Pure in Heart is a Catholic organisation devoted to promoting chastity in schools. Among other things, this means waiting until you are married before you have sex. Needless to say, a lot of people today don’t like this message but this doesn’t mean Pure in Heart don’t have a right to teach it. However, some people seem to think otherwise.

For example, a student at one of the schools Pure in Heart visited recently contacted them to say she believes the organisation should have taught her fellow pupils that contraceptive use and homosexual relations are morally licit. She believes Pure in Heart should not be allowed into schools with their current message.

But if they taught what she wants them to teach, then they wouldn’t be a Catholic organisation anymore and then we would be faced with the spectacle of Catholic organisations not being allowed to teach the Catholic view of sexual morality in Catholic schools.

It’s true, of course, that the Catholic and Christian teaching on chastity has become deeply unpopular and controversial among many people. It is accused of being offensive (which is a total non-argument), repressive and unrealistic.

On the other hand, a Catholic might retort that the current view of sexual morality, which essentially is that anything goes between consenting adults does massive damage to how we ought to relate to one another, and is unrealistic in its view of human nature for this reason.

Other people might opt for something in between these two views.

However, surely in an era of ‘lifestyle choice’ young people at the very minimum have a right to hear about the chastity choice? Or is that lifestyle choice so controversial that its public espousal must now be prohibited?