During an interview earlier this week on Fox News, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the high court, stated, “I did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter … The girls from the schools I went to, and I, were friends.”
“Through all these years that were in question, you were a virgin?” Fox News host Martha MacCallum asked him during that interview earlier this week on “The Story.”
“That’s correct,” Kavanaugh replied.
He added that he did not have sex until “many years after” college.
Regardless of how the contentious and troubling turn of events regarding the nominee to the Supreme Court concludes, the moral value of virginity needs to respected and defended in our culture today — when too often it is not.
Tim Tebow, a former Heisman trophy winner and NFL quarterback — and today a pro baseball player — also has stated in the past that he was a virgin throughout his high school and college years.
Unfortunately, many in the media severely belittled and ridiculed him.
Chastity and self-control should be a badge of honor for any young person, and with all of the sexual decadence in our culture today, it is needed now more than ever.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom.The alternative is clear: Either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within — and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end.”
Helping and encouraging our young people to form this good habit of self-mastery early on will help build the future adult and faithful spouse of tomorrow.
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This is not a white-knuckle effort, and given the force of culture’s influence, grace and prayer need to be a major part of this effort.
The more our kids discover Christ as their best friend, the more Christ himself will inspire and sustain this ideal of self-mastery — helping them to respect the sexual act for its deeper and more sacred meaning.
Fr. Michael Sliney is a Catholic priest based in the New York City area and an adviser to the Lumen Institute, a professional business group.
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