EWTN Roman Nights | Chastity: An Outdated Virtue? - September 28th, 2023
6. okt. 2023
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On Friday, September 29th, the EWTN Vatican Bureau hosted another inspiring edition of Roman Nights, where people of faith in Rome came together to delve into profound questions of our time. This month, our focus was on the virtue of "chastity," exploring its relevance in today's world.
🎤 Our esteemed speakers included:
1️⃣ Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, a dedicated religious sister from Denmark, who now serves as the General Secretary and Press Officer of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference.
2️⃣ Bishop Erik Varden, a Norwegian Catholic Bishop, Trappist monk, and renowned spiritual writer.
3️⃣ Vincenzo Bassi, President of the European Catholic Family Associations, shedding light on the vital role of chastity within family life.
Chastity, a virtue that guides us in moderating our desires and impulses, has never been more relevant.
Join us as we explore its significance in today's world.
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Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Hello and welcome and thank you all for joining us tonight to a 10th edition of Roman Nights. This is an event form that we have tried to start here in the Eternal City to bring together people from different walks of life. We had people here from the diplomatic world, from the business world, from the Vatican, as well as people who achieved a lot in academics and other areas of expertise and who have come either through Rome or who really live here. And the idea of Roman Nights is to have a conversation on current topics and to get different angles, different perspectives, different views. My name is Andreas Stonehauser. I'm the EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief and it's my honor and my privilege to host you for tonight. And I'm also very happy to welcome our panel who have come from far and wide and not so far away tonight to be with us for a very interesting topic. A topic that actually one of the panelists has written a book about and it's about chastity. We called it chastity and outdated virtue with a question mark because it's actually a topic that is quite current and it's something that we should talk about much more.
Let me introduce to you our panelists and to explain a little bit more why we chose to speak about this topic. Sister Anna Miriam Kaschner, thank you for coming, for flying in. I know you will be staying here for quite a while. You'll be participating also in the Synod that will be starting in the coming week. And we are very happy that you still found time to come here, actually a little bit early to be with us tonight. You are a religious sister. It says here also that you joined the Catholic Church at the age of 20 and then you are with the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood which you joined in 1997. And you are serving as the General Secretary and the Press Officer of the Nordic Bishops Conference. You will share your insights as well on this topic and maybe also your perspective a little bit on the church in Europe. With us also is, and I already gave you a hint, the person who wrote a book on the topic today. Unfortunately, I wanted to present to you the book here but we'll send it out also afterwards and I hope that each and every one of you also will purchase a copy of that book as soon as it's available also here in Rome. It's Bishop Eric Varden.
He came actually from far away to be with us. Is it right if I call you a Viking Bishop or do you not prefer that?
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
I leave that at your discretion.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
You leave that at my discretion. We could not tell it from the tone and from your accent but actually you're a Bishop in Trondheim in Norway from where you're joining us. You are a very acclaimed spiritual writer and you will also speak a little bit about your new book, Chastity Reconciliation of the Senses tonight. And also joining us is Vincenzo Bassi. Vincenzo Bassi, not for the first time, he's here for the second time also for Roman Nights.
He is a lawyer. He holds a PhD in law and he serves as the president of the European Catholic Family Association and he will discuss this topic with us also from the perspective of the family and of bringing up children. Thank you all for being here with us and I hope you will enjoy also this evening with us. Let me just start right away with a first question also.
Maybe I started with introducing Sister Anna Miriam but I might give the word first to Bishop Eric. Why did you decide to write a book on the topic of chastity?
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
Well basically because the word itself and the term has come to seem, in the title of tonight you said, outdated and I think it's come to seem largely irrelevant and impossible. And chastity has become almost a caricatural notion associated with a way of being which is rigid and frigid and even as a possible way to perversion. Obviously within the Catholic Church we're living in the shadow of the unraveling of abuse at many levels and we've seen the discrediting of vowed chastity and I think chastity has come to be seen as problematic and as a cause and a source of difficulty. And so I wanted to get to the root of this term and find out what it means and to see if it might be a term not just to be rehabilitated but to be reactivated as part of our vocabulary of self-understanding and even as an aspirational virtue.
And that's what I've tried to do in this book which is coming out next week. And in fact chastity stands for so much more than we normally assume. Many people, including those who should know better, often assume that chastity is the same as celibacy, which is not the case. Chastity is ultimately not reducible simply to sexual ethics and it's certainly not reducible just to erotic abstinence. It stands for a way of being human and for a way of being whole.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Thank you very much. So it's not just the absence of sex but in your own words the definition of chastity is really a way to finding wholeness.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
Absolutely. And in classical Latin the noun chastitas, from which we get chastity, was a synonym of integritas. So chastity is about integrity, which is about overcoming fragmentation and reconciling – that's why I chose that subtitle – the different aspects and dimensions of our lived experience and of our conditioning in order to become whole and thereby free and thereby able to live fruitful and happy lives, blessed lives.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
When we speak about the family, Dr. Bassi, you are representing Catholic Family Associations. What role does chastity, what role should play the concept of chastity, maybe also like Bishop Eric just defined it, play in the upbringing of children in family life?
Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE
Well, I have to confess that this is the first time I speak about chastity and I do it in English. So it's very funny because we are not so used to speak about chastity. What I say is that we must not, within or outside the family, we must not be moralist.
This is the first thing. And I think it's also a path, as you say, the path to the wholeness. If you are not moralist and you think that chastity is a concrete, a real beauty, maybe it's easier even to speak about it. As you say, the chastity is not the synonym of celibacy, it's not the same. As in a family with your wife, you can be cast, it's not something that is strange. But it's also a sign of love, but not a concept.
We are talking about a reality. And it's not easy. We have to be conscious and aware that it's not easy to fulfill the chastity. And we have also to accept the defeat. And if you speak in a human way, without being moralist, I think that chastity can be, first of all, a goal, then a common reality. We have to start again. Because now, you see, everybody can have this kind of experience. The mainstream says that the chastity is something outdated, as we can read in the title.
But it's not so. Because when you realize the beauty of the chastity, I think that there is also a way to show this beauty. But we have to learn new words to mean the same beauty and reality. And this is an experience that you can do in the family.
Because the family is the society, is the reality. And I think also our families can help us to find out new words.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
New words and to also teach this concept to the children. Sister Anna-Miriam, what's your view on this concept of chastity?
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
As a religious sister, I have given the vow of chastity in, I think it was 2001. And during the journey of my life as a religious sister, I had to discuss this topic several times. Now I'm living in a very secularized country in Denmark, where people even don't know what a religious sister is. So I meet people on the street and they will ask me, are you a nun? Yes, I am. Are you married? No. Do you have children? No. So this is a situation I have. And for me, I had to find a way for myself in my religious life that chastity is not only about sexuality, something I don't use in my everyday life, but there must be something more in it. And I had a very funny meeting once in a bus. I visited a friend of mine very lately on a Black Friday. So I went back home in the bus at 12 o'clock in the night and I entered the bus and there were three young men sitting there and one of them, all of a sudden, was sitting beside me and he said, what's up? And my bishop once told me, OK, if somebody asks you what's up, so answer, what's up, what? So I answered, what's up, what? And then he said, is it funny to be a nun? And I said, if it wouldn't be funny or at least something nice, I wouldn't be it. And then all of a sudden he shouted through the whole bus, is it right that you are not allowed to have sex? And at the same moment, the whole bus was silent.
I could see the ears, inclusive the ears of the conductor, they were really growing very big. And I said, oh my Lord, now you have to help me. And I said, you know, it's not really true because there's a difference if I don't have to, if I'm not allowed to have sex or if I don't want to. And he shouted even louder, don't you want to have sex?
I said, OK, you know, now you have asked me three questions, now it's my turn. I will ask you one question, but you must really answer honestly to it. So he was a little bit doubting. And I said, are you really sure and do you really believe that having sex is the very most important thing in your life, which you would give everything up just to reach this only one thing? And then he mumbled a bit and I said, no, no, actually not. And then I said, you know, and this is the reason why I chose this way of life, because I have experienced something in my life that was so big and so fulfilling for me that I without any harm can live that life I do.
And the funny thing was, both of us had to go out of the bus at the same station. I went to the right, he went to the left. And in the last moment he whispered, respect sister. And then he went off. So and in this moment, actually, I went home. I knocked at the door of my fellow sister at two o'clock in the night. I said, you know, we have to go by bus every Black Friday night. It's the best mission, actually, in our world.
But what I felt in that moment is what Bishop Eric also said, this concentration of sexuality or of not even using the sexuality. And for me, chastity is much more than that. It's also meant to be a virtue for all Christians, for all people, even for couples, because in my definition, chastity means I don't use or misuse another person for my own well-being. And then this virtue is very actual and very up to date.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
A virtue actually very up to date. We already touched on this, but sometimes it seems that it's easy to confuse chastity with celibacy. Bishop Eric, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about the difference of those two concepts, but also where they overlap.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
Well, obviously, the celibate, someone who's taken a vow of celibacy or a free resolution to live celibate, is someone who refrains from living an active sexual life. So someone who decides, in a Catholic context, for religious, for spiritual reasons, to relinquish that extremely valuable, deep and precious side of life for a higher good in order to orient that energy differently. But chastity, as I said, stands for a way of integrating my whole being, my physical being and my spiritual being. And I think, I mean, these days we're all inclined to be a bit dualist and we're inclined to think of those two dimensions of ourselves as existing on different planes. And we keep reminding ourselves that we believe in the mystery of incarnation, which doesn't only concern our Lord Jesus Christ, but concerns all of us. And the incarnation of spirit in our lives, the incarnation of our soul, of our deepest aspirations, is a crucial challenge. That is something which is incumbent on all of us, insofar as we want to become whole. And as Sister Adamidiam said, and it's a really important point, it is something that conditions our relationships. The Holy Father wrote a wonderful letter a few years ago on St. Joseph, Patris Corde. And, you know, in the litany to St. Joseph and the divine praises, he is called Castissimus Sponsus, the most chaste spouse. And there's a terrific passage in that letter talking about the importance of chastity in parenthood, which the Holy Father expounds precisely on the sort of terms that Sister Adamidiam outlined, that it's crucial for parents to admit the otherness of their children, not to see their children as ways of realising themselves. And that there is, if you like, a canonic dimension to parenthood, which is that of letting go, of becoming a servant, an enabler of this life, of forming influence for good of that life. But any parent and any spiritual father or mother has got to come to the point where we can say, this is not my life, and to admit the sovereign freedom of the other. And that is a dimension that touches on all our relationships, conjugal, filial, maternal, paternal and in friendship.
And I think we could say that it even has a political dimension.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
So, but what you're also saying is that there is a deep understanding and a long history and tradition, a century old tradition of also reflecting on this in the church.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
Absolutely. And not least in the monastic tradition, which really has a tremendous ability to call a spade a spade and to deal with human complexity, human difficulty, and sometimes the sheer human mess in order to enable, through an acquired wisdom and guided by the light of revelation in scripture and in the tradition of the church, to help us to become whole and thereby, as I said, to find happiness and to live fruitfully.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Sister, maybe your take on this as well.
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
Yes, because I think it's a very good idea. Also, I didn't think about it to put it on the relationship between parents and their children. For me, it was also between the man and a woman, especially in this kind, because we have so many divorces in our days. I mean, in Denmark, I know every second marriage is going to be divorced or even more.
And when I'm out and giving some talks on this topic, people come afterwards to me and say, Sister, I never thought about that because our relationship broke at that moment where I felt that my partner only wanted me to have me for his own good. And this is unchaste, actually. And here we are in a dynamic.
Also, if you look in our church situation of today, the abuse of minors, whatever, this is the most unchaste situation of the church we are in at the moment.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
That's a topic that I would also like to touch on maybe a little bit later. And Vincenzo, for you, I have a question also, a more controversial topic to discuss. But before we come to this, I would also like our audience to prepare maybe if you have a question also to the panel. Very soon we'll come to you.
We also have a microphone to go around so that you can also participate in this discussion. When we talk about chastity, we talk about sexuality and there's also the perversion of sexuality. And your organization has also worked a lot on the topic of pornography. Maybe you can tell a little bit more about this.
Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE
Yes, because pornography is a sickness, is a vice. The pornography is a drama. And what we realize, but this is just a method that we use for every problem, for every situation, is that the pornography comes with a loneliness. So you cannot overcome all these kinds of problems.
The pornography is a drama for everybody because no one can say, I don't have a problem with pornography. It's a temptation for everybody. And also for this reason, it's very difficult to speak about pornography because everybody has problems with pornography or has had problems with pornography.
So we don't feel so safe to speak about pornography. But regardless of our safety, we have to talk about the pornography, being aware of the fact that you cannot overcome this issue if you remain alone. So we talk quite a lot about the network of families because the family and the individual, the person, the family, everybody cannot be alone, especially now in this society, because what we realize after the pandemic time, we realize that the families in trouble were those who were alone. The families joining a network of families, they could overcome several problems, including pornography. But we can also lose one game. That's not a problem because sometimes we stop and we say, it's not for me. I cannot do because I am very fragile, weak. And no, no problem, because we are here also to help you. Because if you think that after the first problem, you cannot go on because it's not up to me. I think the community has the problem, not only the person. And so as family, we have to try to put the family method outside in order to give also to receive benefits from the community. Andreas, the marriage, I think that we have talked about the vocation, because if we talk about the vocation, it is also easier to speak about custody because the marriage is the only, now I speak as a lawyer, OK? The marriage is the only negotium, the only agreement which has been stipulated for the interest of the other, not for your interest. That's not mutuality.
I mean, I have an agreement with the sister, with the bishop, because I know that in the future, maybe I can be in trouble. No, no, that's not my idea when I got married with Carla. I got married with Carla because I would like to make the interest of Carla. Then she made the same and we have something more. We became something more than our person.
This is, I think, the reality that we we try every day to live. Try, of course, we try also not to be alone. But when you leave this reality and not this concept, I don't like the word because I like more the reality, then we can leave the custody and we can be also witness for our children. I mean, this is the experience that we are trying to live. When you live experience, then you can also teach. And it's very interesting because this realistic way of living is the only solution of our, it gives us the solution of the situation that we are living in our society, in everyfield.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Maybe also from your side,
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
I'd like to pick up that.
I think this phenomenon of pornography is very interesting because it is something which has become epidemic in our society and where there are tremendous mercantile and financial forces involved. And now with the Internet, a very, very sophisticated method for drawing people in and keeping them trapped. But if you admit the sort of definition I made of chastity earlier on, talking about Parthivis Korda, that it's about recognizing the freedom of another and it's about meeting the other in freedom. A chaste relationship is a relationship between two persons that look at one another and whose eyes meet one another. As you know, to root this biblically, in the account of the creation narrative, when Adam and Eve were formed, they looked at one another without fear. And what is more, they looked at God face to face without fear. The first consequence of the fall is the lowering of the gaze. It's perceiving the other as being an object at once of desire and of fear and of hiding from the other and at the same time hunting the other. And pornography is a kind of it's a totally virtual relationship in which there is really only one subject, which is that of the viewer that consumes literally images of the other simply for the purpose of one's own satisfaction. And for, as you said, because it's a crucial point, but perhaps for remedying one's own loneliness, which may be profound, which is why there is often a tragic aspect that must be dealt with sensitively and pastorally. But I think you're absolutely right that the way out of this of this trap, which affects a lot of people, is the rediscovery of encounter, of communion, of letting somebody else in, which is why some of the great sort of pedagogical methods that exist in terms of internet resources, a resource like Covenant Eyes or Fortify are initiatives that enable ccountability and enable the revelation of one's own perhaps dependence to another party and thereby breaking the vicious circle of helping people to step out of a loneliness, which is only enforced by this fundamentally and really principally unchaste dynamic.
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
But actually, I think it's interesting because in society, all the books you read when you are going through the town, the advertisement, everything is sexuality.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
All is eroticized.
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
Everything. But to talk about it one to one, for example, in a marriage, is a kind of no go. It's a taboo somehow. And this is very, very interesting because how can we come in and help? I mean, you do it with the family associations to try to take this topic into the families and to encourage them to talk about it and not to stay with them alone.
Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE
Well, of course, we are a federation, so it depends on local associations. But for example, when we talk about this pornographic platform, we try to introduce the topic and giving everybody an example of how we can solve issues and understand better our sexuality, just being together, not being alone. Because it's true that we cannot create the village because now we are living in a change of epoch and we cannot have villages like in the past. But we can recreate the quality of the relations lived by our grandparents in the past. So but if we do not have a community, it's normal to consider the other, not another person through which I can become sane.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
So we're really talking a lot also about loneliness.
Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE
And I think that loneliness is the sickness.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
And Bishop, you called your book also a reconciliation of the senses, also a way to wholeness in a way, which is probably closely related. Before I come to the next topic that is also sadly related to this topic that we're discussing, to chastity, I want to give also the audience a chance to maybe ask a question. And we also have a microphone going around. If you just raise a hand, please.
? fra salen:
Sister Miriam's comments about the young man who stopped her. We cannot speak up in reference to Sister Miriam's question about the young man who stopped her on the subway. I thought about a young woman I spoke with earlier this week. She was raised atheist and was dating a young man. They lived together. And then she converted to Catholicism and she decided she wanted to live chastely until they got married.
And she said, well, he agreed. And for her, it was important because she realized that he didn't want to do anything that she didn't want to do. So it helped her to understand that there was true respect in the relationship, but also two other things. One, that they had more time to speak when they weren't having sex. They could talk about things that they had to dialogue about. And second, if they were having sex, they would end up in a good mood and they would let
go of little things that really they needed to talk about and take care of and resolve between them as a couple. And I'm just thinking for many young people that are in a sexualized world and they don't know this message about chastity and the value. What is your message for young people who need to hear the benefits of living that type of lifestyle for their own lives?
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
So the question, if I may repeat maybe to the panel, but also to you, sister, the benefit of such a lifestyle, maybe also for young people.
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
I think it has a great benefit also, especially for young people, because when I look in my... Yeah, the people I'm together with and even the younger ones now, they're around 12, 13, 14 years when they have the first sexual contacts. And with some people afterwards, when I talk with the elderly or older, a little bit older, they tell me it was the greatest mistake in my life because I didn't know what I did. And it was an experience which really was more pornographic than really an experience of joy, of love, of being together. So I think especially for young people, and even if you mentioned it, this lady, the decision they took, it gives them the possibility to reflect much more about their relationship, about the way they want to live their sexuality. And I hope so it will help them in future.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
And I think one of the really crucial things is what you said about conversation, I think is important. And that's why I think it's so important to re-establish a vocabulary that enables us to talk about these things in positive terms, not just in prescriptive terms. You mustn't, you shouldn't, you must, you must wait. But precisely, and that's why I think this term chastity really is key.
My own reflection on this topic began really when I entered the monastery and started studying the ruler, Saint Benedict. Saint Benedict has really only one thing to say about chastity in his fourth chapter on the tools for good works. And what he says is expressed in two words. He says, castitatem amare, love chastity.
And when I read that for the first time consciously as, you know, as a proposition for my future, I found it mysterious because I think I had only thought, I mean, I had thought of chastity only in terms of not doing, not being, not entering into, etc. And this idea of chastity as something lovable, as a tool for flourishing, as a way to happiness and freedom hadn't really occurred to me. But obviously entering into the logic of Saint Benedict and benefiting from the traditions, great and very, very realistic reflection on this subject completely altered my perspective. And I think that's why I really see it as a great ecclesial task now.
To rediscover this language and to propose it to people in order to enable that exchange at depth.
Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE
Thank you. Yes, I think that. I mean, as a father now, I talk as a father of three children, 19, Antonio Maria, Miriam, 15, and Giancarlo Maria, 13. OK, so it's a very crucial point.
And I think about that and I don't have any receipt, of course. But what I, I am humble and there are so many problems. But I can tell you that now there is the consumerism, which let us think that we can consume everything. So when you are at home and of course, with your kids, you cannot speak so directly about this topic, directly about this topic. You just give examples. You speak about the fact that you must not consume relation. You need engagement because through the engagement you can become happy. And once my daughter, Miriam, told me, well, my friends have the boyfriend and so on.
But what can I do with the boyfriend? So I like this kind of answer because she said to me, I mean, I will have the boyfriend when it could be, it will be worth to have a boyfriend, to have a relation when I can grow up through this relation.
I mean, I think that to be a witness for the parents is very important and to understand the importance of the engagement and also in general, to teach our kids not to consume even when we eat. We don't have to spoil anything. We have just to eat, to reserve the broth, the bread and to keep the bread for tomorrow because the life is something so beautiful and we don't have to spoil it to waste time.
And through this reality, we have to look at the eyes of our friends, of our wife, of our kids to understand their proper wishes and needs. Because if I speak with Miriam in one way, I cannot use or maybe I won't use the same words with Antonio Maria or with Giancarlo because the situation is different, people are different. So it's not easy. I think that we have to pray because otherwise, if you go there with the model, we make mistakes.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
You said don't spoil the beauty. That's remarkable. Any other question? Here are two questions. Maybe we can take them also together. And no, please, first and then the second.
? fra salen:
I just wanted to perhaps just ask, there is a big difference between a woman and a man, right? Yes. And at least in my generation, I have experienced that girls never really want to make sex with a man if she's not in love, deeply in love. While a man does make sex with whoever he thinks is beautiful or not beautiful, attractive. And that's a big difference. That was my point. So you can't talk the same way with a girl and a boy. Definitely not.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Thank you. And here was another question.
? fra salen:
Yeah, first of all, thank you very much for all the speeches so far. I come from a laity experience where we take vows of chastity. But what is interesting now listening to you is that we usually talk about virginity, not chastity. So I was wondering, do you see a difference or there are synonyms?
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Maybe a quick or short reaction also from the panel.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
I think I'd say with regard to the first point, yes, I think the male and the female experience of sexuality is crucially different, which is why we need the voices of both men and women talking about it. But I'd still say that chastity as a positive ideal is a relevant ideal for both.
In terms of virginity, I think obviously the term, if I'm not mistaken, as you refer to it, is as Don Giussani expounded it. And he did that in a specific and very deep way in common speech. I mean, virginity is a state of someone who has not had a sexual experience.
In terms of vowed virginity, I think because you asked what the difference is between chastity and virginity. Well, obviously, in the common terms, virginity once lost is lost. But that's where we enter it. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that's how Don Giussani understood it in terms of a Christian logic of recreation and redemption. Virginity is also something that can be regained, recaptured in the sense of there's a marvellous collect that we have in the liturgy for Lent, which begins, Lord, you who love innocence and restore it.
And in some ways, that doesn't make sense because either you are innocent or you're not innocent. But what Christ can do in recreating our lives is precisely that of restoring our innocence. And I think understood on those terms, which I believe were Don Giussani's terms, his vocabulary of virginity is very close to the vocabulary of chastity.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Thank you. And because of the time that has already, we're already far ahead in the time, I would like to stop there with the answers to this question, but come to another topic, our last topic also, that is related to this. And it's a difficult topic. We mentioned it already, the topic of abuse also in the church, but not, of course, only in the church. It's really the absence of chastity. It's the extreme opposite, actually. Maybe, Sister, you would like to react to that also.
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
I think this is a very good definition, the absence of chastity, because as I mentioned before, if I define chastity in that way that I say I don't want to use or to abuse or misuse another person, make it an object for my own desire, for my own wishes, then we have directly the opposite. If we look in this terrible cases we have experienced in the church and also, as you mentioned, not only in the church, but also in families.
In my own family, I have a history of this, so it's so terrible to listen to that, to hear about it, and then to talk on chastity. So, yes, it is the opposite of pornography and the opposite of abuse. It's chastity.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
But do we need to talk more, maybe, about chastity also in the church and in the family?
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
I'm sure we should, because as we heard, somebody said to talk together on the topic of sexuality, on the one hand, but don't lose to talk, don't miss to talk also on the opposite, the beauty of chastity. There, I agree with Bishop Eric, we need to have words on that, because it's so difficult to talk about a topic if the word is a very old one and you have to translate it into the words of today. Especially if we are talking to young people, if you talk to them about chastity, they will look at you and say, what's that? I don't know. Is it something to eat? I don't know. So there we have maybe also to find new words to explain a very beautiful virtue of our days.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
How do you talk to young people about chastity?
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
I talk to them about my own experience, what I have, how I live my virtue of chastity, what it means for me. It doesn't mean that I don't fall in love sometimes, and it's just a wonderful feeling to be in love with somebody. And then to think back to my first decision I made when I made my vows, and I go back to my vocation, and here in the vow of chastity in religious life, I must say, this is really a vocation I can't do on my own. I mean, it's a gift I got, and without a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, I couldn't live this vow of chastity.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Bishop Eric, very often when we speak about a difficult topic like abuse, one of the quick solutions that we hear is, well, maybe we should revisit the concept of celibacy. But is it really that easy?
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
No. I mean, I'm all for revisiting our understanding and our practice of it, but I think what is really required is a pedagogy of chaste living, because I think the risk is that precisely because of this reduction of sense, we've reduced chastity to a totally unobtainable ideal, a medieval ideal of a virgin in a white dress in a tower. And it's something entirely beyond reach, as we find it in medieval iconography, whereas in the genuine tradition of the church, we find a way to order through the mess, to wholeness through the fragmentation, and we have many experienced guides. One, I'm a Cistercian monk, and there's a line from the Song of Songs that our fathers loved very much, and that keeps cropping up in their sermons of St. Bernard and of others, which is the verse that goes, The Lord has set love and order in me.
And it was our father's assumption that anyone entering the monastery, and for that matter anyone entering a marital union, would enter into it with a fair amount of internal chaos, still needing ordering. And precisely one of the things that the monastic formation provides when it works, and what seminary formation should provide when it works, and I think we've seen very clearly that very often it hasn't worked, is that way of repairing what is broken in myself, which means facing that in me which is wounded, and facing that in me which may inspire fear in me, and having again someone who walks with me, because that sort of journey to wholeness and freedom presupposes someone who has already been through the darkness, who has walked through the chaos, and can show me the path, enlightened again by Scripture, by the traditions of the church, but also by their own experience of redemption, and of perhaps a beginning burgeoning of holiness, which is another word for wholeness.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Thank you, thank you very much. Vincenzo, maybe your concluding statement.
Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE
Well, I think that celibacy and abuse, okay, they like to put them together or to find out some relation, but it's not true, because we can have this kind of problems even within the family.
The point is the respect, the loneliness, and we have just to try to understand that you have to cultivate the relations, and even for us, when you get married, you have to understand, you have to be aware of the fact that every day is another day, and you have to cultivate your love.
When you succeed in doing that, then you can leave also your custody within the family. But I want to repeat myself. Now you can't do that alone. You need a network of families, and you need pastors having relation with this network of families, because pastors and families must work together. If we are able to realize, and the sisters, for example, are for us very important, because they can help us to understand how important it is to donate themselves to the others. So every vocation is important. They join together, then we become a community. If we think that we can understand this issue just because we, in a rational way, I don't think that we don't find out any solution which is important for our life.
I hope that we can, through this issue, we can understand the importance of the community and of the network of families as a way not to defend the family and our community, but to promote our way of living. Bishop Eric, your concluding statement.
Bishop Erik Varden, Norwegian Catholic Bishop
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord tells the disciple, or he invites them to acquire an eye that is unmingled. It's about the statement where he says that anyone looking at a woman with a view to committing adultery with her, so that anyone who already has, as it were, kindled lust within himself and is simply looking for a way to sort it out, to find a way of satisfying himself, has already committed adultery with her, he says. And he says, acquire an eye that is pure, a phrase that could perfectly well be rendered, acquire an eye that is unfragmented, that is whole. And I think what is crucial for chaste living, for chaste interaction, at the intimate level and also at societal level, is to train ourselves in a way of looking at others in a way which is freed of that sort of instrumentalizing, dominating appetite that Sister Anna Miriam talked about earlier on, meeting the eyes of another as another with honor and reverence in a real search for encounter, and not simply as a way of using the other to satisfy my desire, my design, my ambition.
And in that way, we find in that dynamic a way of reconstructing relationships, but also reconstructing society.
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
Thank you. And the final word, Sister?
Sr. Anna Mirijam Kaschner, Denmark
Yes, I was thinking about also a scripture passage, only one word, that you have to serve and to look at the other as higher than yourself. So if this one could be a reality in all our relations we have, I mean in relation to God, to my fellow sisters, in our families, in marriage, in our convents, to say, okay, serving the other more than serving myself, I want to be served by the others, then I have, we have an idea of what chastity really means. So, and this is my wish also, maybe if this film comes out and people will see it, that they really get an idea of, I have to look a bit more into this topic and maybe ring to Bishop Eric and ask him to sign his book and to go into this very nice and beautiful topic of chastity. Thank you, thank you very much,
Andreas Thonhauser - Bureau Chief - EWTN
and you were speaking of service, of being of service to the others. We hope that the EWTM Vatican Brewer team can be now a little bit of service to all of you. We've prepared some drinks here also after this to continue our conversation that we actually just started. So we've realized in the few editions that we had of our Roman Nights that actually there would be so much more to discuss, so much more to say. We will try to do that afterwards, but maybe, and this would be my hope also, that it's an inspiration that we take home with us from your thoughts. Thank you so much for coming, from also the thoughts that you've shared with us, and if I may ask our audience also for a round of applause for a great panel tonight. Thank you.