Christopher Wendt: Good evening, everyone. Good evening to you, Your Excellency. Tonight’s broadcast has been prerecorded, and the topic for tonight’s broadcast is the Sixth Commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery. His Excellency has prepared a teaching on that commandment.
The next broadcast will be on March 13th, and it will be in a question-and-answer format. We will ask you to send your questions by the end of February.
Your Excellency, please lead us in a prayer.
Bishop Schneider: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This catechesis will be dedicated to the Sixth Commandment of God, Thou shalt not commit adultery. The position of this commandment in the Decalogue is most suitable. The bond between man and wife is one of the closest, and nothing can be more gratifying to both than to know that they are objects of mutual love and respect. On the other hand, nothing inflicts deeper anguish than to feel that the legitimate love which one owes the other has been transferred elsewhere. Rightly then, and in its natural order, is the commandment which protects human life against the hand of the murderer. This is followed by that commandment which forbids adultery and which aims to prevent anyone from injuring or destroying by such a crime the holy and honorable union of marriage, a union which is generally the source of affection and love.
There are two parts to this commandment. This commandment resolves itself into two heads: the one expressed, which prohibits adultery, the other implied, which inculcates purity of mind and body.
We will now look at what this commandment prohibits, first, adultery to begin with. The prohibitory part of this commandment concerns adultery. Adultery is the defilement of the marriage bond, whether it be one’s own or another’s. If a married man has intercourse with an unmarried woman, or a married woman with an unmarried man, he or she violates the integrity of his or her marriage. If an unmarried man or woman has intercourse with a married woman or married man, he or she defiles the sanctity of the marriage of the other.
Other sins against chastity are also included in the meaning of this commandment, even already in the Old Testament, as well as in the New Testament. Besides adultery, there are other sins against chastity. The Book of Genesis records the judgment of Judah against his daughter-in-law. In Deuteronomy, it is found in the Law of Moses that there should be no harlot among the daughters of Israel.
It is written, Take heed to keep thyself, my son, from all fornication, which is the exhortation of Tobias to his son. In the Book of Ecclesiasticus, we read, Be ashamed of looking upon a harlot. Even with your eyes, you can sin. This is already in the Old Testament.
More expressively in the Gospel, our Lord says, From the heart come forth adulteries and fornications, which defile a man. The Apostle Paul expresses his detestation of this crime frequently and in very strong terms. He says, This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication. Fly fornication. Keep not company with fornicators. Fornication and uncleanness, let it not even be named among you, writes Saint Paul. He continues, saying, Neither fornicators nor adulterers nor the effeminate nor sodomites shall possess the kingdom of God.
Why is adultery expressly mentioned in this commandment? The reason why adultery is expressly forbidden is that, in addition to the turpitude which it shares with other kinds of incontinence, it adds another sin, the sin of injustice, not only against our neighbor but also against civil society. It is certain that he who abstains not from other sins against chastity will easily fall into the crime of adultery. By the prohibition of adultery, therefore, we at once see that every sort of immodesty and impurity by which the body is defiled is also prohibited by this commandment, and that every inward thought against chastity is also forbidden by this commandment.
Our Lord said, You have heard that it was said to them of old, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Let us now look at what this commandment prescribes. First is purity.
And this is the positive part of this commandment, the divine precept to cultivate continence and chastity with all care, to cleanse themselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, striving for holiness in the fear of God. Although the virtue of chastity shines with a brighter light in those who make the holy and religious vow of virginity in the religious life, in monasteries and among priests, nevertheless it is a virtue which belongs also to those who lead a life of celibacy in the world, the unmarried persons, or who in their married state preserve themselves pure and undefiled from unlawful desires.
Holy Scripture says that impurity excludes one from heaven. People should form a just conception of the filthiness and evil of this sin, for such knowledge will lead one more easily to detest the sin of adultery and fornication. The evil of this crime we may learn from the fact that, on account of it, man is banished and excluded from the kingdom of God.
This exclusion from the kingdom of God is the greatest of all evils. The exclusion from the kingdom of God is indeed common to every mortal sin, not only to this sin, but what is peculiar to this sin is that fornicators are said to sin against their own bodies. According to the words of the Apostle Paul, every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the one who commits fornication sins against his or her own body. The reason is that such a one does an injury to his or her own body, violating its sanctity.
Hence, Saint Paul says to the Thessalonians, This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel, that means his own body, in sanctification and honor, and not in the passion of lust like the pagans who know not God.
Furthermore, the Christian who shamefully sins with a harlot makes the members of Christ the members of a harlot, according to these words of Saint Paul, Know you not that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. Or know you not that he who is joined to a harlot is made one body with her?
Moreover, a Christian, as Saint Paul testifies, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and to violate this temple is nothing but to expel the Holy Spirit.
In our day, there is the increasing phenomenon of addiction to pornography, even among practicing Catholic men. Unfortunately, this is a kind of disease, a virus, an epidemic. When a man consumes pornography through virtual and online technical tools, he is spiritually joining a harlot to himself as well, referring to the quoted words of Saint Paul.
Adultery is a grave injustice, as we already mentioned. If, as the Apostle says, those who are joined in holy marriage are so subject to each other that neither has power or right over his or her own body, but both are bound, as it were, by a mutual bond of subjection, the husband to accommodate himself to the will of the wife and the wife to the will of the husband, most certainly if either dissociates his or her person, which is the right of the other from him or her to whom it is bound, the offender is guilty of an act of great injustice.
So impurity is severely punished, as we read in Holy Scripture.
The grievousness of the sin of adultery may be easily inferred from the severity of its punishment. According to the law promulgated by God in the Old Testament, the adulterer was stoned to death. Moreover, because of the criminal passion of one man, not only the perpetrator of the crime but a whole city was destroyed, as we read with regard to the Sichemites in the Book of Genesis, chapter 34. There is the account of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, who attacked the city of Sichem and killed all the male inhabitants, the Sichemites, to avenge the rape of their sister Dinah by Shechem, the son of Hamor.
The Sacred Scripture abounds with examples of divine vengeance, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis, chapter 19, and the punishment of the Israelites who committed fornication in the wilderness with the daughters of Moab. The punishment of the Israelites who committed fornication with the daughters of Moab and worshiped Baal is recorded in the Book of Numbers, chapter 25, highlighting a severe divine judgment meant to curb the spread of idolatry and immorality. Then there is the slaughter of the Benjamites, twenty-five thousand Benjamite warriors, in the Book of Judges, chapters 19 to 21, where the eleven tribes of Israel nearly annihilated the tribe of Benjamin. This event served as a punishment for the tribe’s refusal to surrender the perpetrators of a gang rape and murder, which the rest of Israel viewed as a heinous Sodom-like sin.
These are some examples in the Old Testament. Impurity then blinds the mind and hardens the heart.
The adulterer is not punished with death in the New Testament, in our day, as it was in the Old Testament. Yet the adulterer does not escape the great pains and torments that often overtake such sins. He becomes afflicted with blindness of mind, which is a most severe punishment. Of this, we find examples in the persons of David and Solomon.
David had no sooner fallen into the crime of adultery than he degenerated into a character the very reverse of what he had been before. From the mildest of men, David became so cruel as to consign to death Uriah, one of his most deserving officers. Solomon, having abandoned himself to the lust of women, gave up the true religion to follow strange gods and practice idolatry. This sin, therefore, as the prophet Osee observes, takes away man’s heart and blinds his understanding.
Saint Thomas Aquinas says that sins of the flesh are more shameful and less blameworthy than those of the spirit, and the reason is that they are common, the sins of the flesh, to the beasts, to animals. As Psalm 48 says, Man, when he was in honor, did not understand, and he has been compared to senseless beasts and made like to them.
Let us now look at the means of practicing purity. First, avoidance of idleness. These are the remedies that consist concretely. The first is to studiously avoid idleness, for according to the prophet Ezekiel, it was by yielding to the enervating influence of idleness that the Sodomites plunged into the most shameful crime of sodomy, a horrendous and unnatural lust.
Then temperance. Our Lord intimates this in these words, Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. Be not drunk with wine, says the Apostle, wherein is luxury and fornication.
Then the custody of the eyes. The eyes in particular are the inlets to criminal passion, and to this refer the words of our Lord, If thine eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. Here, the Catholic man should most seriously and radically abhor and detest any indulgence in pornography.
So says Holy Scripture, I made a covenant with mine eyes, says Job, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. There are on record innumerable examples of the evils which have their origin in the indulgence of the eyes, the sin of the eyes. It was thus that David sinned, thus the king of Sichem fell, and thus also the elders sinned who calumniated Susanna in the Book of Daniel. The lion is said to be tamed by blindfolding him, so we can subdue our unchaste proclivities by strict custody of our eyes.
Then, the avoidance of immodest dress. Excessively revealing dress or immodest dress, which especially attracts the eye, is frequently an occasion of sin against chastity. Hence, the admonition in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, Turn away thy face from a woman dressed up immodestly, and the impressive words of the Apostle Peter, Let not the woman’s adorning be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel. Saint Paul likewise says, Not with plaited hair or gold or pearls or costly attire. Many women adorned with gold and precious stones have lost the only true ornament of their soul and body, the beauty of chastity.
Then, the avoidance of impure conversation, impure reading, and impure pictures. Next to the sexual excitement usually provoked by immodest dress follows another, which is indecent and obscene conversation. Obscene language is a torch that lights up the worst passions of the young mind.
And the Apostle has said that evil communications corrupt good manners. Immodest and passionate songs and dances are most productive of this same effect and are therefore to be cautiously avoided. In the same class are to be numbered obscene books, which must be avoided no less than indecent pictures and images. All such things possess a fatal influence in exciting unlawful attractions and inflaming the mind toward lust.
Another means that helps the cause is the frequent reception of the sacraments. If the occasions of sin are carefully avoided, almost every excitement to lust will be removed. But the most efficacious means for subduing its violence are the frequent and devout reception of the sacraments of Holy Confession and Holy Communion, as well as unceasing and devout prayer to God, accompanied, if necessary, by fasting and honest deeds. Chastity is a gift of God to those who ask it. God does not deny chastity, nor does He suffer us to be tempted beyond our strength against chastity.
Then mortification. The body is to be mortified and the sensual appetites repressed, not only by fasting instituted by the Church but also sometimes by corporal mortifications and works of austerity. Many saints recommend sleeping hard, practicing moderation, the so-called discipline, which means self-flagellation, also cold showers, and similar practices.
Many saints practiced this in order to repress lust and the desires of the flesh and to dominate them with God’s help. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, Everyone who strives for the mastery refrains himself from all things, and they indeed do so that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. A little later, he says, I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. In another place, he says, Make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscence.
So we conclude, if the chaste resemble the lily, the unchaste resemble a thorn bush which tears one to pieces. It was in order to expiate the sins of impurity that our Lord suffered Himself to be cruelly scourged and crowned with thorns. Impurity degrades man to the level of the brute beast. The unchaste person prefers the gratification of lust to the joys of paradise. Pride is the sin of the angels, avarice is the sin of man, and lust is that of brute animals.
Saint Philip Neri possessed the gift of discerning the chaste from the unchaste even by the sense of smell. To the chaste, a sweet odor was attached, whereas to the unchaste person, there was an offensive odor. Saint Francis de Sales said, Chastity is the lily among virtues. By it, man approaches the angels. There is no beauty without chastity, and human purity is chastity. We speak of the chaste as honest and of the loss of purity as dishonor. Chastity is an intact thing; its converse is corruption. In a word, its special glory is the spotless whiteness of soul and body. No unlawful pleasures are compatible with chastity.
The pure heart is like mother of pearl, which admits no drop of water save that which comes from heaven. It is close to every attraction save those sanctified by holy matrimony. Without purity, no one can ever see God, nor can any hope to dwell in God’s tabernacle except he lead an incorrupt and chaste life. Our blessed Lord Himself has promised the special blessing of seeing Him in heaven to those who are pure in heart.
This vision of God, to see God and to behold God even here on earth, is given to those of pure heart.
Thank you for your participation in this catechesis. We will now conclude with our usual prayer.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison! Kyrie Eleison! Lord Jesus Christ.
You are the Good Shepherd! With Your almighty hand, You guide Your pilgrim Church through the storms of each age.
Adorn the Holy See with holy popes who neither fear the powerful of this world nor compromise with the spirit of the age, but preserve, strengthen, and defend the Catholic Faith unto the shedding of their blood, and observe, protect, and hand on the venerable liturgy of the Roman Church.
O Lord, return to us through holy popes who, inflamed with the zeal of the Apostles, proclaim to the whole world: “Salvation is found in no other than in Jesus Christ. For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which they should be saved” (see Acts 4:10-12).
Through an era of holy popes, may the Holy See, which is home to all who promote the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, always shine as the cathedra of truth for the whole world. Hear us, O Lord, and through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of the Church, grant us holy Popes, grant us many holy Popes! Have mercy on us and hear us! Amen.
Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo. Et benedictio Dei Omnipotentis: Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen. Praise be Jesus Christ!