Rethinking Chastity
Podcast: Episode Six
Episode Six is now live on Youtube in podcast feeds!
The original title for this episode was “Chastity (what Jason Evert hasn’t told you).” But Dominic suggested not name dropping a specific person in the title, haha.
In December 2020, Pope Francis announced a year dedicated to St. Joseph. Along with that announcement he promulgated the apostolic letter, Patris Corde, “With a Father’s Heart,” about St. Joseph.
I’ve had a devotion to St. Joseph for a long time. I’ve prayed novenas to him when I’ve changed jobs, moved, bought a house, discerned grad school, and a lot more. When I quit my job back in March the first thing I did was start a novena to St. Joseph. So I was really excited when this apostolic letter came out.
Patris Corde is beautiful and inspiring. It let me get to know Joseph from a new perspective while at the same time encouraging me to reflect on my own life and fatherhood. I’ve read this letter several times since then. I even turned it into a novena.
There’s one passage of this letter in particular that has resounded with me. It’s the section where Pope Francis speaks about Joseph’s chastity. That’s what Dominic and I talked about this week. I hope you enjoy it.
Dominic and Paul reflect on how they have previously understood chastity and how so often this virtue has been reduced to just mechanistic sexual morality. Drawing from the teaching of Pope Francis, they discuss how chastity is meant to govern all of our relationships. They explore what it means to chastely love our children, our friends, and our business partners. Dominic and Paul also touch on how religious communities and leaders can love unchastely by manipulating others through fear and shame. Finally, Paul wraps up the conversation by sharing how Pope Francis’s teaching lines up with contemporary psychology.
“[The title most chaste father] is not simply a sign of affection, but the summation of an attitude that is the opposite of possessiveness. Chastity is freedom from possessiveness in every sphere of one’s life. Only when love is chaste, is it truly love. A possessive love ultimately becomes dangerous: it imprisons, constricts and makes for misery. God himself loved humanity with a chaste love; he left us free even to go astray and set ourselves against him. The logic of love is always the logic of freedom, and Joseph knew how to love with extraordinary freedom. He never made himself the centre of things. He did not think of himself, but focused instead on the lives of Mary and Jesus.” (Pope Francis, Patris Corde)
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ABOUT DOMINIC DE SOUZA SmartCatholics founder, Dominic de Souza, is a convert from radical traditionalism – inspired by WherePeterIs, Bishop Robert Barron, and Pope Francis. He is passionate about helping ordinary Catholics break the ‘bystander effect’, and be first responders. “We don’t have to be geniuses. We just have to show up with witness and kindness. Christ does the rest.” Today he hosts the SmartCatholics community.
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