Free Republic

Millions of teenagers nationwide, including male university students, have chosen to remain virgins until marriage. In doing so they unflinchingly clash head on with a modern day culture that implicitly condones free love.  A friend of mine was once riding the subway late at night when the doors opened and in stepped two couples returning from a night out on the town. They laughed and carried on until one of the ladies noticed a poster promoting abstinence on the wall behind them. She read it out loud for the others. “Virgin: it’s not a dirty word,” it said. Then half...

Schoolgirl goes to court over chastity ring By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent, and Hazel Southam  Last Updated: 3:52am BST 28/04/2007     A teenage girl banned from wearing a Christian chastity ring at school is taking her case to the High Court.Lydia Playfoot wanted to wear a silver ring that showed her commitment to remain a virgin until marriage. But her school refused permission on health and safety grounds and because the ring infringed its jewellery policy.The dispute echoes last year's row over whether a British Airways employee could wear a cross and that of Shabina Begum, a Muslim excluded...

An American couple going out for two years have enjoyed their first kiss - at their wedding. Katie and Tim McAfee agreed to a sex ban and no kissing before they wed. The couple from Bismarck, North Dakota, are devout Christians. They prayed with their parents for God's strength before going out on dates. Tim, 25, touched his 24-year-old wife's lips for the first time at Bismarck's Evangel Temple. Tim said his kiss with Katie was great but added: "I don't have anything to compare it with." Katie's sister, Margie, 21, and her new husband Nadir Torres, 22 also took...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - It has all the ingredients of a wedding. The proud tuxedo-clad father, the frosted white cake, the limousines and an exchange of vows. But there is no groom and the girl in the long gown is no bride. She's daddy's little girl, there to take a vow of chastity. In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed "Purity Balls." The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship. The highlight is...

WASHINGTON - Dawn Eden is no shrinking violet. “I’ve got just a tad of the exhibitionist in me,” the former rock journalist turned Catholic convert recently told the National Review Online — and with the launch of her new book, “The Thrill of the Chaste,” Eden does nothing short of baring her soul. “The Thrill of the Chaste” translates Eden’s heart-on-her-sleeve candor into an intimate confessional where nothing is off the table: private sexual fantasies, self-gratification, personal insecurities, various cringe-worthy moments (one involves dressing up like Cher, but not as a prank) and — get ready — “desperately longing for...

A Romanian priest wants women to pay a "white-dress fine" if they're not virgins when they marry. Father Petrica Bratu, 37, says he hopes the fines will stop couples from living in sin. Couples who had just moved in together would pay about $20 but brides who were pregnant or had children would pay about $120. The average Romanian salary is about $200 per month.

The Man Who Stepped Out of LineIn this post-feminist age where men are still learning remedial masculinity, we have a model of manhood lived heroically which we would do well to emulate. In the early twentieth century Poland gave us that manly priest, John Paul II, but also his hero, Maximilian Kolbe, priest, missionary, spiritual father and martyr of brotherly love. St. Maximilian’s feast day is August 14th, the vigil of his beloved Virgin Mary’s Assumption and the day which commemorates the conquest of virile love over the totalitarian creeds of his generation. As men, we could all learn a...

The battle for purity is ultimately fought deep in the recesses of the human heart. Our hearts were made to love, but since the Fall, they have been tainted by a desire to use others. This effect of original sin is seen perhaps most dramatically in our encounters with the opposite sex, wherein our hearts often are drawn to the other person more for the emotional or sensual pleasure we may derive from them than for any true commitment to what is best for them and their true value as a person. In this reflection, we will see that chastity...

A SAINT TO EMULATE Margaret M. Breiling St. Maria Goretti"By the loving providence of God, we have assisted this evening at the supreme exaltation of a humble daughter of the people, in a ceremony whose solemnity and dignity are unique in the history of the Church.For tonight's canonization has been held in this vast and inviting place of mystery, made for the occasion into a sacred temple whose vault is the open heaven that proclaims the glories of Almighty God—a choice for which you first expressed the desire before We had decided to make the disposition.The concourse of the...

Sikh bracelets, but no Christian rings at school bans pupils from wearing 'purity rings' A group of teenage Christians have been banned by a secondary school from wearing "purity rings" as a symbol of their religious belief in chastity until marriage. At least one of the dozen pupils, who all attend the same girls' comprehensive in Horsham, West Sussex, is considering legal action against the Millais School for "a breach of human rights". Although the school allows Muslim and Sikh pupils to wear headscarves or kara bracelets as a means of religious expression, the purity ring - a small band...

Teens fight for a chaste Valentine's ABSTINENCE: Some high school students suggest honoring Feb. 14 as a "Day of Purity. BY STEPHANIE SIMON LOS ANGELES TIMES High school sophomore Ally Hall plans to exchange valentine cards with her friends today. But her true tribute to the romance of the season was Monday, in the principal's office at Lebanon High School in the small town of Lebanon, Ohio. Hall wrote a brief script to be read over the public-address system. Her message: The most romantic way to celebrate Feb. 14 is to honor it as a "Day of Purity," by pledging...

Note: This commentary may not be suitable for young children. This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. A 25-year-old Christian man e-mailed a friend—a young Christian author named Lauren Winner—and asked her a question. He claimed he had endless opportunities for casual sex—including one that very evening. Why should he not take advantage of them? After all, he said, he was already “dealing with seventeen other things in my Christian walk. Shouldn’t I just focus on learning to pray, and deal with the sex stuff later?” Nice try, buster. Winner, the author of Real Sex: The Naked...

Most sexually active teenage girls know relatively little about sexually transmitted diseases until it is too late, according to new research. In a survey of 300 adolescent girls in the Pittsburgh area, Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that girls who reported having been diagnosed with an STD knew more about that particular disease than other girls, but did not know more about the other diseases. The findings are published in the January edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health. On average, with the exception of HIV/AIDS, the teens did not know many basic facts about STDs, said Julie Downs, lead...

Front Royal, Va, Dec. 06, 2005 (CNA) - "The Church recognizes that people with 'homosexual tendencies' can be good Christians, social workers, and administrators, but being a priest is all of these things and much more,” stated  Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of Human Life International. His comment came following the release of Concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment Regarding Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to Seminaries and Holy Orders by the Congregation for Catholic Education."Engaging in homosexual acts is a grave, mortal sin that endangers the immortal soul of the practitioner and such a lifestyle...

by Matt C. Abbott Other Articles by Matt C. Abbott Defending Chastity in the Priesthood 10/04/05 Three Roman Catholic priests have been gracious enough to provide me with their observations (edited) on the recent report that Pope Benedict XVI "has given his approval to a new Vatican policy document indicating that men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained as Catholic priests." In This Article...Human Nature as God Created ItOrdination Is Not a RightWe Are the Better for It Human Nature as God Created It Father Burns Seeley of the Chicago-based Society of St. John Cantius: "Note that the document (I...

Swaziland's King Mswati III, who imposed a five-year sex ban on the kingdom's teenage girls, has dropped it a year early. The girls have had to wear large woolen tassels as a sign of their chastity since 2001. The sex ban was imposed to fight the spread of HIV/Aids. Swaziland has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates, at almost 40 percent of the population. The king meanwhile fined himself a cow for breaking the ban by marrying again, a 17-year-old who became his ninth wife. (UPI)

Something is going wrong in Christian communities. ... many Christians, even in churches that teach sex is only for marriage, have premarital sex. • Three surveys of single Christian adults [showed that]one third were virgins—meaning, of course, that two thirds were not. • In 2003, researchers at Northern Kentucky University showed that 61 percent of students who signed sexual-abstinence commitment cards broke their pledges. • Of the remaining 49 percent who kept their pledges, 55 percent said they'd had oral sex, and did not consider oral sex to be sex. So what is going on? In combating [unchaste behavior], we...

"People think I have the hardest job in the world to sell chastity to high school kids," says 29-year-old chastity speaker Jason Evert of Spring Valley. "But it's like giving out free steaks to hungry dogs. All they want is someone to give them permission to take care of themselves." Part of what got Evert into the chastity apostolate was when he started leading high school retreats. "When you do the small groups, you realize how much of sexuality is a huge problem and how they have such little guidance." During that time he also did several years of...

Jan 2005 (CWR) - My dear brothers and sisters in Christ: I write as your bishop and spiritual father on a matter of great importance and great good news: chastity. Why chastity? That is really two questions wrapped up in one. First, why do I write on this subject just now? Violations of chastity in our Church and our diocese have made some people skeptical when the Church speaks on sexual morality. But for just that reason it is more necessary, not less, to speak the truth about sexual morality. Sin and confusion cry out for honest, truthful speech. The...

Challenging earlier findings, two studies from the Heritage Foundation reported yesterday that young people who took virginity pledges had lower rates of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases and engaged in fewer risky sexual behaviors. The new findings were based on the same national survey used by earlier studies and conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services. But the authors of the new study used different methods of statistical analysis from those in an earlier one that was widely publicized, making direct comparisons difficult. Independent experts called the new findings provocative, but criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and...