. I
know I am weak but you have revealed your power to me, your
power to save me, to justify me a sinner, to sanctify me. Let me
have confidence in your love to me my Lord, as did your Little
Flower. Nevertheless, let me know that “there is no holiness
without renunciation and spiritual battle,”73 and thus let me
persevere to the end with all my total trust in your grace. Amen.

DOES GOD WILL MASTURBATION?

“I have asked God’s grace, and yet He has not spared me from my weakness,” is a wrong
sentiment. The same with, “I have done all my best but I still relapsed. Why did God still said
that he will save me from my sins and not do it?” They are words full of errors but can exist
undetected.
The fact is clear from our Literature: “God’s grace is sufficient.” The masturbator’s
cooperation is lacking. “A man helped by God, can, if he will, be without sin.” However, those
who have struggled against masturbation for long and still have not achieved a masturbation-free
life express such sentiments. The sentiment that baffles them is this:

I want to free myself from addictive masturbation that bad enough but is God really
helping me that bad enough. If he can make miracles why can’t he seem to even save
me; or, on the contrary is masturbation what He really mean as the thorn in the flesh
described by St. Paul that will keep me from getting proud and so masturbation is good if
it really can’t be controlled and is permitted thus by God as not that sinful. That by this,
one will no longer see God as causing a masturbator so much a trouble and thus should
only be seen as a normal part of life, as eating or drinking is while masturbation should
not be practiced in regulation but just comes in its own natural way or caused by God…

Lo, it will end by changing the doctrine of the church about masturbation. Wanda
Poltawska, a professor of Pastoral Medicine at the Pontifical Academy of Cracow said that our
sexual faculty does not work if not stimulated.74 And if induced, then the stimulator, ourselves
ultimately, should be the culprits and not God, which we have already pointed as signifying
inadequately directed effort.75 A relapse then should not make one lose hope and curse God.
Better if a relapse is seen as an indicator that one is not yet doing the right things, just as a runner
always gets feedback if he has broken his earlier record or lagged to a slower pace.

73
CCC, art. 2015.
74
Poltawska, Priestly Celibacy, in subtopic “The myth of orgasm.”
75
To reiterate: “Failure and frustration need not signify impossibility; perhaps they signify inadequately
directed effort.”—WCC, CMP Ch.17 Appen. 2.
 God does not will masturbation. The masturbator just does not use God’s graces or in
other terms, he has just not yet mastered chastity or adequately directed his effort to achieving it.
A masturbator praying “Thy will be done” should state it clearly thus:

You will not tempt me to masturbate, you don’t want me to

masturbate, and you want for me a masturbation-free life. Lord, help me
achieve such life you have always longed for us. Let me not see you as
not helping me that bad enough. Let me not interpret your Word from
your apostle Paul as meaning that masturbation will make us humble and
so masturbate.76 Let me understand that a masturbation-free life is the
normal way of life. And let me pray thus, “Thy will be done.” Let the
hardened rationalizer in us be cast away by You. Amen.

May God’s Holy Will Be Done77

O Lord, do to me whatever shall seem good in Thy sight. If Thou

willest that I should be in darkness,[78] blessed be Thou! If Thou willest
that I should be in light, still blessed be Thou! If Thou deignest to
comfort me, blessed be Thou. And if Thou willest that I should be
afflicted, equally blessed be Thou forever! I will willingly suffer for Thee,
O Lord, whatever Thou willest should come upon me. I am ready to
receive alike from Thy hand good and evil,[79] sweet and bitter, joy and
sadness, and to give thanks for everything that befalls me. Keep me only
from all sin [emphasis mine] and I will fear neither death nor Hell. Cast
me not off forever, nor blot me out of the Book of Life, and whatsoever
tribulation befalleth me shall not hurt me.

DESPAIR AND DOING THE GOOD

Continue doing the good, and always do the good.

Too many times in my life as a compulsive masturbator, I have often despaired. Too
many times too that doing the good is the only possible way out of the dead end corruption.

76
2 Cor. 12:8-10 “Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me,
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast of my
weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
77
Excerpt prayer from Fr. Jeremias Drexelius, S.J., Heliotropium. ed. Ferdinand E. Bogner, qtd. from
Imitation of Christ, Bk. III, Ch.17, (TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1912), 401. Our rebellious brothers who
rationalize as good in God’s sight the evil of their own doings can also use this.
78
Many times mostly in the beginning, the book Heliotropium cites the word “sin excepted.” One must
inculcate in one’s mind that darkness does not mean sinfulness. It wants to state that there are lots of darkness in our
lives which are not sins of our own doings.
79
Again from WCC, although God uses our sinfulness to add wisdom in us, let such notion not be used as
an excuse for one to sin, to masturbate.
 …by slothfulness our wills become weaker and weaker, and we end up unable to
resist other sins…for the things we are doing may be activities we like to do,
which are done in place of what we ought to be doing…God expects a return on
His investment in us; He expects us to grow and develop ourselves.80

Some clarification about what we like to do. We are not exorcising to cast away our
emotional life, but have to insist on our principle of intelligible good, because the desiring aspect
of an addict or compulsive is negatively convoluted that, more than often, it has an upper hand
than what is intelligibly good. Rather, I suggest reading Wilkie Au's "By Way of the Heart" for
an in depth processing on integrating our desires with our moral life. Not to mention that only in
heaven will we have a fully integrated emotional life.
On the other hand, Robert Brennan says something about always acting the good. He
said that every occasion must be taken to practice what is good to make for ease and grace in
doing what is good or virtuous.81 In addition, the Church teaches that even venial sins must also
not be committed. As St. Augustine points, we fear venial sins because they are many.
It is a great struggle to do again the first good thing at hand that one must do; yet, it is the
only way out of cursing and blaspheming God. Do not ask God why he made you a compulsive
masturbator and an elect of hell. By asking such a question, you are passing the blame on God,
and thus the responsibility on God to act. But you must be the one to act out your conversion not
God who has already given you the grace to mend your ways. The problem is that you easily
surrender because of the numerous things to do and practice in time. The technique is to think of
the steps to be done. Then one must do the first step, the first priority, the first good thing at
hand that one must do "here and now" as John Paul II always attaches.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta has taught that only at the beginning do we struggle in doing a
difficult task. But once started, the work one does becomes easier as one continues doing it.
“The more one does what is good the freer one becomes,”82 CCC says.
Thomas Nelson said that we do not know the good because we do not want to do it, and
thus we do not want to know it.83 Too many times did I say, “What am I to do?” But the answer
is, “I know what to do. I just have to carry it out, but just not carrying it out.”84
On the other hand, there are times when we really do not know what is good. On such
moments, we have to pray and beg the Lord continuously. We should never become weary until
he answer us and show us the right way.
In line with this is St. Therese of the Child Jesus’ teaching of her “Little Way.” Evagrius
also said, “…they [the demons] prevent us from doing what is easy and urge us to do what is
impossible…. to make the soul fall into a state of discouragement.”85 Let us thus pray, “St.
Therese teach me your Little Ways.” This prayer helps much those who are ambitious or
milleniaristic or positivistic. St. Therese promised her help to those who pray it. We do not have
to think of the great good that we can do, but actually cannot yet carry out or may not at all. Of

80
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell, 250.
81
Robert Edward Brennan, O.P. Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis of the Nature of Man.
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941), 260-279.
82
CCC, art. 1733.
83
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell, “The Role of Conscience” 374ff.
84
See Deut. 30:11-14.
85
Evagrius, “The Intelligent Enemy” qtd. in “On the Active Life” Winnowing Fan, Vol. VI, No. 6.
course, we cherish hope for the great or simple good that we want to accomplish in our lifetime.
But we always remind ourselves that the best should not be the enemy of the good. And rather
than fall into despair when hard times hit our idealism, we just have to do what is possible, what
good I must do at this moment.86 Thus by carrying what is here and now good, we become what
we do. Moreover, the prospect of the future becomes good too.
“Tot seminaristae, tot sacerdote,” as our formators back in the seminary are wont to say.
What you are today as a seminarian, you will become as a priest. The saying has a wisdom that
applies in general that who you are today, what you do today, you’ll do also tomorrow. The
point is not to worry about tomorrow like, “Will it be good for me to become a priest or a
husband?” but to live what is good today which are many and varied even small or insignificant
in itself. Then, whether in priesthood or marriage, that little amount of daily deposit will earn
big tomorrow.

87
MY DAILY BREAD
The Way of Purification Temptation
Chapter 62 Despair

CHAPTER 62
Despair

CHRIST:
MY CHILD, when temptations persist and keep returning, do not despair. In all real needs I am
always near and ready to help you. I will give you My grace and whatever else is necessary for you to keep
out of sin.
2. Do not fear or worry. Keep your courage high, and be prepared to go on fighting your
temptations. You are not lost because you are tempted often. Your human inclinations do not always
follow reason, and so they provide many a temptation to sin.
3. Your first step toward safety lies in realizing your weakness. Secondly, do not become
discouraged by temptations. Simply keep on doing your best to turn your mind and will toward other
objects. No temptation can make you sin.
4. How often it happens that someone is making his greatest progress at the very time when he
thinks that he is slipping. I look at your intention and your effort. By these I judge your loyalty to Me.
5. Go on trying for My sake. Do not consider yourself a failure simply because you feel like one.
Be brave and follow Me. I have overcome the world. With My help you shall win the daily battle for
Heaven.

86
WCC, LCL, Chap.2, Ques. E, 5.d.
87
WCC
 THINK:
The tendency to give up is in all men. To overcome it, God gives us the virtue of hope. Why
despair? All is not lost just because I feel that it is so. God wants me to hope in His mercy and to trust in
His love. Temptations may come and go; they may even linger for hours and days, but it is my will which
decides what I really want and what I am in the eyes of God.

PRAY:
My God, I want to obey Your law and follow Your Will in all things. Though my feelings may
reach out for what is bad, help me to do what is right and good. Give me a glimpse of Your wisdom, so
that I may see more clearly what harm and evil is in all sin. If I should fail in a moment of weakness, let
me not despair. I hope in Your mercy. I trust in Your goodness and love. Never will I think that my sins
are greater than Your mercy. No matter how bad I have been, Your goodness is great enough to forgive
me. Give me the wisdom and strength to hate I all sin in the future. I shall not despair nor will I be
discouraged by my mistakes. Help me to fight an honest daily battle against all sin. Amen.

AM I READY FOR A LIFELONG BATTLE?

Powerpointing88

(Consider what I will be speaking here as simply the counting of beads of sacrifice during
St. Therese’ childhood days. Now sexual addicts are worse than innocent children for they have
lost control of themselves, and made themselves even slaves of this particular passion. Sexual
addicts then need the counting of beads of sacrifice more than children do. Yet in the final
analysis it is the “not counting” counsel of St. Therese that made all the sense for we are to do
little acts of mercy by desire or by emotion, meaning really desiring it, in contrast with
powerpointing’s reason-logic bias, because we are to reeducate the emotion of sexual addicts
who have lost all of its control to lust’s rule that resulted to overall waywardness.)

“Let not small and trivial sins be overlooked because they are small; but rather fear them
because they are many.
With Little drops the river is filled. Through narrow chinks in the ship the water oozes
in, the hold keeps filling, and if it be disregarded the ship is sunk.”89
—St. Augustine

Am I ready for a lifelong battle? Patience and hope are the greatest armor in the battle
against one’s compulsive masturbation. Patience gives one the strength to go on fighting even it
seems that too many failures and relapses are all there is to harvest. Hope is the greatest virtue
against despair i.e., “to hope against all hope”90 even there seems to be no hope in sight of ever
attaining a masturbation-free life.

88
Warning: Please read the next article “Obeying St. Therese” that sheds the real light about
powerpointing. Powerpointing has become necessary because of the animalistic life that sexual addiction have
artificially habitualized. Wherefore an animal is controlled by the sensual, it is not similarly true of man’s animal
side, which by reason of his rational being, has an immortal soul, a real free agent of his own acts to do this or to
shun that according to reason and not just according to what is sensually fulfilling.
89
St. Augustine, “Small Sins” (Venial Sins) English version, Winnowing Fan, Vol. XXI No. 5.
90
CCC, art. 1819.
 In such regard, we take St. Augustine’s advice to take care not to permit small sin against
chastity.
In his book “Seat of the Soul” Gary Sucav’s positive attitude will help one who is already
despairing to achieve such power against masturbation:
1) The temptation will surface again and again. Each time that you challenge it you gain
power and it loses power.
2) If you look upon each recurrence of attraction as a setback, or as an indication that
your intention is not working, you choose the path of learning through fear and doubt.
3) If you look upon each recurrence as an opportunity that is offered to you, in response
to your intention, to release your inadequacy and to acquire power over it, you choose the path
of learning through wisdom.
4) The first time you challenge your addiction, 2nd and 3rd, you may not feel that anything
has been accomplished. Do you think that authentic power can be had so easily? As you hold to
your intention, and as you choose again and again and again and again and again and again to
become whole, you accumulate power and the addiction that you thought could not be
challenged will lose its power over you.
5) It may be that your addiction has provided you one of the few genuine pleasures of
your life. What is more important to you, your wholeness, and your freedom, or the pleasures
that you get from satisfying your addiction?
6) Move into how strong the power of your addiction is, into how deeply you feel its
attraction, and ask yourself if the time is really right for you to release this form of learning
(unlearning). If that is the path that you will eventually take, why wait?
7) You will once again enter the fullness of who you are. You will see what purposes
your addiction served. You will survey what has been learned. If you choose to continue with
your addiction you choose to be unconscious. You choose to learn through fear and doubt,
because you fear your addiction and you doubt your power to challenge it successfully.91

At this point I’m introducing a technique I call powerpointing providing me the

cooperative aspect with God and displacing my blasphemy against God as pure worthless
invention. It introduced me for the first time to see each recurrence as not tests from God to put
me down again but a joy filled experience which when accumulated will set me free.
Powerpointing is the doing of the good and avoiding of evil counted. Powerpointing recognizes
the accumulated points as giving one the power to do the good or the ease of doing good. The
process focuses on one’s cooperation with the Supreme Being, on the reality of merit, and rather
than belittle the role of grace and prayer, it acts on the teaching of Christ that only those who do
the commandments of God will be saved.92
(One can jump and later just go back to these technical discussions)
[ As I do powerpointing, I am mindful of the idea that a virtuous life not just avoids evil but also does good.
WCC termed it the living of one’s personal vocation.
With such a new principle in mind, I became confused and could not name the significance of
powerpointing. While not knowing what to choose from among the goods possible to pursue also, I continued on
powerpointing my way of everyday life. Yet there seems to be something missing. There has been no direction yet
that I have chosen, and my emotions say to me this and that is what I like to do. Bu the feeling's authenticity, rather,
is unconvincing. Being a compulsive and an artist put me into disadvantage because I always have to tame my
unchaste and powerful emotions all mixed up, which unfortunately made me hateful of the life of my emotions in

91
Gary Sucav, Seat of the Soul,
92
Matthew 7:21.
general. I realized later that not all of my emotions should be tamed. Some emotions good in themselves must be
acted out if I really want to with reason approving the move, and that is who I am, that is what my real choices are
which must always rule out intrinsic evil.93 However, I always have to authenticate these emotions if it is reasonable
(intelligible good as WCC names it), according to the commandments of Christ, etc.94 Then is when the activity of
discernment starts, where powerpointing in itself is deficient.
In the Encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor Pope John Paul II said that there are lower limits to morality but
there is no higher limit, meaning in the discernment process the least requirements of morality must be observed
without any choice: we are all compelled to obedience not to do evil. It does not end there though. And we
continually ask what is good, and then what is acceptable, and what is perfect95 in such regard are we introduced
into the hard food of the soul not all at once.
There is also the threefold discussion on the role of conscience by Thomas A. Nelson. According to him
the "three basic ingredients that coalesce to make up what we call conscience are:
1) The moral knowledge that we have in our minds without being taught, in other words, what we know
with the use of our unaided reason;
2) the moral principles we have learned (from parents, in school, etc.) and
3) the effects of our moral behavior (good or bad actions)"
For an addict number three is the most damaged. This is what is healed by powerpointing: our ability to
know what is good by doing what is good so that we may know, accept, and continually live what is good which is
chastity that has to be learned as good by training in chastity. Therefore powerpointing is more on "willing and
doing what is good" that also affects "knowing what is good".
The system of powerpointing is not goal setting and is not discernment itself. Rather, it makes one capable
of setting a goal and it makes one capable of achieving a goal. It is the dynamo that must be directed, an open
system that has to be programmed. One should not expect that one will no longer have to undergo discernment of
one’s personal vocation if one is powerpointing. Rather, discernment process must be included to be powerpointed
if one must.
In my case, this growth in discerning as stunted because of early impure thoughts and compulsive
masturbation, put me into a fantasy world that hampered and even stopped the development of who I am, my skills,
talents, of what I want to do. Though there is a need too of affirming that the capacity to know what is good is
present by way of judgment about what is really good though one has been addicted, yet early training in innocence
and intervention to forestall sexual addiction is better than anything. Again, my sentiment, that chastity has a great
value in the development of human beings and it starts at childhood.
Continuing our definition of powerpointing, it seems to be rigid too. It must bend a little.96 The little
bending seems to be the freedom to do or choose any of the good as really good excepting intrinsic evil. First, “In a
situation where many choices are possible it does not seem necessary to suppose always that only one of these is
according to God’s will.”97 Second, it seems to be saying too that doing the good that we know must give way
sometimes when in doubt to reflecting if the good that we know is really good. We can call it seeking the truth that
the encyclical letter of Pope John Paul II “Veritatis Splendor” commends. Prayer and the fact of grace, the process
of discernment, the process of scientific inquiry and several other processes are not powerpointing itself. Though
we will have the heaviest insistence here early on that no one can do good without grace from God which works
mysteriously, and even powerpointing cannot be done without the grace that comes from our Lord Jesus. We
conclude that the powerpointing that we will be using here is the systematic doing of the good that we already
believe is the good and the systematic avoidance of intrinsic evil. It is systematic in a way that we habitualize the
good and unlearn the vice by counting, believing that, in accord with Aristotle’s idea, repetition of an act makes for
ease or power in doing it. And in the modern idea of the neuroplasticity98 of the mind (where it was proven that our
brain has the capacity to grow and train new cells to become what we need it to become in the cases of brain
damages, abnormality in the brain, incurable obsessions and traumas), repetition or practice over years though very
tiresome and monotonous, is the key. In our case here, the use of pornographic materials and practice of

93
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Veritatis Splendor, art. 80.
94
By Way of the Heart by Wilkie Au, S.J. is one of the good books for this purpose. Consult most
especially chapter 3 of the book “Heart Searching and Life Choice”.
95
See Rom. 12:2
96
Wilkie Au, S.J., By Way of the Heart, 201.
97
Ibid., 69.
98
Reader’s Digest, "The Plastic Brain" by Sarah Scott. August 2008.
masturbation starting from early childhood changed the developing brain negatively unlike the brain of a child living
in innocence.
In human beings, though fallen by effect of original sin, we recognize a normal will from an abnormal will.
Powerpointing helps to restore such normalcy, i.e. normal fallen nature or without compulsion. But then this normal
fallen human nature will not be perfect that it will not have struggles and temptations anymore. A former
compulsive or addict need no less self esteem when compulsion or addiction is not there anymore. He becomes at
par with the rest of humanity, yet he need not absolutize the system of powerpointing, neither his capacity for
goodness. He will realize that even powerpointing is a limited system needing the grace of the Lord. So that I
added the practice of telling Jesus, “Lord, I only have seven points, please help me.”
Thus human nature, by way of cooperation as a secondary cause needs to open up the door so that Christ
saving grace may enter. Here is where once a great sinner is forgiven much, gratitude is much. Powerpointing must
be done in the atmosphere of this gratefulness. The capacity to act goodness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and so
becomes a fitting sacrifice of thanksgiving.
No one though knows how our real free act can be an act also of the Primary Cause which is a mystery of
our faith. Yet by faith we still have to affirm both that we have to act freely and God causes us to act. Our purpose
though here is not to solve an unsolvable mystery though a bit explainable. The question of passivity and activity of
powerpointing is beguilling. But suffice it to say that not all the goods of the day comes from our acts. Some we
have to affirm as purely coming from the Lord, some coming from our free acts (though we don’t know how God is
part of the process), and some coming from cooperation between the two, though everything is grace. Our main
purpose is to practice chaste acts little by little if not all at once which is unrecognized by a compulsive or addict.
We then add to such idea that psychology can discover better ways to do good but we still have to do it
anyway. (Again it is not the science of psychology doing good even without grace from God, but that grace is
always presupposed to be working always) Here, good habituation, which is the effect of powerpointing, helps.
While virtuous life needs prudence and not just power to restrain oneself (temperance), to go ahead (fortitude), to
sacrifice oneself (justice) we are problematizing the addict’s or compulsive’s dilemma of an uncontrollable
behavior. We are then helping him by powerpointing, yet we are clarifying to him that powerpointing is not grace
itself (though it is graced, because both to will and to act is God's grace), not virtue yet, not prudence, not a scholarly
act. In spite of this, healing his incapacity, like through the help of powerpointing, will aid grace, virtue, prudence,
scholarly act, or his whole life. Carlo Caffarra in his book "Living in Christ" points to three stages of good acts,
virtue, and contemplation. Powerpointing is properly in the domain of good acts struggling for integral goodness. It
is not grace, for my experience of counting the good I have done does not include counting those that I have not
done. Somebody did it, be it inside me or outside me. Pure grace is different from grace with my cooperation
(though as always presupposing that even my cooperation, conscious that I am the one who did it, is not in any way
outside the scope of grace). “I did it Lord, thank you!” is the shortest and most descriptive affirmation of such a
reality we call grace. ]
We also have to explain recurrence and differentiate it from relapse. Recurrence does
not mean relapse to masturbation again, but recurrence means the repeat of the temptation that
makes one masturbate either by thought, circumstances, problems, etc. Recurrence is the
temptation that sprouts from nowhere or has been stimulated by anything or by one’s
unconscious or uncontrolled self, but not entertained or acted out but rather cut out, and one
rechannels one’s consciousness and/or activity.99 The need is to focus on value, those we see in
Christ which is subjectively effective, rather than nonvalue (e.g. not masturbating, not thinking
impurely).100
Personally, one has to observe the no relapse rule exactly, no impure thinking and no
masturbation, but does not have to use such exact measure to judge others. Encouraging and
helping others achieve such a free masturbation life is enough. As Dr. Cline has said to his
clients, “When relapses occur, I don’t beat them up. I point out that relapses are just part of a
growth experience and explain what can be learned from the relapse that will protect them in the
99
For further study see Wilkie Au in his book “By Way of the Heart” who differentiates repression from
suppression and recommends that we need not fear our sexuality in the end. Sexuality that gives vitality once
repressed (or saying an energetic no according to Lindworski in his "Training of the Will") dulls life.
100
Idea developed from Lindworsky, Training of the Will.
future. I try to give them hope. I point out the progress already made and the good things
done.”101 The question does not point us towards if relapses are part of the learning process, but
the grave focal point is that one is learning not to have relapses anymore. Indeed the counselor
or the masturbator should not underestimate in any way anyone’s or one’s moral capacity in
Christ to become chaste and to be thus accountable.
Here is how typically powerpointing works: Each recurrence and good act done counts as
one i.e., “one point,” “two points,” “three points”… “six points” and so on though I’m not the
one causing the recurrence but tries to rechannel my mind as each recurrence happens. The
starting day may be recorded and from then hence no relapse should be permitted. The table
below is just for examples’ sake. You can make your own depending on what will really help
you become aware of what works to achieve a masturbation-free life.

Date Recurrence Good Act

Started 1. For example I 4. I’m so lazy doing my
Dec. 18, counted “one” my laundry. But I found
2002 getting up in bed out that by doing this
just to shift my I am actually also
already becoming gaining power to do
sexual attention to things. I forced
other things myself to do the
2. I went out of the laundry, which I
room because I counted as one. Then
feel a great urge I went to work out
to masturbate. I other things which I
went on a place counted also thereby
where others can feeling myself, as it
see me. accumulated, more at
3. Etc. ease and enjoying
already to do other
worthwhile activities.
5. I went to buy
gasoline
6. Etc.
Dec. 19 1,2,3 4,5,6,7
Dec. 20
So on…

Additional insights from my powerpointing experience

1. First time you do this, the first point will often be as painful but as life giving as
childbirth. The next points often are the same.
2. What I do when I have relapsed even I have already counted 21 powers from God, is
to go back to zero again. But even if I have no relapse or actual masturbation, yet I feel I am as
weak as before after many points have been counted, I still make it a point to make “one” the
starting number that really measure in reality the capacity of my will.

101
See Appendix B
 3. There often comes a time when you no longer have to consciously count as if you
have achieved some ease and mastery.
4. But these ease and mastery seem to elapse because one is really in reality entertaining
the temptations that come which one doesn’t really yet know how to handle and win over. And
so, it is our responsibility to rebuild again our capacity by powerpointing through a conscious
effort (as if constant practice is necessary) starting with “one” again.
5. As a person masters it, the more one will notice that there will come a time that
recurrence is not playing in the scene, but more of the good act is being counted. The good acts
are now the primary player in one’s becoming chaste. I do what I already know sincerely as
good. Then, one pushes oneself to know if it is really good or what is really objectively good
and one prays that one might be able to know and do it. We affirm the call of Pope John Paul II
in his Encyclical Veritatis Splendor that the universal good is capable of being applied in specific
situation here and now and so conscience tells us this and that is good. Don’t get me wrong with
such details, for a sexual addict is one of the worst rationalizer of his vice and thus transfers to all
facets of his life knowingly or unknowingly.
6. But hardly does temptation be eradicated that times of periodic compulsion will
resurface again. This calls for the basics again, to count one, two, three…
7. But after some time of greater and longer degree of mastery, powerpointing will not
be by then the name of the game. It may sometimes call for a greater witnessing and living of
the faith, social actions, the advancement of one’s career and talents, etc. But although
powerpointing will not make its place as was before, it may prove its usefulness time and again
in living the other virtues and moral precepts, for example the living of one’s temperance in
eating or the eating of whole nutritious food or the eradication of sloth in oneself counting one,
two, three…
8. I cannot powerpoint or do the good (positive “Thou should”) if I will not stop
masturbation first (negative “Thou should not”). I observe that powerpointing has the process of
going first in its negative phase to its positive phase. That is why we cannot give alms to the poor
correctly if we are unrepentant sex addicts on the other hand. Struggling sex addicts seek a
healing that is on the way towards loving or wanting the good of others as included in our idea of
the good. Then charity that covers a multitude of sin must take effect also. Powerpointing is not
grace or love but an atmosphere where grace and love flourish. In the normal fallen sphere, this
is what they call patch work. Yet we are confronted here by the magnitude of damage of real
compulsion with early childhood origin that continued through adolescence without intervention.
9. Doing the good that a desperate person must do or prioritize doing is too much. I do
not mean they must not do it. I only mean it is better to do some easier good things one can do
at the moment, than not do any good at all only because one cannot do what he must do. The
idea of escaping doing the good one must do by doing the easier ones is not the idea. One must
do the lower limits of morality, while the higher limits cannot be the uniform duty of everybody.
One is given only 10 talents, the other, 100 talents, and some 500 talents. God’s role of giving
more goods to those who already have is by his previous performance of faithfully doubling the
given talent, or let us say in the minimum just to have some interest by putting it in the bank. By
this, one’s power to do the harder good things is also building up, and it later will empower one
to do the harder ones. So, start powerpointing those good things one can easily do. Then try to
do the next, and if you already have build up powers, the harder ones. For example, our talents
make it easy for us to use it, if we have been trained in business rigorously starting at childhood
and we are then business-savvy, then it’s our gift we have to use and we can use with ease and
skill. If we find it hard to go to Mass during Sundays on the other hand, we don’t have the
choice to just tithe as an alternative in not attending mass, for Catholics are duty bound. We then
improvise—showering early, putting on our clothes an hour earlier, etc. If we find it hard to
work abroad, then start becoming an entrepreneur in the little ways one can easily start with, and
then one will learn the rope and enter into more difficult entrepreneural skills. We can’t exhaust
possible and doable goods. There is no higher limits to morality. We refer to the Catholic
Church who teaches what is sinful and what is not. If there is real progress, then it is in the
direction of good acts becoming a virtue in time.
10. With all of these or just one of these guides, one must not forget that it is by praying
without ceasing, until one receives an unmerited gift, that one becomes graced to do good and
avoid evil.
11. It doesn't matter if you're stuck at 16 counts of good acts as long as you're
continuously doing what is good or powerpointing. Other days might sometimes become like
that while on the contrary other days you're counting almost to 96 points and above. There
seems to be in such a case a breaking of previous record of doing what's good next day around,
as if, if you're seeing your previous record, you can break it next time or at least maintain such a
level. Or so, at least there is a gauge that I am doing something rather than nothing. It has to be
done without stop or cutting. Days where you powerpoint and days where you don't are not the
idea for a healing to spring. Just like a cream that needs to be applied so that itching will ease,
losing the itch after three days of applying need not stop one for the cream to be effective, which
the instruction tells needs to be applied 2 to 3 times a day for 20 to 30 days. In order to achieve
excellence or heroic virtue in this once in a lifetime earthly life, powerpointing has to be
continuous and without interruption as long as mastery isn't in sight. Why? Consider
neuroplasticity’s idea as an empirical support, minding that repetition, as seemingly nonsense, is
the key itself to mastery or in the neurologist's word, forming of new neuropaths and cells that
controls chastity and transforms cells to other good use. Be wary then, for if you feel stuck at 16
or 3 points only, oftentimes already it might be that you're not proactive. We have to "be
solicitous to make our call and election permanent"102 and thus to always find ways to increase
our power or proactively search for some good acts to add to our merit. While it can be that the
habitualizing effect already set in, it is always safe to assume the contrary, and take the narrow
path of holiness, and continue on to the idea that though we are finished with the lower limits of
morality, while thingking that there's no upper limit to morality, we can unlimitly achieve
excellence without end and thus give the greatest glory to God's holy name. Besides even
without powerpointing the complete attitude of the teaching of Mother Church to "always" act
according to the judgement of one's correct conscience applies.
12. Is powerpointing for particular act mastery only or for general purpose? It is in the
general mode. If the attitude will not be always do what is good here and now, then it is not just
the good of chastity that one is concerned about but all the sphere of goodness. Better for
powerpointing to have a mode like that than just limit doing what is good in the chastity level
only which is not theoretically sound and integrative. What is the good? Good is particularized
in individual situations starting from a universal concept of good. a) Now if powerpointing will
be used to focus on attaining chastity in particular only, the judgement of our conscience only
should, because we have to always do what is good, and conscience will tell us to do something
to counteract the effect of addiction. b) Now if it will be used to focus to attain financial stability
or job advancement too, it will entail the wealth of knowledge in general on how to achieve and
102
2 Peter 1:10
maintain financial stability which seems to be more on the normal dealings with life and the
normal moral judgement and act. It is because it seems that a virtuous life needs to always exert
effort in doing what is good that powerpointing seems to support. That we can thus safely
conclude that normal and abnormal people can always draw strength from that one capacity
human beings have been endowed with: the capacity to do good, redeemed and graced by God, is
accessible whether to combat addiction or to attain holiness. As CCC tells us about virtue:

Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of

intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions and guide our
conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery and
joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices
the good.
The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of
morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion
with divine love.103

As such, I can never tell when to stop powerpointing, if it is just for addicts, for special
training of the will, for I can boldly tell anybody to stop counting as long as the attitude to
always do the good is present. It is not the counting but it is the attitude of always doing the
good that becomes a character that becomes a habit, and a virtue. While fixation in the counting
can lead to dynamism--doing good for the sake of acquiring points, overlooks and even
completely blur the two other aspect of what is good which is the circumstances and the
intention, I safely state that the counting aspect is good for all kinds of recovery from
addiction or compulsion if not for normal saved fallen human beings.

virtuous

fallen human nature normal sinful

saved by Jesus Christ
abnormal
(compulsion, addiction)

Not just counting but the quantity aspect, the kilos by food binge for overweights, the per stick of
cigarette for the smokers, and what good they do on the other hand to shift the kinesis from
avoiding sin to doing good. That just complicate matter for sexual addicts which is not an
addiction for an object outside but inside. That just completely force me to assume that the
inside pleasure triggered by our abused freedom that made an inordinate attachment to orgasm
can only be solved by will training if not strengthening the will that Lindworsky points is not
plausible scientifically. I don't know what is better than counting, but as long as the attitude is
there, you can device any technique and even better technique to prepare the inordinate will to
conform to Christ, to be free from our artificially made prisons, for Christ has set us free.
14. In the problem of indecisiveness in life's multiple good choices for example, only the
continuous doing of the good already known here and now will pull us out of stagnation and
inertia, and propels life triggering a good choice at last in the unknown zone; not the other way
around where you seem to be reflecting without any fruit whatever for days and months what

103
CCC, art. no. 1804.
really to do with one's life, you're stuck and it seems life is not moving. By the way, stagnancy,
or as the saints name it, sloth, is a source of temptation to sexual pleasure.
Finally, every powerpointing endeavor I have done seems inclined to rejoicing at the
small acts I have been able to add up to my good acts. Then every rejoicing tends to arrogance.
So I prayed that God may show me what is wrong with such arrogance which spoils the kind of
true joy I do need. Divine Mercy showed me that by deeper discernment, more patient enquiry
and prayer through the enlightenment of the Spirit, I agonized to pray these words:

“Lord have mercy on all the dilapidated goods I have been able to achieve
all throughout these years, some through powerpointing. I do not deserve your
help, but it is your mercy I implore. I even deserve the lot I do have now from
which some you have already prevented me from suffering. Your mercy the
saints taught me, especially St. Therese and St. Faustina, is immensely rich and
immeasurable though we do not deserve to receive it. We just have to ask for it
that is why it is called mercy. Without your mercy Lord no kind of technique
alone, like powerpointing, can lead us to the land of promise that even in this life
we can already experience. I need your mercy for the imperfect control I have of
my temperance, for the lack of fortitude to forge ahead and accomplish tasks that
are pro-poor, for the lack of justice in my dealings with my fellow human beings,
and for the prudence that has not shown itself in my deepest reflection and long
and arduous studies. ‘If you oh Lord should mark our guilt, Lord who would
survive. But with you is found forgiveness for this we revere you.’ Lord, have
mercy on all the imperfect goods I have shortly achieved. Cover me with your
precious blood and save me from the wrath of your justice that cuts down every
fruitless tree. Be merciful to me so that I can now truly achieve your perfect will
for my life.”

Then I really have to streamline powerpointing in the Catholic practices. Where can I
find such counting as an attitude of the saints in becoming holy? I have found none. I even
found St. Therese telling not to count but to do it all out of love104 which is discussed in the next
topic. However, I still recommend counting good acts (which is not virtue yet) for compulsives
or addicts, not for noncompulsives or nonaddicts. St. Faustina and St. Maximilian Kolbe's little
acts of mercy even how insignificant is beautiful in the eyes of God. Now I can safely advise to
study their lives and writings and do away with the idea of any “powerpointing” that does not
conform with these great witnesses of Divine Mercy. The idea later will be that loving is the
complete opposite of sexual addiction, and that charity covers a multitude of sin, but the problem
is that we think always of grandiose acts of charity that we forget that little acts of mercy are
beautiful too in the eyes of God. Might as well remember here the Lord’s word that those found
faithful with even the little that they have will be given more.105
To have some sense of transition from powerpointing which is natural to what is
supernatural seemingly, CCC points out on article 2001:

104
St. Therese's Little Way-Von Balthazar, Hans Urs Von Balthazar, ed. Gerard Bugge,
http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com, October 2009.
105
“For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what
he has will be taken away.” Mt. 25:29.
 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace...
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his
mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and
follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we
may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so
that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God:
for without him we can do nothing.

If we will interpret doing the good as categorized only in the natural sphere, we are
wrong. And there is actually no transition at all from natural to supernatural. But how can we
tell?

Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and
cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our
works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the
Lord's words--"Thus you will know them by their fruits"--reflection on God's
blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace
is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of
trustful poverty.106

I act imperfectly, God acts perfectly, we both act. And I communicate to Him exactly
how St. Therese recommended it:

as children do who cannot read (beautiful prayers in books not knowing which to
choose); I say quite simply to the good God what I want to tell Him, and He
always understands me.107

Or as AA tells it in 11th step, “as we understood Him.” Perfect love casts out all fear. “I ask Lord
that I may love as you have loved us.” Amen.

Stimulants to relapses

Stimulants to relapses, which should be overcome, can be the following examples. Some
of these will sometimes or most of the times stimulate one or not stimulate another to
masturbate.

1. The wishing that one is already married and could engage in marital intercourse
(from WCC)
2. Sudden intuitions of an xxx-rated emotion, sensual pictures, physiological or
chemical secretion of one’s hormone without picture
3. Being alone at one’s room where no one can see

106
CCC art. no. 2005.
107
Thoughts of St. Therese, “Prayer”, p. 121 (TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1915)
4. Deep impression of a heaven sent suggestion that one is permitted by God only once
at this moment to masturbate
5. Pessimistic thoughts that suggest you will relapse again this night at this bedroom
(thus our principle not to fear our sexuality is helpful).
Wilkie Au in his By Way of the Heart tells the story that what we fear might only be
a lost puppy in the dark following us. The idea is to trust God’s providence and be
careful to shift one’s thought immediately to other good things once temptation is
suggesting.
6. Of course, most of all, the viewing of xxx-rated film accidental or deliberate
7. Immoral and unchaste practices and stories or chatting of your friends, neighbors,
etc.
8. The sexual licentiousness we observe in medias (namely TV, tabloid, CD, internet,
radio, videoke, pocketbook, magazine), the presence of prostitution houses, the
immodest clothes that shows already everything, the green jokes, stories of
unfaithfulness as just normal and no longer sinful, the bad examples of live-in
partners…it seems endless.
9. Wrong unauthoritative and misleading teachings like:
a. “Masturbation is just normal for you.”
b. “You can achieve chastity by gradual means.” (Graduality is exemplified by
once a week masturbation, then becomes only once a month etc. But as was
suggested by Catholic Encyclopedia on “Psychotherapy” each relapse is
enough to bring us back to our former addicted or compulsive state. I am not
sure whether graduality is therapeutic because an adequately directed effort is
that hard to achieve even though achievable in time. Nevertheless, one should
not reward oneself with masturbation or limit oneself with one masturbation
per week only. There will be a tendency to long for it once a week, which is a
wrong attitude. As if having a satisfying masturbation for this day I will have
to control myself up until the following week because I had my fill and has to
look forward for the next week’s sexual menu. No, it is not true that I will
learn to curb it in time by graduality. A program that equalizes masturbation
with other life’s necessities like water and food is wrong. Those who are on a
diet curb their binging, and just resolve to eat properly. However,
masturbation is not food that we need in order to survive. Maybe sex is a
necessity for some, yet they curb it this way: inside marriage, faithful only to
one partner until death. The correct attitude is never to entertain any sexual
thought again, which should be the concern only of married persons.
c. “You are loved by God unconditionally for who you are,” can mean that it is
ok for me to masturbate because God understands. The unconditional love of
God forgives us yet also calls us to conversion.
d. “It’s a normal part of being human which shows statistically worldwide.” Etc.
10. Looking for beautiful women crossing the streets
11. The second look that may already have bad intentions
12. Of course, the use of prostitutes is a different thing, and when one is addicted to it
one is not exempted from a life of masturbation also. One must not rationalize that
in order to avoid masturbation one must have sexual intercourse with a prostitute as
 often as one feels the grip of masturbating again thereby aggravating further a
problematic situation. Evil cannot be corrected by another evil.
13. All those that can tempt you to masturbate again as long as it leads one to
masturbate.

The important thing is that one has to learn to know and control these unchaste
circumstances and actions, which will gradually lessen as one becomes more self-controlled. For
example, green jokes no longer arouse me easily after some time. But of course, this does not
mean I will enjoy hearing green jokes now without any inhibition.
In the positive realm, one must do the good that one knows he should be doing because
the life of chastity is not just attained by avoiding sin but also by doing the good. Remember that
chastity is for loving not chastity for itself.
I count it by memory (one, two, three) because writing it may be impractical in the daily
activities of life. Every struggle to do the good I have and must do, every cutting out of sexual
train of thought by doing other things, every making my time as occupied and not idle (for idle
moments gain more temptations says the saints), every cutting out of useless worrying which
ends in stimulating my orgasm to release my tension counts as one. Every getting out of the bed
which weakens my control, every exercise to enhance my body (so as not to become intellect
only that longs for embodiment), every socialization and reaching out to others (so as to express
out my gregariousness that is, on the contrary, achieved alone in masturbation) is a compilation
of things I observed can help ease out my compulsion and each accumulates points for my
strength and self-control.
But the hardest temptation and stimulants to relapses are the xxx-rated bold movies
ingrained in one’s memory. It is like the drug addict’s shabu or the chain smoker’s Philip Morris
or the alcoholic’s brandy or the obese’ Kentucky fried chicken and Big Mac. Xxx-rated gives
one the impression that marriage and relationships with the opposite sex is unattainable if not
impossible. It gives one the impression that if it is such the case, then, chastity is completely
impossible and staying single becomes a state of just satisfying one’s sexual or orgasmic needs.
Let one who is in such a case pray and plead God’s goodness. In my case, God provided me a
chaste courting with a girl I think he set up for me to meet. Its effect ranges from the
rechanneling of my sexual fantasies with any woman to “enough” romanticizing with her in
reality and in thought, up to such effect as erasing the idea in me that I cannot have such a
relationship with girls in reality. Truly, with God, nothing is impossible. He has all the ways
and means to change our stony hearts into natural hearts.

OBEYING ST. THERESE

Not to count but to do it all out of love.108 But due to persistence in doing powerpointing,
I did not obey because I do not understand also. The solution and explanation did not come

108
"I know that certain spiritual directors advise us to count our virtuous acts in order to advance in perfection. But my
spiritual director, Jesus, does not teach me to count my acts. He teaches me to do it all for love."-- St. Therese's Little Way-Von
Balthazar, Hans Urs Von Balthazar, ed. Gerard Bugge, http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com, October 2009.
easily. Rather it took me several months of reason finding without obeying, and failed. So I
decided to obey even without understanding, and I understood what I can’t.
Primarily, the complete opposite of sexual addiction is love. The most potent and thus
complete healing of sexual addiction is by loving. First, it is the doing of the good that one did
which made any difference rather than the counting of the good that one did. In other word it is
the act of doing good and not the act of counting the good deeds done which makes any sense at
all.109 Second, it is doing good to others which is the focus of love. Ultimately it is being-given-
to-others that we become complete as phenomenology describes it. While with simplicity and
full authority does the Lord teach that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for
one’s friends…and so we have to love one another as He has loved us,110 so our prayer Lord
teach me to love my brothers as you have loved me. In AA it is the third common denominator
which is helping others. (Let the readers be enlightened that a sexual addict will fight for this
insight against the idea of God not helping him be chaste though he already is willing to mend
his ways. The sexual addict needs to act but God also acts, which could have been the sole
reason why powerpointing was deviced in the first place, not to displace grace, but to see that
grace is working in his human capacity, with an emphasis on seeing himself more as the agent
rather than the Primary Agent. This I believe is a mystery and cannot fully be explained, as was
before our time.)
Now, by a simple examination, I tested if my memory is corrupted and ill but it is not.
Also I tested my imagination if it is the one sick in me. It is neither. All are perfectly normal.
It’s hard to pinpoint what faculty of the mind is sick as Dr. Sarah Ullman believes in the healing
of the frontal lobe.111 I found in the end that it is my emotion which is sick.
Emotion is desire, and love is the desiring of the good in general which include the good
of others.112 Now, it is this continuing of powerpointing or counting that is holding me back to
love and need not count doing good anymore. With a eureka, I went back as far as the Old
Testament spirituality is concerned, a legalistic approach to doing what is good!113 St. Therese
was slapping me in the face, but I cannot understand because I don’t want to obey. By persisting
in doing powerpointing I lost desiring things. Thus I act powerpointing always pushing myself
to do good things even without desiring it. Doing things with love even how little or
insignificant are one of the main message of the saints like Therese, Faustina, and Maximilian
Kolbe. In this modern world where we are plagued with too many kinds of addiction, it is not a
coincidence that St. Therese was named the greatest saints of modern times, and St. Faustina and
Maximilian Kolbe are modern saints too insisting on little acts of mercy. We have discussed all
throughout the book that rather than do what is possible here and now, we tend to dream of
helping others big time. We forget that the Lord gave 5, 2, 1 talent not equally.114 The tendency
then is for these little souls to give up, that it is not their vocation to help others, and that the little
109
I misunderstood article 1733 of CCC “The more one does what is good the freer one becomes” with a
counting mode, yet later realized it as by quantity measurable even without a counting mode, in contrast with those
who do less good. Yet the fullness of goodness rest in our Lord Jesus Christ, not in quantity but in perfection, who
“always did what was pleasing to the Father, and always lived in perfect communion with him.” We then “are made
capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of his Spirit, which they receive through the sacraments and
through prayer.”—CCC art. 1692-93.
110
John 15:12-13
111
http://thesexaddictedbrain.typepad.com February 2010.
112
Consult CCC for a more exact notion of love see art. no. 1765-1766.
113
See WCC, CMP Chap.25 Ques. D: “What does Christian love add to the love commands of the Old
Testament?” and other similar topics.
114
Mt. 25:14.
acts of mercy they can do can’t even amount to anything. Without love, I am like a resounding
gong or a clashing cymbal.115
Another idea is that God’s salvation is for the whole person including his faculty of
desiring. God wants us to love what is good and not just be forced by reason alone to do it as
Ignatian spirituality up till now is teaching. It was indeed a difficult task to integrate my desiring
faculty as a human being and then as a compulsive. We have to integrate emotion according to
Wilki Au who is talking about God who is also present in our feelings. Powerpointing which I
experienced is more on the reasonable (because I am more of a sensient sexual addict) is a good
system, but have to be aware that even the faculty of reason prone to error needs salvation too.
But rather than love, I continued powerpointing still. The result was an accumulation of
moral goods I can choose from, but without any desire to choose any one thing or another. Was
it because I have shut my capacity to love, to desire? Or I don’t desire what is good because I
prefer what is evil? Lo, I need a higher power, grace of God, to save me from my finite reason
and emotion, which powerpointing can’t produce for itself.
Repentant, I came back to St. Therese and obeyed, stopping any kind of counting or
powerpointing and just do everything for love, because that is how the fountain of all graces,
Jesus Christ, described it to St. Therese. The healing was that I do morally good things because I
love to do them, and I dropped off other morally good possibilities in the process. I can now
choose from among the moral goods that my reason enlightened by faith tells me as good and
can do without further scrupulosity. Thus is powerpointing here discarded and redefined: the
pointing of where power (virtue) lies and (without counting) doing it because it is good (love is
aroused by the attraction of the good116), intentionally not just for further strength (though the
doing of the good strengthens one), not just for success or monetary reward (though Christians
will experience them and is promised by God though limited), but out of love, as Christ has
taught us to love.
Without any counting, the governor reason becomes practiced in stirring the ship guiding
emotion in contrast with the likes of dynamism of Nietzche. Now it is clarified why a
compulsive, but not normal person, has to do it with a counting mode: because he is not inclined
to do what is good, he has shut himself from grace, locked the door inside, and no one can open
it but himself because the door is one knobed. He might be more inclined in doing what is
pleasant, though not integrally good, as what is good for him. Thus the need to force him to do
good by powerpointing, so that he can experience, taste, see, and thus accept what is truly good.
Now all this can happen in grace inside our sacramental life in the Catholic Church, while
gradually being mildly led after such seemingly harsh initial forcing.
I no longer live but Christ is living in me as St. Paul proclaimed, i.e. my sinful desires I
hate but more than that I am free to be my talented self, being given the capacity in Christ to
desire good things, even those not grandiose but just little acts of mercy.
Now it is only the Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity and Principles of Chastity that
dissolved and replaced powerpointing.117 The paradox of chastity is this: It is life but it is a life
that points to Christ who loved us and commands us to love as he has loved us. Chastity
belonging to the virtues of temperance is just that, self-control and is not by itself alone the
fullness of life already.

115
See 1 Cor. 13:1 and ff.
116
CCC, art. no. 1765.
117
Read it in the Appendix or visit http://sexualaddictionfree.blogspot.com which is continually reworked.
 Then, depending on the level of awareness or corruption of one’s desires or dreams and
talents, one has to undergo some self searching. While the key point is the “ordered desire” of St.
Ignatius following St. Thomas’s more positive idea of desire,118 the idea is that God wants to give
me good desires, a redeemed one.

‘Ignatius would have us educate our senses and feelings “so that one’s sensual nature
may be obedient to reason, and all the lower parts of the self may become more
submissive to the higher” (Exx 87)’119

This takes me to the evaluation of powerpointing as reason-focused acting of the good yet
disintegrative of the education of the senses and feelings. Thus to

“focus attention not only on the complexity of often competing emotions and desires, but
also on the fruit of the right ordering of affection. One cannot exactly ‘demand’ to feel a
certain way, but one can, according to Ignatius, train the senses in a way that allows for
the fruitful unfolding of love and for the eventual consolation that follows from a life
ordered solely towards the praise, reverence and service of God.”120

The solution can entail understanding some scholastic definition of desire for clarification and
better grasp of it in terms of its relationship with spirituality. While some training in modern
emotional intelligence technique is recommended, the danger in leading to hedonism is high.
We do not thus advice a return to what WCC calls the doing of desire for desires sake and that as
CCC tells “It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed
by reason.”121 It will be good to hear from theologians though about what CCC calls morally
good passions that contribute to a good action122 not just the control of bad passions. St. Thomas
if I’m not mistaken told that if passion is our greatest enemy, it is also our greatest ally. It’s
God’s will that the existential world of desires be transformed also so that we can have good
desires all throughout the day. This is where we reflect upon the actions of the Holy Spirit in our
era, teaching us that He is present, moving us, touching, and transforming our lives in this
contemporary world.
For Christ do wants us to become successful in living chaste lives every day without fail,
but a great part of it is not in self-control alone but in loving. For our issues about sexual
compulsion is deeply rooted from an immature emotional life.123 It’s not the scope of this book
to discuss about how for example Steve Hein’s124 pointing to reflect about our emotions can be a

118
“Ordered Affection: Sexuality and Ignatian Spirituality,” Timothy P. Muldoon. p.7 The Way, 49/1
(January 2010) PDF file online.
119
Antonio Guillén, ‘Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses’, The Way, 47/1–2 (January/April 2008),
226.
120
“Ordered Affection, Muldoon, p.10.
121
CCC art. no. 1767.
122
See CCC art. no. 1768. Consider art. no. 1770, “Moral perfection consists in man’s being moved to the
good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: “My heart and flesh sing
for joy to the living God.”
123
See KPK art. 1111-1112 “Kalimitan, bunga ito [masturbation] ng kakulangan ng pag-unlad sa
pandama, at o isang sintomas ng higit na malalim na suliraning personal…tingnan ang kanilang mga puso at
pagnilayan ang kanilang mga pagpapahalaga at ang mga sinasabing pangangailangan na nagbubunga ng ganoong
pagkilos.”
124
http://eqi.org
part of our everyday spiritual reflection for the integration of our desire that Wilkie Au (a Jesuit
or follower of St. Ignatius himself) is pointing us.125
In the love life arena the emotion has to be freed from the grip of the sexual addiction so
that it can honestly love if in love, and also not feel in love if it’s not yet time to.
How we can be more sensitive to the real needs of others and to our real needs that leaves
us stressed if not met, how our modern lifestyle sundered from nature affects our totality
including becoming addicted to many things, how our deepest desires can be discovered through
Steve Hein’s evaluative questions is a highly recommended assignment with a more or less need
for some practice or training depending upon each persons need. However as we have said
earlier, such integration of these techniques on emotion with our Christian norms can lead to
hedonism (pleasure being the measure of what is good) that for example anger resorting to any of
emotion’s suggestions to oppose evil, feeling led by it more than the better judgments of reason,
one destroys the becoming good purpose of anger in the end. More often, anger can be
expressed with a tendency of course to sidetrack reason because emotional life is also sinful and
weak like the rest of our lives, reason included.
Thus, the fact of our fallen state should not exclude emotion as a sinless part of ourselves.
And being sinful and weak, grace asked in prayer and fasting sometimes is the only solution to
combat such sinful tendency that even techniques of emotional intelligence cannot do like the
rest of our techniques and activities cannot also. More than anything else, it is not to treat
another slavery to the sensitive appetite but in the freedom to choice the good must one become
aware of as one’s more urgent awareness activity. “What are my free choices this day that the
true good is calling me?,” must be answered with the certitude of faith condemning any kind of
slavery to the senses. Like the truth of this good (ex.praying rosary) is already established and
need not be questioned further, though our feelings tells us it is not an effective practice. It is a
very intriguing fact that powerpointing is a kind of elementary attempt at becoming a free agent
with a capacity and dignity of free choice which is “an exceptional sign of the divine image
within man” (Gaudium et Spes 17). That is what any addict or compulsive is thirsting for, is
dying to achieve about. But it should not much be about generalizing all his desire as bad,
stopping or controlling it altogether good and bad. Rather he has to learn to love and do what is
good and hate what is evil, two basic contrasting emotion where all emotions root out.
On the other hand, with such danger did we put earlier too on our topic here “Life of the
Emotions” WCC’s third mode of responsibility in considering emotions, while trying to integrate
some of the more helpful techniques of emotional intelligence’s literature.
But whatever I’ve said here again, simply do powerpointing as much as you need to for
the healing of your sexual addiction and pray that like St. Therese told, graduate into the maturity
of not counting anymore. One has to grow away from powerpointing similar to how
traumatologist use techniques to combat trauma yet do away with it once the trauma is gone for
good. So I have to have something to replace counting: something like the beads of the rosary to
guide me while praying it without the hassle of counting. What is it?
It is conscience. TAN told it is “not a separate faculty distinct from our mind, but simply
a function of our mind.”126 We remember also John Paul II telling us that “a good act which is

125
It is not the author’s field to discuss such for lack of specialization and a disintegrated emotion. For a
safety net, I discuss things here but if you’re in doubt about what I’m discussing just practice daily the examination
of conciousness practiced by the Jesuits taught in the webpage “Suggestions for Prayer in the Jesuit Tradition” on
http://norprov.org/spirituality/
126
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell. “The Role of Conscience” Chap. 10, p.375.
not recognized as such does not contribute to the moral growth of the person who performs it.”127
So it is our reason telling us that this is good which is the bead of the rosary symbolizing and
guiding us, without the need for counting; rather it is the need to train the mind in judging and
doing what is good always here and now not worrying much about the future, that the habit is
really formed and making man what he is really a rational animal.
This doing of the good includes the little act of charity, because charity covereth a
multitude of sin, it is worthy to mention its special place as an act to be done by a repentant
sexual addict. St. Therese, teach me to love. O Lord, teach us to relate to others the way you
related to everybody during your time. Jesus, King of Mercy, we trust in You.

A SUMMARY: MY FIGHT AGAINST QUASI-COMPULSIVE MASTURBATION

During my Grade 5, it was the time when the Santo Niño touched me, I trashed out all my
clippings of bold pictures. But the Betamax stood out as the worst temptation, renting
videotapes until my high school days. Thanks be to God it broke and Betamax are obsolete
nowadays. But my God! pornos are easily accessible at all corners by the introduction of CDs
and personal computers and internet. Today it’s not just viewing xxx-rated film but cybersex
that proliferates as fast as the computer technology. All means of accessing pornos have to be
trashed out where it can’t be redeemed; so to say, annihilate it all. Against it, there are softwares
that block pornos which one can use, where K9 I think rate as best, simple, unobtrusive, content
adjustable, powerful, most secure, and trusted.128
Then I got hold of powerpointing but became so proud that I forgot my prayer times,
forgot not to be idle, forgot to pursue my personal vocations, and avoided loving unwittingly. By
praying to know my personal vocation, I was greatly helped by the book Praying for Miracles by
Fr. Robert de Grandis and WCC’s topic on personal vocation.
Spiritual readings are good.129 By spiritual reading I found “sloth” as causing me trouble
also. And I read about sloth on the book Hell.130
Then I got hold also of the Literatures I included here. The reading and rereading of it I
did and often. Of course, it’s the practice or living of it that made the difference. But the
rationalizer in me often ignored such knowledges without my awareness. Therefore, I propose
that such reading should be done time and again not for the sake of knowledge but for the sake of
practicing it perfectly i.e., knowledge must be used for acquiring virtues and overcoming our
faults and sinful selves.
Then I did both praying and powerpointing (cooperating) and was convinced of my
qualitative psychological conclusion: that both will not work without the other, and both praying
and powerpointing made the great difference. In traditional spirituality and as is said in WCC:
“One must simply decide to stop sinning.”131 Powerpointing is not a new idea: it is just the

127
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Veritatis Splendor, art. 63.
128
With heartfelt gratitude to Blue Coat K9 Web protection, I salute your selfless and brilliant idea of
giving back to society by offering it free. May God bless you more abundantly.
129
Read The True Spouse of Jesus Christ “Spiritual Reading” by St. Alphonsus de Liguori.
130
Nelson, How to Avoid Hell, 249.
131
WCC CMP Chap 17 Ques. E #15
avoidance of evil and doing of good and just counted for the purpose of becoming confident; that
one can measure it and so have some objective evaluation that one is advancing.
In my case, powerpointing achieves such as I can call a plateau where, one needs not
count already. But because we’re in a spiritual battle and still living and proving ourselves
worthy of Christ, such human weakness of ours deems it always possible to learn when to
powerpoint again because of temptations and relapses. And this always in the spirit of assiduous
prayer, for prayer moves everything to possibility.
I don’t know how long can this powerpointing be done for one to attain some of what it
taught me. But finally one becomes confident that one can do it, and be able to say that he
already has won the battle in so many moments of trial. And thus becoming confident, one
focuses on the most recent moment of triumph as a proof that one can overcome it and thus be
able to live out the virtue of chastity as God’s will. As elementary as the act is, it is an important
step in the quest for the living up of one’s whole personal vocation, as one shifts from avoiding
evil to doing good and in the end love perfectly.
The fact is becoming clearer that an adequately directed effort is achievable but it takes
time. A compulsive cannot simply stop sinning but he can stop once he learned to master the
principles of chastity.
Analyzing the whole gamut, the final recommendation to all is that one must avoid
becoming a compulsive for when one becomes, the healing will take long for one to acquire
again the lost control of one’s self. That is always accountable as one’s sin in the previous
choices that set the habit. And the means to avoid becoming compulsive is to acquire virtue and
make ourselves better each day correcting our sinful selves which requires examination of
conscience and assiduous prayer to overcome our faults. Not to say also that becoming a
compulsive like me rooting from childhood and ignorance at every step, until my entrance into
the seminary, is irreversible and only an existential experience of a woman's unconditional
embrace in marriage will fulfill and complete the healing process. Only one who has
experienced continuous failure in chastity can say that with a hand so gripped in prayer blood
oozes from it already. No one can say how innocence is so important in childhood but someone
who have lost it and struggled to acquire it back.

ADDITIONAL INSIGHT FROM RELATED FIELDS (PSYCHOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY,

MEDICINE)

From the book “The Training of the Will” by Johann Lindworsky, S.J. came the advice to
lie on hard bed, vigorous exercise etc.132 Then I was guided by the Lord to use healthy diet and
introduced to me food supplementation,133 temperance not to eat too much, and not to eat so
many delicious processed foods. I relapse in doing these, yet the continuing practice of it adds a
great difference. There are lots of good advises now on how to take care of our health which is
so important in having a chaste life. The idea of Dr. Kafka for example, who treats and studies
paraphiliacs, and prescribes the serotonin inducing drug Prozac,134 takes us to the consideration
132
Johann Lindworsky, S.J. “The Struggle Against Bad Habits” The Training of the Will 4th ed.
(Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company),
133
Note that food supplements are supplements already and should not be the answer but whole, nutritious
food and balanced diet.
134
Read Lauren Slater's "How Do You Cure a Sex Addict?" (November 19, 2000) for more information on
the findings of Dr. Kafka.
of protein in the diet of sexual addicts. But more studies need to prove it. There is even no study
if papaya can really effect sexual control, that it is called angelic fruit. In such area much
research can be more fruitful for the healing of sexual addiction and maintenance of chastity.
As Fr. Robert Edward Brennan, O.P. has elaborated that man is always a body and a
soul,135 I sensed that mortification of the body goes hand in hand with nutrition or healthy
lifestyle. The problem today is that they think its ok to smoke cigarette and remain a spiritual
man, to eat more processed foods than whole food and still be able to accomplish tasks that are
strenuous. It’s not our folk’s problems but a modern problem. Ancients wouldn’t care to tackle
walking as a cure for many sicknesses because most of them use feet to go miles. We have
diversified our lifestyle just to include pollutions of every kind, city lifestyle that can’t resist
consumerism.
Nature can effect a virtuous life. It’s not to regress back to stone age. But rather than
deny natures help, let us use it as God has lawfully hidden for us to be discovered. We are now
talking of carbon footprints, that eating a slice of beef makes you guilty of an equal value of
forgetting to turn off all the lights at home while going on vacation for example. We are now
more aware that what we consume really affects the entire globe.
Even St. Ignatius of Loyola used his discipline in the army to discipline his disciples too.
Do you think chastity can be lived in the midst of too much eating of meat food,136 and drinking
of alcohols? The desert Fathers lived a mortified life, not a life of bounty but nonetheless of
quality—quality air, food even in bits only, no noise pollution, no consumeristic advertisement.
What a peaceful and stressless life that reminds us also of our eternal homeland reminding us
that we’re just temporary here. We have to add these elements little by little or in our small ways
and means like Katherine Gibson’s moderation in the use of TV.137 Let us take note thus of what
Cardinal Gagnon, P.S.S. has said: “Parents might teach their children very good norms about
chastity, but if at the same time they give them everything they want as food and things to play
with and all that, then they should not be surprised when their children are not overcoming their
lust and their desires. Formation involves temperance. Chastity is just one part of the virtue of
temperance.”
Addictions and compulsions of every kind are our problem today as effected already by
our hedonistic and consumeristic tendency i.e., we’re making our products but our products does
not satisfy us because much are based on luxury and not necessity. Not tending to Godliness,
people’s tendency is not to seek the ultimate satisfier.
We have to go back to what is natural and simple. In that way our sensual life will be
more easily managed. Asceticism is the mortification of the senses by moderation or to a greater
degree as done by the saints, deprivation out of love. As long as the garbage of stimulants to our
senses are present, addictions like cancers are likely to grow. Moderation is not deprivation. We
just have to moderate the stimulants to our senses.
These principles entail living out a holy life in congruence with the original will of God
revealed to us by Jesus Christ. There is a strong need for one to observe and do all that Jesus
commands us to do. These commands are infallibly taught and guarded by the Catholic Church
starting from the apostles which up to our time is continued by papal succession. The addictive
way is against Jesus who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
135
Consult his work Thomistic Psychology
136
We’re in pre-illness state because our diet consists most of meat, a food supplement company
evaluated.
137
Reader’s Digest vol. 75, no.450
 What I just want to point out for the masturbator is to use his knowledge in order to
become chaste forever in constant discernment with the community of believers he belongs with
and this includes developing every aspect of one’s self or one’s life. Scientific and spiritual
disciplines have to discover yet many things for the betterment of addicts and compulsives and
the rest of humanity. But the fact of addiction being a sin and not just a sickness or material
deficiency138 should not deceive us on our quest for better ways and means to struggle against
such behavior like addictions and compulsions. Side by side the cleaning of our environment
from many garbage stimulants, the addict or compulsive (sinner) must always agree upon an
unchanging truth: that vicious behavior entails the abuse of freedom. Abuse means always doing
the bad, which make it habitual, automatic and so becomes hard to be corrected.
I confess, out of the topic, that God has given me severe itching of my genital areas
which when I scratch gives me severe pain in the midst of my sleep at night. I think it’s
formative for me to become at ease in bearing pain most especially in my genital areas where
pleasure from so long a year has been concentrated, or was it a bodily self-corrective system that
I had such an itch and intense pain experiences? Rather than curse God for such an incurable
skin or allergic disease, God taught me to offer up my pains for the forgiveness of my sins and
those of the whole world. However, let it not be thought about that God doesn’t want one to be
cured of such malady. I am unsure whether the skin disease is caused by my frequent
masturbatory practice139 or caused by God to desensitize me of my pleasurable habit and thus
occasioned by God to return even I have already healed it completely by antifungal/antibacterial
skin ointment. The healing of the human body can do point out certain behavioral conversions
needed to achieve such healing.
Let us pray thus with the Psalmist: “The Lord is my health and my salvation.” It is a
prayer that reveals a great truth against any kind of sickness physical or psychological. It is a
prayer which teaches us that health is first and foremost a spiritual matter. And that health is an
effect of a justified soul.

MORE PEDAGOGICAL AND THERAPEUTICAL GUIDE

“Masturbation is normal for you,” does not work.

How many times did I hear such advice, where others really have worse belief that
masturbation is normal for human beings not just to me as a compulsive masturbator. We are
stating the facts against it and reaffirming our faith that it is not so. If a counselor would say this
or a book teach this, let us believe the contrary. As our literature has stated, it would mean a
misunderstanding of a person’s moral capacity in Christ.140
138
“The problem of moral evil…stems not from any material deficiency, but is a would inflicted by the
disordered exercise of human freedom”—John Paul II Fides et Ratio p. 127
139
Maybe the hormone cortisone is depleted by each unnatural and frequent orgasmic release via
masturbation or maybe the auxiliary kidneys are weakened by masturbation or by the holding of urination especially
during the morning because one’s conscious endeavor is deceived that such urinary need is only a completion to
orgasm. That is why I always had a chronic bronchitis, skin allergy and sinusitis because “hormones catalyze
metabolic pathways to produce cortisone that controls T-cell activities to regulate the immunity system.” If proven,
medicine can thread the pathways of the unhealthy effect of sin in the human body not to mention AIDS as an effect
of sex outside marriage and thus is really incurable as long as human nature is human nature and is not turning away
from his sin and living Godly lives.
140
WCC CMP Chap 17 Appen. 2, Ques. F
Don’t fail their trust

“It has been estimated that 30 years ago about 23% of male psychotherapists have been
sexually involved with their clients.”141 Any counselor then must be careful, because a
compulsive masturbator can convince a counselor that only a sexual experience can cure a
compulsion, and that God permits such a good intention as an exception just to cure someone.
This is an absurdity and an outright heresy. As the entry “psychotherapy” in Catholic
Encyclopedia has stated: “Patients must have someone whom they take into their confidence….”
If this confidence is broken, then the relationship in counseling degenerates into fellow blinds.
The relationship must not end with the compulsive masturbator’s idea: “He/she has taken
advantage of my weakness in order to use me,” not that the compulsive has taken advantage of
the counselors great patience. For in such relationship, the leader will be accountable about how
he guided his followers. The counselor should by virtue be more sober than his patient. And to
counteract such “client-centered-therapy” that plays in such a circumstance each counseling
should be “God-centered-therapy”—a fact that spiritual direction should not be replaced by a
somewhat “scientific counsels.”142 As the Bible states God’s presence, “Where two or three are
gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them”143
Other counselor would say, “Your masturbation is a clinical problem.” What! Does that
mean a virtuous life can be had now without the Lord, without His Church, the sacraments, the
traditions, doctrines, the Saints etc?” This should nail down one precept of the Lord in us: Do
not put your trust in men in whom there is no help, no salvation (Psalm 2,3,4,5). So, a good
counselor trusts not in his capacity to help and cure but in God’s providence and power, being
reminded that the whole psychological discipline is not just materialistic but also spiritual,
because human beings will always be a body and soul.

Gradual modification is not appropriate in all respect

I will not trust in my own strength. Powerpointing is not only counting the power you
acquired but is also counting the power that God sends. You merely receive power (chastity)
from His hand mysteriously but has to be affirmed as true by our faith.
Gradual modification implies that God can’t make you stay in sobriety today, which is
the day of conversion; rather, God will make a way for such compulsivity to disappear.

Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so
he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you
receive it, and you will." Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt:
"all things are possible to him who believes." Jesus is as saddened by the
"lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples as he

141
Thomas Plante, Ph. D., ABPP A Perspective on Clergy Sexual Abuse (Department of Psychology,
Santa Clara University).
142
Consult Richard W. Cross. Lecture. “Can Catholics Counsel? The Loss of Prudence in Modern
Humanist Psychology” Christendom College, October 22, 1993. Faith & Reason (Virginia: Christendom Press),
Spring 1994.
143
Matthew 18:20
 is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the
Canaanite woman.144

Believe that we can and have received already the grace of chastity so that no hindrance
is in our way to practicing and mastering the guidances we have discussed here.
Never ever say, “I can stop my masturbation even without praying.” My brothers I have
said it several times but God cast me into the most compulsive masturbation I have ever
experienced. Not to threat you in such respect, but the truth is a reality: we cannot live chaste
lives without God.
Graduality may mean gradual release of one’s masturbatory practice i.e., he limits his
masturbation once a week, or if one can, once a month before he/she might be able to become
sober all through out one’s life. But if masturbation’s gravity is the same as that of killing, it is
not a sound practice, it’s an irrationality which will sound like this: if one is killing one person
daily, one is permitted morally to kill only one person a month in order to lessen one’s grave
fault. The issue is to stop killing and if the truth of our grace in Christ professes that it is not
only possible but now is natural and easy because of his grace working in us, why not make it so.
But if not, it's better to have fewer bouts if no masturbation life is not yet coming. For example,
it is better to smoke one stick a day than to have five or a pack if one can't really yet attain fully
to that no smoking rule.
I confess though that I was released by God’s grace through many deep longing for a
chaste life i.e., I returned again and again to masturbation before I finally was able to be free of
this pleasurable vice. But it has been catastrophic when I practiced gradual release with the goal
of being sober all through out my life by once a week process; then if I already can do, the once a
month and then once a year. What happened was that still starting in the first phase, I
anticipated each one masturbation per week with becoming more excited. And presto, I
regressed to a greater number of masturbation than my normal count. If this is your idea of
gradualism, then it is wrong.
What can be of help is described fully by Dr. Cline:

No more masturbation. Stop masturbating. This risks further conditioning

into deviancy. The goal of no masturbation may be difficult and not even
possible immediately. I have them keep a calendar record of those days when
they masturbate and urge them to strive for reducing its frequency… (emphasis
mine)

The idea of still lingering in one’s masturbatory practice is out of the discussion already.
Yet, the idea of reducing first the frequency especially if the build up has been already so
enormous for a beginner is a better term. One will already do everything to stop masturbation
and strive not for once a week masturbation but already for a masturbation-free life.
Additionally, the reality of one’s ability to rationalize one’s masturbation is the issue, and the
reason for the sufficiency of grace is clear. The idea is to empower one to believe the truth:
that he/she can already stop now or start now one’s program of chastity without any
relapse at all. Masturbation is a grave moral misconduct, a mortal sin, that gradualism is not
applicable to masturbation in all respect and all its forms unlike in modifying behaviors like
biting one’s nail or in learning a job. So always have that end in view that I can already do it for
144
CCC, art. no. 2610.
life without masturbation, but if I relapse unintentionally, to just skillfully limit the relapse or
have not relapse at all.

Trashing of all sexual stimulants

As I have said, it will take the cooperation of everyone in our own ways and means,
personally and communally, to be able to achieve a better and innocent atmosphere again. It will
take girls never to dress immodestly. It will take each videoke proprietors to use decent motion
pictures. It will take Tabloids to accept slower circulations of their decent publications in
contrast with the indecent ones that vie only for money even at the cost of lewdness. It will take
actors and actresses not to use their nude body to speed up their stardom or for the sake of
money. And it will take the cooperation of all not to support by buying all these lewdness but
instead picket it.
But personally, one must trash out every pornos most specially the playboy magazines,
hard or soft core pornographic videos; program one’s computer to filter out the pornographic
materials, etc. Without skeleton in the closet, not keeping anything or any favorite pornographic
materials, without the very wrong reason that anyway you’ll not use pornos and you’ll just store
them—you will avoid the temptation to get them just for the sake again of the wrong idea of
looking at them because it’s good, it’s different, and I would just like to take a short look…. Ah,
the presence of any secretly stored pornographic material in a hard disk is a dangerous endeavor.
But wait, speaking in the Philippine context, is the Sex Bomb Dancers or groups like
them not pornographic? It might not be, but it still holds up sexual licentiousness in a very
decent way, somewhat wolves in sheep’s clothing. How are we to inculcate the Maria Clara
values if we accept as just ok their sexy dances and their double meaning songs? Well, let us
forget about the Maria Clara and just make the Sex Bomb Dancers a top rater. Anyway, it’s now
normal for our adolescents to be pregnant at the most inappropriate time. If it’s ok for us then let
us continue to patronize and permit their show. Anyway, it’s just ok for our little daughters to
imitate Spaghetting Pababa dance and make them think that they are not aroused and do not
arouse their male counterparts. Anyway, there are lots of red houses to release these sexual
excess of stimulants if not by masturbation. Or our little daughters can anyway flirt with their
good boyfriends as if they are stones harder than the desert monks that does not turn on. So let
us accept the fact that we are tough guys and gals who do not become easily stimulated sexually.
But the question is, “Why is the song ‘Here comes the bride, six months inside…’ so popularly
accepted?” As a Catholic nation let us believe the contrary. Let us fight against all these lewd
culture of media and let us uphold thus that the Sacrament of Marriage that must be respected is
the divinely instituted rite which ennobles sex and saves us from so much troubles like single
parenting, abortion, contraception, and the like.