- Moral Virtues -

What the Catholic Church Teaches

"The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason."
                                                       - Catechism of the Catholic Church (2341)

"Chastity is a moral virtue.  It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort.  The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ."
                                                     - Catechism of the Catholic Church (2345)

"All the baptized are called to chastity.  The Christian has 'put on Christ,' the model of all chastity.  All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life.  At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity."
                                                     - Catechism of the Catholic Church (2348)

"Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. 
In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. 

Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such.  It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death."
                                                                      - Catechism of the Catholic Church (2360-61)